We Can Fly!

Ever thought about how cool it would be, to be able to fly? And I don’t mean with the aid of one of those noisy mechanical contraptions we call airplanes. I mean you with just your body, soaring above the earth; you, banking over the forests; you skimming over the rivers; you darting through the canyons; you breathing deeply in the fresh air of free and effortless flight! And for those of you who have fear of heights and find what I’m suggesting to be fear inducing, just imagine if you had no such fear. You could come too.

Almost everybody has wondered what it would be like to fly, If not at the present, then at least when you were a kid you probably thought about it. You’ve probably also dreamed about it. But then with those kind of dreams, there is always that rude awakening when you land in your bed and discover that you are still a prisoner of gravity.

And as you find your way to the bathroom, shaking off the night, you remember the weight you must bear. And it’s not just gravity that seems to be holding you down, but everything. For as your mind comes back on line and you think about the things that lie behind and lie ahead, your shoulders visibly slump as if you were actually carrying something. Truth is, you are carrying something. There are burdens that bring there own gravity to life, burdens that don’t show up on bathroom scale. But you can still detect them. You can detect them in your face made weary by what it has endured. You can detect them in eyes made sad by what they have seen.

Perhaps that’s why we adults don’t think about flying as much as children do. We carry a lot of cargo after all. Too much cargo to take off. If you are at all aware of what’s going on in the world, you can’t help but feel this. I mean, just watch the national news. The world is pretty screwed up and if you listen to the news, it doesn’t seem like its going to get any better. This weighs us down.

And then there are work issues. Who knows, is the company that you work for going be around in a year or so? Is some new CEO who doesn’t even know you and what you are able to do going to decide that he could please his stockholders by firing you? This weighs you down. Or maybe you own your own business and you wonder if you’ve thought about everything and planned for every contingency. And you do care about those who work for you, and you find it incredibly hard to make decisions that may effect those who work for you. And this weighs you down.

And then there’s your family. The people you love. You see your parents getting older; perhaps becoming infirm. You see your children struggling in this or that. Perhaps you’ve hit a rough patch in your marriage. When you were a kid you don’t remember that love was so difficult and so demanding. But that’s because you were always on the receiving end of it. And now you are called to be the one who gives it; called to be the one who loves. This too can weigh you down

So thoughts of Flying? Nah! Not anymore! Life is way too heavy to dally with such things.” And yet, what does the text say? “....but those who hope in the Lord will renew their strength. They will soar on wings like eagles; they will run and not grow weary, they will walk and not be faint.” Hmmm. Perhaps we spoke too soon! The Lord says that we can “soar on wings like eagles!” I don’t know about you, but he’s got my attention! He is suggesting that there is a way to overcome the gravity of our lives, a way to lighten our loads, a way rise above it all. Has he got your attention? Let’s go then, Let’s figure out how this can be.

The prophet Isaiah was writing to the people of Israel during a time, when they felt like their strength was sapped and they had no hope. Like us, they had concerns about the national news. The news for them was not too good. The dreadful assyrians, a constant threat, were breathing down their necks, and later it would be the Babylonians, those star-worshipping captors who would take them all away to live in exhile. As they thought about all the stuff that was happening around them, they were overcome by the gravity of it all.

And they were saying things too. Isaiah actually quotes them. They were saying “My way is hidden from the Lord; my cause is disregarded by my God.” In other words “God doesn’t really care about me!” “How can he?” Look at all this bad and difficult stuff that is happening all around us.” “He’s not really in charge of things!”