Perched atop of a cliff in the beautiful country of Portugal.

There is an ancient monastery.

Visitors to that lofty retreat are rewarded with a magnificent view of the countryside once they get up there. There was a problem. The only way

to reach that monastery is to be hoisted by an aged monk, up a cliff in a wicker basket tied to a rope.

And one day, a guide and a visitor was sitting in this wicker basket.

And as they were leaving the monastery, the basket, as it being lower down the precipice,

by this aged monk, it swung over the rocky basin. The nervous visitor looked at the

guide in an trembling voice. He said, sir, how often do you replace the rope? And the stone-faced guide looked at him and he said,

each time the old rope breaks.

You can easily imagine the rate of the heartbeat of the visitor

as he sat down in that swinging wicker basket. But you know the reality is that

this is how most people live their lives. They push through life, they shove through life,

they live a life of anxiety and fear, they live a life of tension. They are never sure whether

the rope of life is going to make it or not. I dare say that many Christians live the same

way. They live a life of tension, a life of stress. And when something goes wrong, they say,

why did God do this?

Where is God when things go wrong in my life?

How can a loving God not prevent this from happening?

Why is God silent when I need him the most? You know, I'm convinced

that the difficulty for all of us is to be able to rest in God, especially when you're sitting in the wicker basket of life, to be able to trust God,

even when the basket that you're sitting in swings widely, to be confident that God does not wait

for the rope to break before replacing it.

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