In the movie “Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid,” Butch and Sundance, running from the law, run up to a cliff hundreds of feet high overlooking a river. They are outnumbered by lawmen who have taken up their positions and there is no way out. They get ready to shoot it out, but they know it’s a suicide mission. Then Butch looks out over the cliff and sees the river below and says, “I know, we’ll jump!” Sundance thinks he’s crazy. Butch tells him it’s their only hope. Sundance is still reluctant. Butch assures Sundance that the lawmen would never follow them, saying, “Would you make a jump like that you didn’t have to?” Sundance says, “I have to, and I’m still not going to.” Finally, Sundance gives the reason for his reluctance. He says, “I can’t swim.” Butch just laughs and says, “Are you kidding? The fall will probably kill you!” But Sundance, because of the predicament, knows he’s out of options, and though he can’t swim, he jumps.
I think there are times that the Lord leads us into predicaments where the only reasonable thing to do is to jump and trust the Lord. And we know that he’ll never let us down. Over and over, the Bible stresses that one of the primary attributes of God is his faithfulness. God is always dependable. You can count on him. He makes his word good. When he tells you he’ll do something, you can believe that he will do it. When he makes a promise, you know he’s going to keep it. Because God is faithful.
It’s interesting to notice how the Bible connects stability in the lives of Christians to the faithfulness of God. Thus, we find statements like this: “Let us hold fast the confession of our hope without wavering, for he who promised is faithful.” (Hebrews 10:23). The reason a Christian is able to stand when life’s storms come against him is that his faith is grounded in a God whose promises to him will always be honored.
In Hebrews 11, Sarah is praised with these words: “By faith Sarah herself also received strength to conceive seed, and she bore a child when she was past the age, because she judged him faithful who had promised.” (Hebrews 11:11). Here were two people who shared the disappointment over the years of being childless. They had no tangible reason to think anything had changed. Yet, God gave his word to them. And they knew that God was faithful. He wouldn’t let them down.
It is essential that we understand this very important truth: God keeps his promises. And it doesn’t matter whether it was made to Abraham, David, Paul or you, God has never given a promise that he failed to honor. He is faithful.
All you need to do is to jump.
Alan Smith
