Skydiving

At church today, someone gave a talk on obedience. He mentioned something about parachuting. I don’t remember exactly what he said, because as soon as he mentioned it I started thinking about how parachuting relates to the atonement.

When you jump out of an airplane you fall. It doesn’t matter whether you are aware that you’re falling, or if you choose to believe you are falling. The truth is that you are falling, and when you hit the ground you will die. You cannot fly, and you have no ability to slow your decent. You are powerless, by yourself, to prevent your death.

Fortunately for you, you have a parachute, but merely recognizing that your parachute has the power to save you will not end your plight. No amount of confession of your helplessness can save you. Recognition of your predicament is only the first step you will need to take if you want to live.

To save yourself you will have to act. All it takes is one simple pull of a ripcord, and your parachute will deploy, but even after the ‘chute is deployed are you safe? No, there are many things that can still go wrong. A gust of wind can blow you off course, and perhaps send you off to land on hazardous terrain, but if you keep your wits about you, you have the ability to correct your course. Again you have been required to act.

It is also possible for you to endanger yourself through your own carelessness, or even willful sabotage of your life-saving parachute. What if you were to take a knife to one of the ropes that tether you to your ‘chute. Sure it would be a terrible idea, but what if you did it anyway? You’re parachute would not be able to catch enough air to safely let you down. You would hit the ground hard, and it wouldn’t be very fun. You’d probably die.

Maybe you don’t want to actually cut through the rope, but it’s fun to just cut it a little bit? You could use a butter knife. Than you’d be able to slash at your rope, and yet it would stay attached, what harm could a little slashing do? It’s only a butter knife, and besides, all of this falling business is a little boring. You need a little fun, a little excitement. You know when to stop. You’d still be safe, or would you? If you kept at it long enough you still might cut through the rope, and send yourself plummeting to your doom. The parachute would be powerless to help you. You would have done it of your own will, and choosing.

Fortunately again, there’s always the backup ‘chute, or you can always just decide that cutting the ropes isn’t such a good idea, and you can stop doing it.

If you are prepared, and you use the parachute that has been given to you. Which parachute is free by the way, you can land safely. Have you saved yourself? No, you have been saved by the parachute. The parachute did the work, all you did was enable it, you would never have been able to survive without it.

We are fortunate that we have an infinite supply of parachutes, and we have been given the instructions on how to use them safely. There are people who know how to use them, and can help us. We have to use a good parachute though. One with holes in it will hardly do, and we have to obey the safety rules. They may seem restrictive, but they are in place to help us arrive safely on the ground, and we have help. We have been promised that there will be no winds, or any other adverse conditions that will be more powerful than we are able to overcome. We are even blessed, from time to time, with favorable winds that blow us to the best landing spots, and make our descent all the more enjoyable on the way.

I love skydiving, and I love my parachute. Wish me a happy landing.