Caleb posted this on his blog yesterday and I thought it was so beautiful that you should read it. He graciously agreed. Here it is…
You are climbing a ladder. The top comes into view and you surge forward at an even greater pace. You have been here before. You strive for the reward at the top, whatever it may be. Higher and higher you climb, rung after rung you haul yourself nearer and nearer to the end: A place where you will rest and revive yourself, where you will find peace. As you grasp the final rung, you hear a rumble. The ladder begins to wobble. “No! I’m so close! Not now!” These are the words flowing through your mind. However, despite your outcry, the rungs beneath you begin to bow, and then snap. You fall down and down. Never, it seems, will you be able to grasp the highest rung that was once held with your palm. Never will you be able to ascend so high again. You land with a thud at the bottom; the beginning. A sudden fear sweeps over you. You are alone, and you are defeated.
Too often do there come times when we tend to take matters into our own hands. This is nothing surprising, really; it is simply the nature of man. We try to compensate for our losses and failures by using it as a motive to climb even higher on the ladder, only to fall short and tumble to the bottom crushed and defeated. Some days we may feel up to strength, and we may attempt the climb again, while other days we lay hopelessly at the bottom. It is at this point when we must open our eyes to the bigger picture. There is more to the story than what we see. What may look like a monstrous ladder towering above, may really only be a small bump in the road of life.
After failing time after time, eventually, it would seem, would we see that it is not by our strength that we will be able to surmount the ladder. Instead, we need One Who will grasp our hand for the full stretch, assisting us the entire climb. The Lord Almighty has made this possible for us in this fallen world. When we fall, not only does He help us up, but He embraces us in His arms like a father to a son. His love for us is unending; it stretches beyond the ends of the earth to the galaxies next door. Never, has a picture been painted in all of history, that is more beautiful than the picture of His love that He so wondrously illustrated by His Son’s death on the cross.
-Caleb Diaddigo
Rebekah Diaddigo 