After arriving at Compass class to discover the joys of doing the hand jive to Israel Houghton's music the week before, it was only fair to wonder what we were in store for this week. So imagine my surprise when I walk in and see a big rope dangling from the ceiling. No, no ... there was no noose. But even I had to crack wise over how much more intense things had gotten if we were bringing in rope.

Alas, the visual aid was there for good reason. And a fair amount of what was covered in this second class on "Learning to Trust God" was covered in the class I attended the week before with Leo Tyler. Still, repitition does no harm. But for the sake of a recap, I thought I'd take a stab at an analogy that Tracy offered this week that was pretty powerful.

The rope, it seemed, was an analogy for our path to God. There are times when we just get accustomed to the rope being there and we may even just stay close to it, even if we aren't climbing it. And climbing the rope to get closer to God is tough. You've always got the devil grabbing at your foot to drag you down or impede your progress. The early stages of the climb have some wild swings as the rope sways from side to side. And the process of climbing is tough enough. Your hands chafe and eventually bleed from the effort. But there's a knot at the bottom of the rope that prevents you from slipping completely off the rope. Good for the sake of insurance, but it doesn't get you to the top.

The good news is that the higher you climb, the less wild those swings are. And when you make it to the top, the chafed, bleeding hands are healed. The climb is worth it, but it's sometimes hard to see during the process.

As part of the visual aid, we were left with a smaller (maybe 6" long) rope to keep for ourselves and use for witnessing the analogy above. Cynic that I can sometimes be, I had the nerve to doubt that. But sure enough, there were questions during Koinonia later in the evening ... and even on the bus ride home.