The next week, the kids asked Dave if he had another story about a winter activity. Dave asked if any of them had ever been tubing down a steep hill in the winter. None of the kids had done this, and they were eager to hear Dave’s story.
Dave explained that one camp that he had been to has a tube run down a very steep hill. To get up the hill they had a tow rope with hooks on it. You put your tube on the ground next to the moving rope and lay on top of the tube. A camp worker will grab the hook on the rope as it is going by and stick it inside the tube. The person is then pulled to the top of the hill while lying on the tube.
Going down the hill is the fun part. The tube run ended on a frozen lake, and if the conditions were good, a person could slide on their tube over halfway across the lake. The best time to go tubing was at night after a sunny day. During the day the heat from the sun would soften the top layer of snow, and then when the sun went down, that softened snow would freeze and make the run very fast. On cold nights the tubes coming down the hill made a certain humming sound, and when you heard that sound you knew that the conditions on the hill were perfect!
Sometimes they would have contests to see who could slide the furthest across the lake. The first thing a person must do to have a great tube run is to select a tube that is just right for them. If a tube is too small a person can bounce off the tube, and if the tube is too big a person’s stomach or back side might hit the ground when they go over a bump. Also, the tube should have enough air in it so that it is firm when the person lies on it.
After the tube is chosen, the key to having a great run depends on how you start down the hill. Some people just put the tube on the ground at the top of the hill, then they either lay down or sit down on the tube and push off down the hill. This is a cautious way of starting, but it is not the fastest way to start down the hill.
To get more speed, some people will put their tube at the top of the hill, then get a running start and jump onto the tube. This method will give a person a faster start, but there can be some problems. If it is windy, sometimes the wind will blow the tube down the hill just as the person is jumping onto the tube! The person is in the air, and they see the tube leaving without them! If they are lucky, they land on the ground and get to hear all the other people laughing at them. If they are not so lucky, they slide part way down the hill and the other people laugh even harder! Either way, the tube goes down the hill by itself and the person is left without a tube!
Dave’s favorite method of getting a fast start was to go back about 25 feet from the edge of the hill, put the tube on the ground, lean over and put your hands on the tube, then run as fast as you can, pushing the tube to the edge of the hill. Just as you get to the edge of the hill you push off with your feet and launch yourself onto the tube as it starts down the hill. This method gives you a very fast start, but there are some problems. When you launch yourself onto the tube, you must be sure that you land centered and balanced on the tube. If you launch yourself too far over the tube, you come down with the front part of your body on the snow in front of the tube, and you stop. If you do not launch yourself far enough, you come down on the tube with your legs and feet dragging behind the tube, and you stop. To have the perfect start, a person must launch themselves onto the tube with confidence and accuracy, it must be a smooth, graceful, and coordinated move each time. A person must practice many times before they achieve the coordination to launch themselves down the hill correctly every time. The big hill is not the place to practice and gain confidence, a person needs to spend a lot of time on a small hill, perfecting the technique. After much practice, they are ready for the big hill!
There is a Bible lesson we can learn from this.
In the Bible in I Peter 5:7 it says:
Cast all your anxiety on Him because He cares for you.
We all worry and get anxious about many things. This verse tells believers that we are to just take our worries and cast them onto God! Casting means to throw your worries on God. Just as a person who is starting down the hill on a tube launches themselves onto the tube, so we are to launch our troubles and worries onto God Himself! A person needs to get to the point where they have confidence in God so that they can throw their problems onto God with confidence just like a person tubing must launch themselves with confidence onto the tube. If they do not launch themselves with confidence onto the tube, they will have problems. In the same way, if we try to throw our worries and problems onto God without confidence, we will have problems.
Just like a person must practice on a small hill before they are ready for the big hill, a person needs to practice throwing their small worries onto God before they are confident and ready to throw the big worries onto God. Too many times when a small problem comes up, we say to ourselves, ‘I’ve can handle this, I do not need to bother God with this small problem’. Then when a big problem comes up, that person does not have confidence in God because they did not ‘practice’ by throwing the small problems to God.
The verse says to ‘cast all your anxiety on Him’, we need to practice with the small worries and problems in life so that we have complete confidence in God when a big problem comes up. Cast all your worries and problems (big and small) on God, starting today!