Childhood summers. 

Days filled with friends, relaxing, and the local swimming pool. The feeling of walking on sun-kissed pavement into the coolness of the water. You know you have to go all the way in, no matter how cold it feels. So you take a deep breath and go under, your hair drenched with water and chlorine. You see kids jumping off of the diving board, which looks like great fun. You get in line, climb the stairs, and look down into the water. Somehow, you muster up the courage to jump. You hold your breath and cannonball straight down into the water. Finally, you accomplish the next great hurdle of the swimming pool. Diving. You aren’t allowed to dive from the diving board (Ironically), so you go the edge of the swimming pool. You put your hands up, bend down, and fall headfirst.

You go headfirst into deep water. You don’t know what will happen. But, you come up again. You swim to the top, with a wave of determination rushing over you. And, you come up, greeted by sweet victory.

Diving can be scary. Letting ourselves fall seems counter-intuitive to everything instinct seems to tell us. We don’t want to let go. We don’t want to loose our grip on gravity.

It can be the same way with our faith sometimes. The thought of committing everything to a God who we can’t see or touch sounds foreign to us. The thought of letting go of the reigns sounds downright frightening. Nonetheless, I’ve come to find that when we surrender to God, we become more fully ourselves.

God made each of us with great potential, but what we do with that potential is up to us. He wants to work in our lives in ways that we could never even dream of, but whether or not we let Him is our choice. Surrendering to God does not mean losing ourselves, it means becoming more authentically us than ever before. God gave us our personality and passions for a a reason, He’s not going to call us to something that we hate. He takes seeds buried deep in our heart and waters them.

I’ve always loved stories and I’ve always known that someday I want to write professionally. When I became a Christian, I realized that I could use my passion for written word in a way that makes a difference, both in this life and the next.

Another thing that I’ve gotten into is lyric-writing. I wrote my first “song” when I was about seven or eight years old. When I got to high school, I began writing song lyrics as sort of a personal diary. As I’ve grown in my faith, my songs have reflected that. Someday, I hope to get those lyrics out there as songs that inspire and encourage others, just as songs by people like Britt Nicole have inspired me.

Whatever your goals, whatever your personality, and whatever your passions, I urge you to grab onto them, and dive into the ocean of faith. God can take those things further than you can dream, and use them in ways that are beyond what you can imagine.

So look into the water, bend down, and don’t be afraid to dive. 🙂