Pause for thought: Tough Mudder Challenge

About 3 months ago I participated in what is called tough mudder, which is a 10-mile course with 25 obstacles thrown in for good measure including: submerging oneself in freezing water, inclined monkey bars, scaling a 7ft wall and carrying a log. Oh yeah and mud - lots of mud, crawling through mud, wading through mud, and submerging in mud.

I used to play rugby for my school and even that can't measure up to how much was on this course and we had to stumble and run through it, and you guessed it, it was tough. But the point that most stood out for me was an obstacle called Everest . Everest involved running up a halfpipe skate ramp, jump up it thus pulling yourself up, oh and did I mention being plastered in mud head to toe making this very tricky. Not many people could make the jump and pull themselves up but one of the things that stood out to me was the comradeship in the others extending their hands to help those who struggled and lifted them up. Now of course this meant the person on the ground had to go all out before being pulled to safety, but this gave me such a precious glimpse into our faith in God.

You see God wants us as Christians to fully trust Him to give him all of ourselves in faith and sometimes in situations that seem impossible like scaling a 5-metre half pipe. The thing is though, in this challenge for whatever reason the people on the top could miss catching someone but praise God, He will always catch us with His arms of love.

So, when faced with impeding obstacles in life and situations, please don't run away and hide but instead why not say with God's help I can do this, run up the ramp of life and make the leap - extend your hand out to him in prayer and my dear friends I promise that our loving Saviour will catch you! If God has bought you to it, He will bring you through it!

Jeremy Stone