Jump Rope

One of the all-time favorite games to play during recess when I was a kid (way back when. . .), was jump rope. It didn’t require electricity. It didn’t require batteries. All you needed were two people to hold the ends of the rope and a rope! Sometimes you started jumping with the rope at your feet. Other times you “jumped in” while the rope was already going. There were many chants and rhymes that could be sung during each turn. The goal – well, it was to get the highest number of jumps before messing up.

When I think about lessons we can learn from this simple, but oh so important game, the first one that I came up with is that it’s an activity that requires you to take turns. I mean – someone has got to hold the rope. You can’t always be the one who gets to jump. Taking turns isn’t very popular right now. We want everything to go our way all the time. But, being willing to be the “passive one” is so important. We all need to remember that we’re not the “center” of the universe. We need to be able to let others take “center stage” and “root them on!”

One of the hardest parts of jumping rope is the timing. You’ve got to learn to jump when the rope is at your feet. If your timing is off, you don’t last very long. Proverbs 25:11 says, “A word fitly spoken is like apples of gold in pictures of silver.”  We need to consider our words before we speak. Are they beneficial? In fact, Solomon said in Ecclesiastes 3:1, “To every thing there is a season, and a time to every purpose under heaven.” It’s important that we react appropriately all the time. Timing is everything!

There were also individual jump ropes. These are not used to jump in one spot as much as they were used to skip forward. You cannot jump rope skipping backwards. We must always be growing and moving forward spiritually.

Yes, jump rope is a great game from way back when. . . May we remember the importance of sharing, of timing what we say and do, and to move forward in our Christian walk. God Bless, Courtney