Craig Timms

I have been thinking about sometimes we are completely thrown into the deep end and expected to swim. I came to America , expecting to be helping out at an after school program, only to learn that I was going to be both planning and teaching at the ASP. Then two weeks ago, at the Urban Promise Banquet (this is the major fundraising event of the year), I was asked to help with organizing people backstage, just before they go on stage, this despite not having any experience in theatre work at all.

Being thrown into to the deep sends many questions and thoughts racing through my mind. I don't really need to ask who is doing the throwing. I doubt that it is just coincidence. The only thing that makes sense to me is that it is God who is pushing me (or allowing me) into the deep end.

The important question is why? Why are we thrown when we could ease slowly into the situation. Probably if I was given the opportunity to ease into some situations, then I would back out citing lack of experience or confidence. I believe that God throws us in the deep end because it is the only way in which we are going to grow into the person whom which we are to come.

It talks about in the Bible how God will never test us with more than we can cope with, but I think that usually we can cope with a lot more than what we believe we can.

Albert Einstein once said "I never teach my pupils; I only attempt to provide the conditions in which they can learn.” In my experience God rarely just teaches as if like a teacher at the front of the class, but it is through the trials of life, that Gods teaches us. So it is up to God to put us in the situations that we learn the most in in order to become the people we are to be.