At this writing, Bob and I are waking up in a Portland airport hotel after scooping our kinder from Norway and waiting on the New Yorker to arrive after which we will travel a little more to meet additional loved ones for a week of high fives, and plenty of family-based jocularity. I missed a really great photo-op as we cruised right past Mount Hood, but here’s a reasonable facsimile:
In typical fashion, being the only early riser in the whole extended clan, (thus the name “Dawn”, I suppose), I am sitting out on some backside patio before the hotel’s breakfast is even ready, listening to the birds compete with the jet planes roaring off in the not-so-far distance. I’m impressed by the sound of their immense power, with just two puny little humans at the helm. Wow.
Now, granted, those two puny little humans had to go to school and learn some pretty impressive things, like to properly engage that immense power. Otherwise, that plane, as pretty as it looks, is just not going anywhere.
Or worse, yet, it might go somewhere it shouldn’t…
“We now have this light shining in our hearts, but we ourselves are like fragile clay jars containing this great treasure. This makes it clear that our great power is from God, not from ourselves…For the Kingdom of God is not just a lot of talk; it is living by God’s power.”
One of the challenges for Christians in my culture (translated: for me) is the misunderstanding of the power that resides within us/me. I look in the Bible and see things, powerful things, and I have to wonder, “Am I really living all that God has for me?”
(Oh! There goes another one into the wild blue yonder!! Man, those engines are huge.)
Or am I just shaking my head and thinking, “Yep, that’s a nice plane”, but never bothering to go to school and learn to fly for myself?
The thing is, God says the power, His power, the power His Son died for, is already in all of His children. Fueled up, ready to go. Many times, however, I stay grounded, not only by ignorance, but also by fear, self-contempt and blame, offense, and the list goes on.
This doesn’t mean God doesn’t love me any less—no way. It’s just that He calls me to more. And He needs me for more. Others need me for more:
“Therefore, since we are surrounded by such a huge crowd of witnesses to the life of faith, let us strip off every weight that slows us down, especially the sin that so easily trips us up…”
…or throttles the plane.
2 Corinthians 4:7, 20; Hebrews 12:1 Holy Bible, New Living Translation, copyright © 1996, 2004, 2015 by Tyndale House Foundation. Used by permission of Tyndale House Publishers Inc., Carol Stream, Illinois 60188. All rights reserved.
INSPIRATION with an ATTITUDE 