Snowboarding through life

As some of you may know, lately I've been pretty down. I look around and I can't help but notice my failures and mistakes this year. I know I shouldn't focus on these, I shouldn't hang onto what was in the past, and I need to focus on what is entailed in the future, but it's easier said than done... Then few days ago I went to snowboarding with FW, and God taught me a lot about failing and about life through snowboarding.

The first thing I learned about snowboarding is that you should be prepared. It's best to wear waterproof clothing, gloves and helmet. I didn't want to wear the helmet in the beginning, but FW was very insistent that I put it on, so I wore it reluctantly. Now coming off the lift is probably one of the worst part for me when I'm snowboarding. My biggest fear is tripping and falling right in front of the lift. Now out of the 6 times we came off the lift, 5 times I managed to either snowboard away from the lift or fall outside of the list circle... but once I very ungracefully slipped right in front of the lift and the lift hit me right in the back of my head. Miraculously I was unhurt. Why? Because I had my helmet on. I think this is a great example of how we need to go through life in general. Often in life the unexpected happen. We can't prepare for the unexpected, but we can armor ourselves daily for these unexpected challenges of life. We need to prepare ourselves with biblical principles, we need to familiarize ourselves with the bible, and we need have people around us that can be our spiritual support. This way when obstacles occurs, we are can stand firm in our faith. The bible speaks of the importance of armoring ourselves very clearly.

"Put on the whole armor of God, that you may be able to stand against the schemes of the devil." Ephesians 6:11

Some people think that stopping or turning is the hardest part about snowboarding. For me, the hardest part is probably getting up after a fall. There is just something very unnatural about getting up with your feet strapped in front of you. There were times when I was so physically exhausted that I didn't know if I could get up again. This is the same in life. We all face different trials in life. We've all made mistakes and we've all had failures. We've all had the experience of feeling so burdened by our failure that we just want to give up. The hardest part after failing is getting up again and persevere through. The bible has many examples of failure. There is not one character in the bible that never made a mistake, well, except Jesus. Everyone else had failures because no one is perfect. Samuel Beckett once said: "Ever tried. Ever failed. No matter. Try Again. Fail again. Fail better.” I think this rings some truth. It's impossible to never fail, but we need to learn from our mistakes and try try again.

"Therefore, since we are surrounded by such a great cloud of witnesses, let us throw off everything that hinders and the sin that so easily entangles. And let us run with perseverance the race marked out for us..." Hebrews 12:1

The third thing I learned is that although snowboarding is a lot of fun, it is also painful. I've fallen and wiped out so many times in those few hours that I could barely move my body the next day. However, with each painful fall, I became a little bit better at snowboarding because I remembered my mistakes so distinctly and I tried hard not to make the same mistakes again in order to avoid the pain. There was one particular incident where I was going too fast on a curve so I digged into board hard, bad idea, I flipped into the air and landed on my back. The impact was so hard that I actually had a slight concussion and whiplashed my neck. It was painful, but I got up and continued on. But the next time when I came around the same curve, I made sure I slowed down and rounded the curve gently because I remembered the pain of the last fall. Mistakes we make in life is similar to this example in many ways. We've all made many mistakes in our life and the result of these mistakes is pain to others and to ourselves. It could be pain of losing someone, pain of hurting someone we care about, pain of hurting God... nonetheless, it is through the pain that we learn from our mistakes and we strive harder not to make the same mistake again. Sometimes we question why we have to go through the pain, but often it takes that painful experience for us to learn what we need to learn.

"No discipline seems pleasant at the time, but painful. Later on, however, it produces a harvest of righteousness and peace for those who have been trained by it." Hebrews 12:11

Finally, I learned about faith on the mountain. We started snowboarding after sunset because it was cheaper; it normally would have been fine because there were a lot of artificial lights. However, it was snowing really hard that day so the visibility was really poor. We basically couldn't see more than 10 feet ahead. All you can do is venturing forward and trust that everything will be alright. That's what faith is all about. A lot of time in life things happen unexpectedly and we just can't understand why things happen the way they did. Sometimes we really don't know what the future hold and we are scared of that uncertainty. It is when we can't see what's ahead that we really need to summon up our faith and trust in Him. Paul reminded us,

"For we live by faith, not by sight." 2 Corinthians 5:7

This may be hard to do sometimes, but if we look back in our life and see what He has already done for us, all the blessing and miracles, then we can stand up strong and have faith in His provision.

"And we know that for those who love God all things work together for good, for those who are called according to his purpose." Romans 8:28