I have never been skydiving before. Despite my paralyzing fear of heights, I’ve always wanted to jump out of a perfectly good airplane for no apparent reason. I’ve had several chances to go skydiving, but something always ends up preventing it (like common sense). Once, we were scheduled to go, and my mom quoted the scripture passage about “not tempting the Lord, Thy God.” I promptly responded “I’m not; I’ll have a parachute on.”

Last week, a parishioner handed me a DVD documentary entitled “180 U-turn.” He would tell me nothing about it – except that I needed to watch it. If you’ve not seen it, please click on the link and watch. This guy is amazing in his passion to evangelize and shed light on the truth in a world that lives in darkness.

Many things about this documentary spoke to me, but there was one thing the host said that I’ve been praying with for the past week. He had been talking to this one young lady, who at the beginning of their conversation was all for abortion and self-preservation. By the end of their conversation, he had her thinking and it became physically obvious that her heart was changing. He looked at her and told her that Jesus “was like a parachute, in order to be saved, you have to put Him on!”

I’ve sat with that thought for a week, praying over it, meditating on it and wondering how I can “put on” Jesus in my life, rather than just turning to Him.

So here are some questions for you to examine whether or not you are simply turning to Jesus or actually putting Him on:

• Do you fully trust Jesus to be in control of your entire life (personal, spiritual, financial)?
• What scares you (or makes you uncomfortable) about allowing God to lead you, even when you don’t know where He’s going?
• What is one thing you’ve been hanging on to that you can surrender to God this week?

Continue to set a goal each week: what is one thing that you can give to Jesus each week? Start small. Don’t take on too much or you will get discouraged and quit. Just like when a baby starts to walk – one step at a time.

Before you know, there will be nothing in your life that you are in control of; everything will be in the hands of God. Then, and only then, will He be your parachute. You will have put Him on and He will be guiding your movements. I would imagine you would experience the freedom that a skydiver experiences when they are slowly descending, trusting their life to their parachute.

Trust Him with your life! In the words of St. Faustina “Jesus I Trust In You!”

“Put on the Lord Jesus Christ, and make no provisions for the desires of the flesh” Romans 13:14