At the moment I'm reading a book entitled, "Experiencing Spiritual Breakthroughs" by Bruce Wilkinson. I bought it some time ago, but am just getting around to reading it. I find a lot of spiritual books tend to be written more for women, as I think in general they are the ones most likely to read them. But I have found this one seems to relate more to men. So far, it seems to be one of those life-transforming books. I've decided to give you a taste, by copying a bit from the first chapter:
“Guys,” I said, as I squinted up into the sun, “what were we thinking?”
Above us loomed a hundred and fifty feet of sheer rock. Our objective was simple-get the three of us from down here to up there. A rope snaked down the cliff face to coil menacingly at our feet.
It didn’t help that several teammates had already succeeded at this training phase and were now throwing down encouragements from on high. Or that my partner Al was busy breaking our crisis into bite sizes.
“One hundred and fifty feet is about fifteen stories, I figure,” he said. “Maybe six seconds of free-fall time. Hit the ground right here with about as much forces as, oh, maybe…”
“Al,” I broke in, “why don’t you hand the rope to Jeff.” Fortunately for my quaking knees, Jeff had been tagged to go up next.
I helped him get clipped into the safety harness. The whole point of this trial-by-rock was to face down our fears. By learning to trust not only our equipment but also the other men on our team, we would break through to a higher level of personal confidence and team spirit.
“The man on the top is working with you every step of the way,” our climbing coach had said. “The gear is top-rated. You’ll do fine, especially if you don’t look down.”
When Jeff was securely in his harness, he yelled up, “I’m ready! Who’s holding my line? My life is in your hands!”
“Vince!” Came the reply from far above.
Suddenly Jeff froze, then stepped back and unclipped his harness. Clearly, he wasn’t going up. He started waving his hands and shaking his head to the team above. “I’m not taking one step up this rock with that guy holding my rope!” He shouted. “Get me somebody else!”
In the shocked silence that followed, a feeling even more sickening than the fear of heights hit my stomach. It was imagining the utter embarrassment of Vince, the man on top, rejected as an untrustworthy climbing partner. It was the shattering awareness that all the camaraderie we’d been building piece by piece for days was about to fall apart.
The three of us looked up. The crew above peered down. And none of us knew what to do next.
Until Al stepped up. I heard a click. Al was buckling himself into the dangling harness. In a moment he was leaning into the rope.
“Vince!” he yelled.
“Yeah?”
“You ready?”
“I’m ready!” came back the reply.
“Here I come!” yelled Al. And he started up the face of the wall.
When Al was only about, oh, maybe one second of free-fall time up that cliff; I had my second breakthrough moment. My knees were still jelly, but at least I was breathing again. “You’re going to be okay, said that little voice. You’re going to climb that cliff just fine…all the way to the top.
And by the end of the day, that’s exactly what I had done.
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