A Sparrows Simple Flight

In our society today power controls just about everything. I’m not talking about the simple power of electricity but rather the power to create, destroy, raise up, and collapse. In our country there is always this ongoing struggle for power in the world of politics. There is always the pursuit of power in the world of sports. There is always that quest to be the powerhouse team, the one that is in control. But there is nothing like the ferocious power of a storm in all of its beauty.

As I write this I am sitting in my truck parked on the roof level of Washington and Lee University’s parking lot in the midst of a torrential storm. As I sit I am unable to see the dorms and fraternity houses that are no more than one hundred yards away. The wind is causing trees to buckle right in front of me to the point of between the claps of thunder you can hear the trees crack under the power of the wind. Rain and hail is pounding on the roof of my truck with such ferocity that it is deafening inside of my truck. The clouds are no more than a hundred feet above me spewing out violent streaks of lighting that cause the whole horizon to light up as if a sheet of rain is its own personal back drop. Water is beginning to deepen itself around the base of the tires of my truck. People are frantically sprinting to their cars in their own futile attempt to dodge the onslaught of raindrops falling. There are these momentary lapses of peace in which the rain slows to a sprinkle and peace begins to resume its role in the area. But as soon as it stops lighting begins its barrage of attacks once again. The town of Lexington that I am in happens to sit right in the shadow of the tallest peaks of the Blue Ridge Mountains. The town itself is perched on a mountaintop almost a mile above sea level. Causing the storms to be short but intense in their attack on this small college town.

As the storm rages on, in the middle of one of the most intense attacks thus far something catches my eye. It was unexpected and unbelievable. A sparrow was perched on the hood of my parked car. As the lightning raged and the winds split the trees this bird took flight and left the perch of my truck. In my mind I begin to race with thoughts of if this bird was smart he would have scurried underneath my truck to gain some sense of safety from the wind and the rain. But that is not what this bird chose to do. He took flight off into the violent, intimidating horizon. As the winds blew this bird from the right to the left and then back again this bird kept flying straight into the distance till I could see it no more. With this site I had just witnessed as I experienced the awesome power of nature I began to think.

We are a lot like that tiny little sparrow. So many times in our lives we are living in the mountaintops where as we look around we see nothing but what is below us. Life is bright and sunny, everything is going exactly right and exactly how we expected it to go. But yet in our peaceful utopian state that we have lulled ourselves into, we are totally ignorant of the coming storm. Though we have been warned about it, and we see the precipitating factors that are giving us the hints that it is coming we choose to ignore the basic facts that we are about to attacked from all sides. One-minute life is perfect and the next minute we are in the midst of a storm that is rocking the vey foundation that we are one. Lightning fast situations are hitting close to home all around us. At our very nature our mind begins to think, our heart begins to race, anxiety and fear have all but crippled us in our state as we just stand around. The wind is so violent that we can barely stand. But yet we feel the need to remove ourselves from this situation and storm that we are in. At the very base of our human nature our flesh cries out for us to seek safety, to hide ourselves from the storm and “just ride it out.” So we can get back to our peaceful utopian state. But relief is not to be seen in the distance. This is where we as believers have a decision to make. We can allow ourselves to be stuck in the drama of the storm or we can rise to the occasion and take flight in the face of imminent destruction.

We need to be like that tiny little sparrow. I can only begin to imagine the fear in that sparrows mind as he contemplated the idea of taking flight in the midst of this storm. He could have sat back and played it safe. But something, some thought of courage or craziness gave that tiny sparrow the boldness to fly. I wonder what would be the outcome in our lives if in the midst of the storm we stood up, faced it head on, and jumped into the wind? What would happen if in the middle of our storms of life we had the courage to just jump into the air, spread our wings placing complete trust in the hands of the one who can create the storms as well as calm them? What would the world be like if we denied the fleshly desire and fleshly motives of complacency and playing it safe? Its hard to imagine trying to walk in the middle of this storm I’m witnessing right now, let alone fly. No one is saying it is easy, or that it is going to be a cakewalk, or even that you will not feel undeniable fear. But as believers in Christ we are not called to a complacent lifestyle at any point in our Christian walks. Though we face hell itself we are not called to just stand around and watch as the storm passes by over us. We are called to be men and women of action. To stand up and realize that we have no control over the inevitable situation we are in but we are in control of the eternal outcome that will result from this. Through our movement, and our courage to jump into the midst of the storm we find ourselves in a place of learning, growth, and strengthening. That bird at first did not have it easy as he was mercilessly blown from side to side. That bird had to learn how to fly in the storm. He gained strength from using muscles that he most likely does not use on a daily basis. He probably did not have an idea on where he was going to fly, but instead of gripping his talons into the concrete and trying to weather the storm under his own strength he took flight. He was not concerned with the chance of pain or even death. He took flight with the thoughts of all that was ingrained into his very being as well as all the strengths that throughout his short life he had learned.

This thought challenged me, it brought me to a place of decision and movement in my own life. I know I have the tendency to be complacent where I am during my “mountain top” experiences. I have that tendency to ignore the warning signs of coming storms and waste my time instead of preparing myself for the coming onslaught. But yet when those storms come through I have resolved to trust my Savior, the one who created life itself as well as everything in it. I have resolved to place my very soul in the mighty hand of God and trust Him that my best interests are at the forefront of his mind. And I will spread my wings and take flight in the midst of the storms.
As I sit here, I begin to see daylight on the horizon. The storm has passed and peace is beginning to regain its hold on this tiny town. And I look at the wall in front of me and my mentor has returned to teach me a final lesson. I see the bird has weathered the storm. He survived its mighty onslaught. I have no idea on where it went or what it experienced but yet I know that it is still alive. As the sun begins to regain its hold of the afternoon I see the storm has moved on behind me. Hope begins to stir in my own soul that no matter what storms I will experience in my own life, it will not last forever. The sun will again show and I will be on that mountain again, but this time with a new attitude and outlook on life as well as my walk with Christ.

Wax on, Wax off.

It is so easy to forget the mercy of God or the shaping and molding of his perfect plan. When we are in situations sometimes we overlook the mercy of God when we face pain. It seems so unfair. Life just slams us right in the face and we really dont know how to respond or even how to press on. We ask ourselves where is God in this situation? We look around and cry out in our agony, stress and misery but find no relief. We feel that ceiling has heard more about our problems than God has. If only the ceiling could talk back. I know through personal struggles though, we are refined and made stronger through his perfect plan.
Its like that of a soldiers training. There are the smallest little things that a drill sargeant will bark and yell over. At that one certain point the soldier begins to question the purpose of it. It begins to plague his mind as he believes that it is more for torture and punishment. It begins to cloud every aspect of his thought process. How funny does it become when the soldier wants to quit and begins to mentally shut down at that task at hand. His thoughts begin to drift slowly away to a place where he doesnt need to be. His focus is drawn on the negative, and at the point of quitting his drill sargeant begins to regale him of the many varied usefull tools he has learned in that one task. Just as karate kid had to wax on and wax off; we too go through those varieties of situations.
Its just like that in our life. We go through a variety of different "training" times in our life. We think that we are losing our mind and that we are about to lose it all. We get so frustrated and aggravated at the small things in life that it begins to rip apart our minds and hearts. We cant focus on the task at hand and we just recognize only the negative. We scream and cry out to God but get no response. We feel so small and insignificant that our problems soon overwhelm us and pull us to the bottom. But yet how many times do we not realize that we are actually learning a valuable and life long lesson that will help us the rest of our lives. These things in our life that stress us and we see as torture actually serve a double purpose. We need to change our mentality in this area we need to shift it from thinking of it as something unnatural to becoming a teaching lesson. So many times we allow ourselves to be caught up in our own ego that we forget the glory and beauty of God. In Isaiah 48, God is speaking to the children of Israel of this very specific thing. They had forgotten the beauty and glory of God and his faithfullness. THey had become so dependent on their own strength that God allowed them to face hard and rough times to recalibrate their focus off of themselves and back to Him. Isaiah 48: 10 says " See, i have refined you, though not as silver, i have tested you in the furnace of affliction. 11 For my own sake, for my own sake i do this. How can i let my self be defamed? I will not yield my glory to another." God places us in times that we need to truly understand are teaching times and times that will stretch our faith and allow us to become stronger in Him. When our focus leaves that of Christ there comes a point where we need to be refined and redirected by Christ. Just as a drill sargeant leads his troops into teaching exercises, Christ also leads us. When you face a situation remember you are being refined by fire to show all of Gods glory and not the glory of another.

Is the A/C on?

For too long we have been silent. These words ring through my mind every morning when i wake up. They haunt me with each step. We say we hold onto this idea of salvation as our glorious hope, but yet we treat it as if it is something that we can hide and contain only in our self. We grip salvation as if it is a gift that if we share it, it will disappear from our lives. How can we be so complacent?
I sat in a church recently and heard the worship that was shared throughout the auditorium. It was so sweet and the presence of God was truly in that place. But something changed. As I stepped out of the nice AC foyer through the day into the hot summer day I felt a wave of heat slam into my face. And I realized something in that particular moment. How relevant is it that we as a church
Can relate our relationship with the world to the same relationship of the Air conditioning inside of the church to the heat of the outside world.
There is one thing that is completely essential for this whole idea of our world and its current state: it is dying and going to hell. The rate of death is not decreasing. There is nothing that is slowing down about it. If anything the mortality rate is increasing at a drastic pace. There is nothing that we can do about it. We cannot stop the inevitable, but we can change the eternal. Our community is on the brink of disaster of an eternity in hell and we are just sitting around doing absolutely nothing about it. It is almost just like that situation I experienced.
We sit in the comfort of our own church. We feel the cool relaxed environment completely oblivious to the outside world and the heat we face and the heat others are facing right now. We act as if we are members of an exclusive country club. We want to keep this environment we have to ourselves a secret and when we are in the out in the world we just long for that time when we are back in the comfort of that pew once again when the world around us is facing the heat of hell day in and day out.
This should absolutely not be. We were given a great commission by Christ to go into all of the world. It does not say to go in only when it is convenient for us or when we are comfortable. But instead we should find every opportunity to exemplify the love of Christ. It is becoming scary how the church is becoming complacent with the community around them living lives that are sending them straight to hell. Our heart and eyes should match that of Christ in seeing our friends and neighbors and the strangers on the street as lost opportunities for a soul to find the amazing love of Christ. There should be an attitude of excitement and anxiousness in our churches. It should be the same atmosphere like that in a basketball game, when time is running out, and you are losing and you begin to play and fight harder to win. That should be our attitude. We should see that time is running out and the clock is winding down.
So the next time you feel the cool breeze of the Air Conditioner ask yourself if you are doing all that you can be doing to reach the outside world for Christ and save them from that blistering heat.
So I ask you, is the A/C on?