Someone to Watch Over Me.

I grew up with four older brothers. Sometimes they teased, sometimes they tortured, but they always watched out for me and helped keep me on track. I remember John yelling at a neighborhood bully that had intimidated me, and my problem was instantly solved. And when I tried to quit football for laziness' sake, one short talk with John had me back on the practice field.

And lucky for me, in those critical moments in my life God has always provided those people who were there for me, protecting and encouraging me in ways I couldn't even fully appreciate at the time. I'm grateful for their faithfulness.

Who's got your back? Do you have a special someone who is steadfast and faithful, reliable no matter what the problem, the one person you can call in any crisis and find the help and support you need? Who's holding your rope?

"Mentoring is like a group of men scaling a mountain. If a guy is linked to another guy above him, and that man in turn is linked to other men farther up the cliff, then together they have safety, stability, and strength. If a man slips and begins to fall, fifteen or twenty climbers absorb the impact and pull him back from disaster.

But imagine a man climbing alone, with no support system. He may achieve great heights. But one wrong move and he can fall thousands of feet to his death, without so much as anyone hearing his cry." (Bob Biehl)

Too many of us are going it alone, frantically climbing up steep, slippery slopes, naive and overconfident, with no one holding the rope for us, no one backing us up. Have you lived long enough to see the danger of going it alone? Who's holding your rope, and whose rope are you holding? Will anyone hear when you fall?