Jumping Off

So the other night an amazing man that has been truly blessed by God, Adrian DesPres, spoke at Ignite and I think at least 10 of the high school students accepted Christ, and a number more rededicated themselves to serving Christ. IT WAS AWESOME!!! I'm still blown away any time people do that. It's truly what I live for, it brings heaven on earth, it makes me want to dance really stupidly around the room. I can't even begin to tell people how freakin cool it is that they made that decision.

Adrian does an offering of Christ in a very scary, bold way. It's probably my favorite way. He says with ALL eyes open and EVERYONE looking around I want you to STAND and then come up in front of everyone. If you realize that you need Jesus then nothing should be able to hold you back, but sitting in that chair the thought of knowing that you've fooled people for so long and not wanting people to know, or that maybe you're really cool group of friends will think you are a freak, or maybe you are trying to tell yourself that you can do it later at a more convenient time.

I can remember when I was a punk freshman and I was going to do a rededication at a big rally. All of those thoughts raced through my mind, but I just knew that I had to go up there and get right with Jesus right there right now. Honestly it's the scariest thing I've ever done, to decide to follow this Jesus guy with everything even though I know he was crucified for being God's son and the Savior of man. I could be an outcast forever, be hated, called a hypocrite for misrepresenting him, but it's worth it and I knew that and after getting sweaty hands, butterflies in my stomach, and trying not to make eye contact with my friends or anyone I knew, I stood up...

It reminds me of doing something else crazy like when I visited my dad in Missouri many years ago. We went to a nearby creek where there was this really cool spot that you could climb up to the road and then run off and jump down about 30 feet into the creek. I was probably about 12 at the time and I watched my dad do it and I thought wow that is the coolest thing ever, I want to do that. So I climbed and climbed and then realized that I was going to be up pretty high. I get to the top and look down and saw that a rock was sticking out pretty far under me so I would have to get a very good running start and just jump. I backed up on the road and remember that I was TERRIFIED. I didn't want to show my dad I was scared though because I thought he was so brave, and cool, but he knew I was scared so he talked me through it and then he jumped so he could wait for me at the bottom. He knew I could do it though, there is no way my dad would just let me jump to my death. So there I am, just me and the road and a huge jump ahead. I kept going to the edge and thinking WOW!, I could break a leg or my neck or just flat out die, what if I don't jump far enough?. Finally my dad talked me into it, and backed up to the road again and counted. ONE: oh crap I'm gonna die, TWO: my heart is racing and my legs are shaking and I've got butterflies in my stomach and I hope no one is watching, THREE: I ran and I jumped. There was a huge splash and when I was under water, instantly I changed from being totally scared and almost wetting myself to being extremely happy. It was totatlly worth it, and I wished everyone could see it and I wished that everyone could jump with me and see how cool it is.