When Walking We Gain Forward Momentum Through Well-Managed "Falls"

According to my pedometer I
experience over 4000 potential
"falls" every day.

I recently became aware that our ability to walk (or run) is based on our having mastered the art of momentarily giving up our balance, then immediately regaining it. By repeating this rhythm over and over again we achieve, with the help of gravity, the momentum that propels us forward. 

This fact becomes obvious when we try stopping suddenly, or if something unexpectedly disrupts our stride and we actually do risk having a fall (we trip, for example). And when we first learned to walk as a "toddler" (an aptly chosen term!) we did in fact fall time and time again.

As someone always on the lookout for an illustration for a sermon or an article, I've been thinking about how this applies to the "walk" that represents our life journey. 

One simple truth is that the only way we can avoid the risk of falls or failures is to remain stationary. But since most of us choose to be actively engaged with others and with the world around us we experience our share of things that cause momentary disequilibrium, that can potentially throw us off balance. 

So what if we could accept those kinds of experiences as being normal and to be expected--and as having the potential to help move us forward rather than causing a devastating fall? Maybe our progress and our growth actually depend on a steady rhythm of equilibrium and disequilibrium, on partially losing our balance and then regaining it again.

In my old age I've come to believe that in God's economy nothing has to go to waste, that even the inevitable bad things that happen to us can be transformed into assets that can aid our growth and add to our progress.

I love this piece by Augustus Toplady, written in 1772, one that employs a similar metaphor:

If on a quiet sea toward heaven we calmly sail,

With grateful hearts, O God to thee

We'll own the favoring gale.

But should the surges rise and rest delay to come,

Blest be the tempest, kind the storm,

Which drives us nearer home.

So much depends on how we set the sail.