The Holy Bible says trust in the Lord with all your heart and lean
not on your own understanding. Acknowledge Him and He will direct
your path. How can we do that? What risks do we take?

You have just finished scaling a canyon rock face. You are on top
appreciating God's amazing creations: the canyons of bright red and
orange, laced with wonderful shadowy patterns of dark brown. An eagle
soars overhead in a sky of ultramarine, blue filled with puffy,
cotton candy clouds drifting lazily past. You feel the gentle breeze
on your sweaty forehead as you pray to God, "Father God, thank You
for this wonderful life of mine!"

By the power of the Holy Spirit God answers, "I want you to go
forward over to that next rock face." You look and realize that rock
face is across a canyon about one hundred feet away from where your
standing. You say to yourself there is no way that I can repel
forward from this canyon to get across to the next. I have to go back
and repel from where I came up from. A thought then says, "NO! I want
you to move forward to that other rock face."

You answer to yourself, "This is crazy! I'm listening to this
gibberish!" Then God says, "I am your God, and I say to move forward
to that other rock face." You think, "This is stupid. I would have to
jump a span of one hundred feet to even touch the top." The reply
comes, "Don't you believe it's ME talking?"

You are disgusted. You can't believe in the unseen or you can't
believe God wants you to jump one hundred feet. Actually, you blow
off this whole "mind-talk" and go backwards repelling down where
you've been.

That night you have a dream. You are standing on the top of the rock
face you scaled. God tells you to move forward to that rock face one
hundred feet away. You say to God He is crazy! God responds, "Just
believe that it's Me talking and be obedient to what I'm saying."
You are EXTREMELY afraid! You yell at God, "PLEASE HELP ME DO WHAT
YOU WANT ME TO DO!!!" God replies," I'm here with you. Just DO IT"

"Alright God!" you exclaim. "You want me to kill myself. Here I go!"
You step back as far as you can go. You blast off with all the energy
of a trained, well-muscled athlete, running to the edge of the
canyon.

You leap high into the air like an eagle starting to soar down the
canyon. Suddenly! you fall. And more important, your fall is broken
as you hit solid ground unhurt. You get up and realize there was
an "unseen" ledge under the edge of the rock face. You never noticed
it while you were on the top. You were so busy thinking that God
wanted you to jump one hundred feet across the canyon that you never
expected a plan "b" direction. Then you look and there is a sign on
the ledge that reads "Simpson Trail." A path leads down the rock
face across the river below and up to the other side where God wanted
you to "leap" across in the first place.

Then in your dream you say to God in disgust, "But God it'll take a
whole day to travel on this path. Why don't' you just give me the
strength to jump across the canyon." God laughs.

We live our lives, meeting our responsibilities with all the training
and experience we have acquired for the tasks before us. At times we
have high points but usually we go through our day with less passion
than what God wants for us.

So God by His Holy Spirit tells us to "jump some canyons." He wants
to run risks so we can believe in Him and His humongous love for us.
God wants to walks with us through His Spirit.

But we listen with ears that have been trained from what we have
experienced in the past. So we are clouded from the miraculous
possibilities that can be before us by the power of God's Holy will
for each of us. When God told me He wanted me to be minister to the
fitness community I thought, "Yeh, right God!"

Then even more important God said He wanted me to use bodybuilding as
an introduction piece for me to witness the Good News of Jesus Christ
to a lost world. God-willing, trying to be obedient, the goal is to
be a bodybuilder in a posing brief witnessing, saving as many people
as possible from that eternal lake of fire. This direction is
definitely "cliff-jumping." But with God He can make a path down the
canyon, across the river below, and up the far canyon to the other
side, all for His Glory!

So how do we trust in God and lean not on our own understanding? We
acknowledge Him and what He is wanting to do in our lives. We listen
to Him, and strive with all the passion the Holy Spirit can give us,
to be obedient to what He wants us to do. And by this trust, comes
faith, and by this faith comes hope. Then we can discover all
those "Simpson Trails" giving God, His Son Jesus Christ, and the Holy
Spirit the glory for leading us in this miraculous and joyous plan!
God wants us to run risks.

This message is taken from the verse:
"Trust in the Lord with all your heart and lean not on your own
understanding; in all your ways, acknowledge Him, and HE will make
your paths straight." Proverbs 3:5&6. In fact all of Proverbs is an
important book to live by. Take a look.

If you want, also, take a look at www.musclebound.org,a ministry of
information and inspiration.