Fly

 

 

My eyes gaze upward as the birds soar, dip, and wing their way through the cloud thick sky.   Oh, to be so free!  To experience and taste the wind in varying degrees.  To increase the velocity in which it rushes past you with just a flap of the wing or alteration of tail.  What a thrilling sensation. As my eyes follow the ascension and undulation winging across before me, my thoughts turn to a repetitive childhood dream.

It always started out exhilarating….

I could fly! 

I would spread my arms, run to work up some speed, then launch into the gorgeous atmosphere.  I would swoop and glide, gracefully traveling over the beautiful landscape underneath me.  The wind would lift my hair back and up away from my face.  Here there was peace. Here away from solid ground it was amazing, freeing, spectacularly celestial.  However, inevitably, in an instant all would change, my altitude increasing to such great proportions that the landscape blurred into indefinite shapes.  Panic would seize me and flying was no longer an option.  My rapid descent to the earth striking fear into every inch of my mind, body and soul.

Now, many years later, ironically God is calling me to fly. 

The time for being grounded is over.  He is calling me forward, asking me to pick up speed, to meet Him on a whole new spiritual level.  There is a deepness, an intimacy He wants me to know.  It’s exhilarating and frightening.  Because if I run and jump off this cliff will I really be able to fly?

The thing about flying and birds is that they don’t take on unnecessary baggage.

They are streamlined. Every bone hollow and lightweight.  Every feather perfectly placed for intricate flight.  They don’t carry anything they aren’t designed to.

I tend to be the opposite.  I carry fear, frustration, control, hurt… they’ve been my companions for so long that I’ve become used to them in varying degrees.  But, now that Jesus has called me to fly He has begun to prepare me for flight.  He’s stripping me bare of all that would keep me grounded.  What a process, this flight training on ground level.  These months of preparation have been difficult, eye opening, and even painful as Jesus shows me what must go.  It’s a trimming and a pruning, an altering and refining.

Because if I’m going to fly with Jesus I can’t be afraid.  His heights are way higher than what this simple mind is used to.  I can’t go up there with the mind set of fear.  I can’t start flying and then scream in fear if it seems that I am plummeting to the earth at break neck speeds.  If I’m going to fly then I need to trust.

If I do loose altitude and all seems lost.   If I fall from the sky like a burned out meteor, then I better have the trust of God instilled in me. I have to know deep within my heart that He isn’t going to let me crash and burn.  No ,my God, He’s my Savior and I better know deep within my heart that He’s going to save me from being smashed to smithereens upon unforgiving rocks.

As C.S. Lewis put it, it’s time to go “farther up and farther in”.  It’s time to rise above normalcy.

It’s time to  FLY, FLY, FLY!

Deep breath in….

I’m ready to soar!