The Upside of the Downside

No guts, no glory. I can still see the picture of Garfield on that poster. If you haven’t seen it, Garfield the Cat is on a high mountain, on skis, ready to go down probably the steepest, fastest run he’s ever attempted. He’s got a pillow strapped to his backside, another one on his front side, and one on his head. We don’t know what happens to Garfield at the bottom of the run, but we know the slogan.

We approached this topic in our recent Bible study. The message wasn’t altogether that different. It focused on the idea of taking risks. I think we all do this. We weigh the probability of a good outcome against the choices we’re about to make. We talked about why that causes us to hold back, even on seemingly minor things like sharing our faith with someone we don’t know. Before we ever get to the doing, we’ve already calculated the consequences. And if we don’t calculate a high probability of a good outcome, we don’t do the thing.

And honestly, that’s Garfield. He’s going down the mountain, but not before he’s strapped a pillow to every part of himself that might hit the ground. We do the same thing. We’ll take the risk, but only once we’ve padded the downside enough that it can’t really hurt us. And when we can’t find enough pillows, we just stay at the top of the mountain.

But what if we stopped calculating? What if we approached every risk the way Peter did when he got out of the boat? Peter asked, “Lord, if it be thou, bid me come unto thee on the water.” And Jesus said one word: “Come.” So Peter came. From that moment, no matter what happened next, Peter was safe. Even when he sank, he was safe, because the One who called him was the One who caught him. No pillows. No calculation required. 

Notes for The Upside of the Downside

Episode Link:

https://www.rabbitholesandmeditations.com/the-upside-of-the-downside/