Let's Hear It For the Fall-Breakers!

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Now unto him that is able to keep you from falling…” – Jude 24

         We’re never too old to fall. Fortunately, it seems to happen less the older we get (unless there is infirmity), until after awhile it becomes hard to remember our last tumble. But, unfortunately, the ones that happen late in life are usually far more consequential and even life shortening. But one way or the other, we’re all susceptible to falling.

         My daughter, Leah, shared a recent episode along this line that she experienced. She was singing with a small choir group on a fairly high stage. They all were wearing choir robes. Her initial concern, of course, was not tripping over her long robe as she ascended and descended the stage. But, alas, this was not her downfall (sorry). As she was going down the precarious stairs, holding for dear life onto the banister, almost safely at the bottom stair, her voluminous sleeve got caught on the rounded end of the banister. You guessed it. She was immediately brought up short like a slingshot and pitched forward in what could only have ended in a disastrous landing. But as fate (I mean, the Lord) would have it, at that very moment, a young man was walking by on his way to another section of the stage, who quickly and unobtrusively reached out, broke her fall and steadied her. Needless to say, she was grateful. As she laughingly told him, “I always thought that verse in Jude was talking about the Lord, but in this case, it was you who kept me from falling!” J

         When I recounted this story to my husband, he and I both decided that the same thing is true when it comes our occasional “fall from grace,” big or small. We know the verse is truly about God because of the rest of it: “…and to present you faultless before the presence of his glory with exceeding joy.”  But sometimes He uses human means to “break our fall.” And you’ll always know this kind of person is sent from the Lord because there will no interventionist fanfare that calls undue attention to you and him or her, but is simply a discreet word, an unobtrusive reaching out to catch you, steady you, before you do something that you’ll regret, and that could leave a long-lasting or permanent stain on an otherwise fine testimony. Then they go their way.

         If there is, or has been, people like that in your life, thank God for them every day. Again, we never get to old to fall. Ask King David. And it’s those late term plummets that invariably leave the most devastating damage behind. Come to think of it, why not be one of those unassuming, quick to the rescue, fall-breakers? I consider that a worthy goal for anyone who wants to bring glory to God and not himself or herself. Let’s take that challenge.