Learning to fly
I was 6 or 7 the first time I stepped foot in church, for, “Vacation Bible School.” This was a kid friendly version of church that ran for a week in the Summer, and it wasn’t horrible. I remember wanting to go back each night. After it was over, the Pastor of the church met with my parents, and the next Sunday, and every Sunday after till I was 16, we loaded up in the car and went to church as a family. As a kid, regular church was less stimulating than VBS. To be honest, it was the most boring thing I've ever experienced. There were no games, no crafts, no running, no snacks; it was just a torturous hour in the most uncomfortable clothes. The pastor's voice, the repetition, and the modulation, we’re like a spell cast over me, "My head grew heavy, my sight grew dim," and I’m pretty sure I got whiplash nodding off in church.
By the age of 16 I quit going to church, because I was saved and it seemed redundant to me. I had heard it, over and over, that "Jesus saves," and I was saved; I had said the prayer, I repeated the words verbatim after the pastor.
Every once in a while, between head bobs, and wiping drool from my chin, I’d hear a Bible verse that would reach through my fogy slumbering mind and grab ahold of my imagination. I heard from God, or so it seemed, and I found something new to think about.
I remember the first time I heard Mark 11:22-24. The disciples had witnessed Jesus looking for fruit on a fig tree, and when he didn’t find any, he cursed it. Later on these same guys who were with Jesus saw the tree, and it had withered. They were amazed, and it was amazing. I think it’s fair to say that if any of us were there, and had seen a healthy tree in the morning (albeit without figs) and the same tree later that day, withered and dead, we would have been amazed too.
When I read this now, knowing more than I did then, I’m expecting an object lesson, from 2 Timothy 4:2 “Preach the word; be prepared in season and out of season…” or in, Luke 13:6-7 NIV “Jesus tells the parable: “A man had a fig tree growing in his vineyard, and he went to look for fruit on it but did not find any. So he said to the man who took care of the vineyard, ‘For three years now I’ve been coming to look for fruit on this fig tree and haven’t found any. Cut it down! Why should it use up the soil?’” and in Matthew 7:19 Jesus says, “Every tree that does not bear good fruit is cut down and thrown into the fire.” So Jesus is serious about his creation being fruitful. So I expect Jesus to go this direction, it seems to be the obvious point--that those who follow him must produce fruit or hazard being cursed--but he doesn’t make that argument. When he sees their amazement he says “Have faith in God,”
Just have faith in God! Is this to say, "Oh it’s nothing, really, anyone can do it, you just have to have faith in God." Then he says, “Truly I tell you that if anyone says to this mountain, ‘Be lifted up and thrown into the sea,’ and has no doubt in his heart but believes that it will happen, it will be done for him. Therefore I tell you, whatever you ask for in prayer, believe that you have received it, and it will be yours..”, (Mark 11:23) Do you believe this? This was the most exciting thing I had ever heard. I woke up, and found that verse in my bible and I read it over and over, as the pastor droned on an on. I believed it. “If anyone says to this mountain, ‘Be lifted up and thrown into the sea,’ and has no doubt in his heart but believes that it will happen, it will be done for him.” As a child this was the most remarkable promise I had ever heard, and in that moment those words opened a door of endless possibilities.
In the opening verses of Genisis God spoke the world into being, and now that power was given to me, free of charge, I just need to believe. I truly believed that I could have anything I asked for, but before you get too excited, you should know that we can’t have anything we as for. James 4:3 sheds a little more light on our asking and receiving. It says, “When you ask, you do not receive, because you ask with wrong motives, that you may spend what you get on your pleasures.” Which is what I was about to do. With maturity comes a fuller picture of what’s possible. God is not a cosmic slot machine, granting wishes, but there are a lot of people who approach him in that manner. There's fine print on this offer, we can have whatever we ask for, but it must be according to the will of God. I was 7 years old, with an overactive imagination, and having never heard James 4:3 I believed, if I didn't doubt in my heart, but believed, whatever I asked for would be done for me.
I wanted to fly like superman. I wanted to leap up from the ground, free from the weight of gravity, and soar through the air. I wanted to fly high above the world, and when I heard those words, they spoke to me, and some how I knew they were true. You cannot believe that something like this is true and not do anything. That would be like a man finding a genies lamp, and in the course of deciding his first wish forgets about the lamp. It was all I could think about. I lived on a farm with a gravel driveway that looped around a long regtangular building making an oval track, and for some reason I thought that flying required a running start. I suppose I should be grateful that I didn’t believe it needed a tall building to jumo off of. I believed it was possible, to do the impossible, but thought that I had to get up to speed first. This would be a common theme of my faith for many years, and only later in life did I realize that I often tried to serve God from the power of my own flesh, rather than relying on His strength and power.
There is another aspect of this indever that I see more clearly now. I didn't want anyone to see me. I believed God would do this miracle for me, because I knew His words were true, but I didn't want my friends to know about it. Maybe it was the fear of failure, or just looking stupid. I didn’t want anyone to make fun of me or tell me I was dumb for believing in God. Maybe I didn’t want people to know that I believed in God. Maybe I wanted to hold on to God without rejecting the world or the world rejecting me? Looking back I can clearly see the implications of my actions, (that they revealed hidden parts of my heart that I could not understand) but at that time it would have been impossible for me to understand the pressure that the pattern of this world was exerting, even if someone had explained it to me.
When I got home from church, I went to the driveway, away from the house, and I took off running, where no one could see me. I believed it was possible, I lifted my arms out in front of me, and jumped up into the air. Can you imagine what this must have looked like? This kid, running and jumping into the air over and over, with his arms stretched out in front of him? I memorized that verse, “If you believe in your heart and do not doubt you shall have whatever you ask for." So I tried again, and again—and again. I ran loops around the driveway until I collapsed, red faced, and breathless; my lungs felt like they would explode. Lying on my back, catching my breath, I watched clouds drifting overhead, and it occurred to me that I always caught myself before hitting the ground. In that last moment I would put my hands out infront of me, to caugth myself. I thought, “This is doubt.” If I really believed, and didn’t doubt in my heart, then I wouldn’t hit the ground, and if I wasn't going to hit the ground, I wouldn’t try to catch myself. This flinching was proof that I doubted in my heart. I had discovered my problem.
In all my running and jumping I never considered if it was God’s will. I was 7, what did I know about what God wanted? It was what I wanted! I decided, partly due to the verse that says, walk by faith and not by sight, to try this with my eyes shut, so that I wouldn’t flinch. I thought that if I couldn’t see the ground, I wouldn’t know I was going to hit it. Already, at the age of seven, I was trying to "fake it till ya make it!" I realy thought that this flinching was the doubt, but I missed that I waited till I got home, where no one could see me, and that I thought that I needed a running start.
Before all of the running and jumping, I’d failed to follow Christ in any meaningful way. Perhaps this is how everyone starts out following Christ. Just as, Simon the sorcerer, or even Peter the apostle; we have heard and seen the truth, but we misinterpret it. We follow along looking for how it will benefit us. Peter, willingly followed Christ, but his motives aligned with Satan's. I wanted to follow Christ as long as it would benefit me, as long as it didn’t cost me anything. Like the seeds that fall on rocky soil, I rejoiced in what I heard, but when the trail came, I would wither because I had no root.
We all want to experience the promised blessings of following God, but when faith calls us to lay down our desires, to follow Jesus through the wilderness, how will we respond? Will we bravely enter the breach, or will fear hold us back from any meaningful relationship with God. To live out a faith that no one sees, and that no one is affected by, isn’t real faith because it risks nothing. If I had lived my faith out publicly, perhaps I would have gotten to James 4:3 faster. It says, “When you ask, you do not receive, because you ask with wrong motives, that you may spend what you get on your pleasures.” And I would have learned that there is great wisdom in having many councilors. As Proverbs 15:22 says “Plans fail for lack of counsel, but with many advisers they succeed.”
There’s a pressure in this world to keep our faith hidden, to live out a private interpatation of the word. We keep it out of our schools, out of our work, and out of our conversations. There’s a pressure here that keeps us from confessing Christ. We develop relationships without putting Christ first, and eventually that pressure conforms us to a reality that rejects God, even though we go to church on Sunday. We’ve grown up in a culture that conditions us to believe that faith is a private thing, it's expressed only on Sundays, and only in church. Even though God warns us not to conform to the pattern of this world, we don’t realize that we're already part of that pattern. It didn’t start with us, it was here before we were born. We may have grown up going to church, but that church existed before us, in a world bent to conform to its pattren, ruled by the powers of darkness.
If we are experiencing revival perhaps we could say the church is winning the war, but are we experiencing revival? This darkness has been here since the garden of eden. It was here when Abraham lied about Sarah being his wife. It was here when King David had a man killed to hide his own adultery. It was here when Pontius Pilate asked, “What is truth?” There’s a pressure in this world that makes following Jesus harder then it should be. We end up trying to save our own lives by living out a faith that no one sees, or that everyone will accept.
Do you believe if you say to this mountain, and don't doubt in your heart, be cast into the sea, that it will obey you? Jesus says, “Have faith in God, whatever you ask for in prayer, believe that you have received it, and it will be yours..”,
This sounds like a faith that gets attention.