Tightrope Walking
“You provide a broad path for my feet, so that my ankles do not give way.” -Psalm 18:36
Have you ever watched a tightrope walker? Or maybe a gymnast on the balance beam? If you have you know there is no room for error. If they lose focus for even half a second, they could lose their balance, lose their competition, or even lose their lives. The keys to their success are perfection and control. Every step they take must be absolutely perfect. The pressure they feel must be overwhelming.
We may never find ourselves on a tight rope or even a balance beam, but we can certainly relate to the pressure of perfectionism. We have all imposed impossible standards on ourselves, whether of our own design or of the world. We have all collapsed into bed at the end of the day thinking of all the ways we failed in the last twenty-four hours. We try so hard to get it all right; to make all the right choices, eat all the right foods, and say all the right things. We are so focused on being perfect, on maintaining control, that we lose sight of God’s grace.
Grace gently guides us down from the narrow rope we teeter on and opens up a wide aisle in which we can run, leap and twirl. Grace is what can free us from our self-imposed, performance-based prisons. Grace is the “broad path” Psalm 18:36 speaks of.
In this Psalm 18:36, David says to God, “You provide a broad path for my feet,” (italics mine). We don’t have to go looking for it, God is making it available to us, free of charge! This is hard for us to comprehend. Too often we talk ourselves into believing we have to earn God’s grace. We believe we need to work hard, stay between the lines, and never slip up. We believe we need to have it all together, but we don’t, because that’s not how grace works.
“God’s love is not rigid and unforgiving like the love we often grant ourselves,” (Smith, 79). The aisle of God’s grace is broad. Unlike on a tightrope where any small slip can result in injury, Psalm 18:36 says in the aisle of grace, our ankles will not give way. There is no judgment there, no narrow lines to fit between. Instead, there is room for us to diverge and come back, room for us to slow down or speed up, room for us to weave in and out, spin around, and even dance. So what are we waiting for? Let’s step off our tightropes of perfection and walk freely in the broad aisle of God’s redeeming grace.
(Works Cited: Smith, Allie. Healthy Eating & Abundant Living. Loveland, CO. Group, 2012.)
Study & Reflection: In what ways do you struggle with walking the tightrope of perfectionism? How would your days look different if you were to step off that tightrope and into the aisle of grace? Spend some time reflecting on the free gift of God’s grace by reading the following verses: 2 Corinthians 12:9, Romans 3:24, 5:7-8, Ephesians 2:8-9
Prayer: Let’s ask God to release us from our self-imposed prisons of rules and perfection. Let’s ask Him for the courage to take His hand and step off our narrow beam. Let’s embrace the freedom His grace offers us. Let’s ask Him to give us a renewed sense of joy as we dance in the wide aisle of His grace.