While a cute kitty might make a good poster, and the story of the hang gliding man with the good grip might make for a good video to watch, many people sadly view life this way. We have to “hang in there” or “hang on for dear life.” To those who are struggling, the best the world has to offer is superhuman (or super cat!) efforts to provide encouragement. All this hanging seems to be such a perilous thing. Is it all up to us to hang on and hang in there? Even Christians can easily fall into the trap of focusing on self-effort or living as if they have no safety harness.

Most readers are probably familiar with the phrase, “Hang in there!” It all began with a poster of a Siamese cat hanging from a bamboo pole produced by Los Angeles photographer Victor Baldwin in 1971. The posters became wildly popular and the phrase became (and continues to be) a way to encourage people to persevere and not give up. If you can just hold on a little longer, everything will work out ok. You can do it!

While many of us have likely used the phrase, few of us have literally had to hang on for dear life. Not so for Florida man Chris Gursky who went hang gliding in Switzerland in November. At takeoff, both the man and the instructor realized that Gursky’s harness hadn’t been connected, and he went soaring with only his hands keeping him from plunging to his death. The Washington Post article quotes him as saying, “I just thought, ‘I’m just going to hang on as hard as I can for as long as I can.’”

While a cute kitty might make a good poster, and the story of the hang gliding man with the good grip might make for a good video to watch, many people sadly view life this way. We have to “hang in there” or “hang on for dear life.” To those who are struggling, the best the world has to offer is superhuman (or super cat!) efforts to provide encouragement. All this hanging seems to be such a perilous thing. Is it all up to us to hang on and hang in there? Even Christians can easily fall into the trap of focusing on self-effort or living as if they have no safety harness.

In preparing a recent women’s Bible study on Romans 5, I listened to quite a number of sermons on Reformed Voice by some of my favorite RP pastors. While this chapter speaks of sin, suffering, and death, it also speaks of grace, security, and eternal life. Something that particularly caught my attention was that at least three of the pastors made reference to Puritan Thomas Goodwin and how he explained with a word picture the representation and imputation spoken of in this wonderful chapter – of death through Adam and life through Christ. Goodwin imagines two giants standing before God – Adam and Christ, each representing a group of people. Each giant has a large belt around his waist with tiny hooks, and everyone who has ever lived is hanging on one of the two belts. On Adam’s belt are those who are still dead in their sins and trespasses. On Christ’s belt are those who have been justified through faith.

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