A Great Day for Flying

If I have a choice between flying or driving, you can believe I'll choose driving.  Everytime.  I just go by the mentality that "if God would have wanted us to fly, He would have given us wings" sort of thing.  (The crazy thing about all that is by June of this year I will probably have achieved Elite status with Continental airlines....go figure.)  Every time I make airline reservations for a trip and every time I board a plane, God and I get on a very intense, personal level.  

Steve Willoughby preached a couple of weeks ago that "perfect love casteth out fear."  When I board a plane, it's obvious I don't have perfect love...in fact, I would say my feelings for the aircraft are closer to perfect loathing.  So now you know one of the top items on my prayer list. 

Anyway, I digress.

After having come through BOTT 09 and had some very personal, private talks with God about some very personal, private issues that have been out on the table for a long, long time and about which I thought He might have begun to simply ignore, I find out that He's been working in my behalf even since before I put the issues on the table.  He's been silent about it...wanting to see if I would trust Him, probably!...and choosing to hide from me all the ways the beautiful picture really works together.

An illustration here: a few months ago, our little family was able to spend a whole day together at Epcot in Orlando, FL. There is a new ride there called "Soarin."  It's incredible.  You are strapped into a seat resembling an airline seat and "flown" out over an open space with one of those 360 screens all around you.  Above, below, all sides.....you feel as if you are thousands of feet above the earth.  As you "fly," the wind blows your hair...you smell the oranges over the Napa valley, you smell the salty sea as you fly high above the surfers and cliffs...you see where the desert meets the mountains and can measure the distance between the dry, parched earth and the snow-capped peaks.  The experience is incredibly exhilarating--we waited in line to do it TWICE.  The fear of crashing into the cold Hudson River or the Atlantic or Pacific or the orange groves is simply not there.  The only fear is that one won't be able to see it all or will miss the smells or an incredible vista.  

I thought of all that this morning as God and I were discussing a few things.  

Fear limits our vision.  We can't see the forest for the trees.  We focus on the individual issues.  We choose not to look at the expansive vistas because we're overwhelmed that we will crash into the landscape.

But that perfect love thing....if we truly feel safe, we allow ourselves to let go.  We look beyond the obvious, we allow ourselves to smell the aromas, we see the possibilities of snow even though dry, cracked earth is what is closest to us.

It's Monday where I live...a gray, cold, tired day....and I've decided it's a perfect day to fly.