I was lying down last night about to go to sleep, watching the Discovery Channel. This documentary about a tribe way out in the Congo jungle came on. They were showing how the tribe does all these crazy dances and rituals for the fertility of their crops.
When the dance was over, they showed the second part of the ritual. And I thought the dance was crazy enough! They had this tree that was like three or four hundred feet up, and they built stands by them out of wood held together with vine ropes. At the very top of the tree, they would attach the ropes to the feet of every man and boy of the tribe.
Then they would jump off one at a time. The ropes would be just long enough for the person to skim the ground with his head. The rope would then snap back, and the man would fly up backward under the tree.
Their belief is that the closer and the harder the person would skim his head on the crop’s dirt, the more fertile it would be—assuring better crops and the tribe’s survival for that year.
I thought about this all day today and pondered their daring act to risk losing their lives to survive—how their beliefs and rituals are almost suicidal, just to survive!
Then I remembered that God promises so much more and gives to me abundantly. That he does not expect me to bungee jump off a tree and skim my head on my garden to produce crops. That he is in control of everything. That he has provided what I have needed financially, materialistically, and spiritually.
He is faithful in every promise. All you have to do is follow and obey him—no crazy strings attached.
1 John 5:14-15
“And this is the confidence that we have toward him, that if we ask anything according to his will he hears us. And if we know that he hears us in whatever we ask, we know that we have the requests that we have asked of him.”
Psalms 37:3-5
“Trust in the LORD, and do good; dwell in the land and befriend faithfulness. Delight yourself in the LORD, and he will give you the desires of your heart. Commit your way to the LORD; trust in him, and he will act.”
