I like quotes from the famous, unfamous, and sometimes infamous people throughout history. The process of taking an idea or concept and distilling it down to a minimum of words leaves a sentence or two that shares the message in a succinct and powerful burst of grammatically expressive thought. Many of the things I hold most dear have impacted me through the power of quotes.
"No one can make you feel inferior without your consent." Eleanor Roosevelt.
"I will either find a way or make one.” Hannibal (after he was told it was impossible to get elephants across the alps to sack Rome.)
"if you don't care where you're going, you're not lost." homeless person wandering around my back yard.
One of my favorites quotes is from John Wesley: he said "Among the many difficulties of our early ministry, my brother George often said 'if the Lord would give me wings, I'd fly' I used to answer 'if God bids me fly, I will trust Him for the wings.'" What a great expression of faith. To be secure in the presence of God and so sure of His aid that the “how” doesn’t matter as long as we trust the “Who."
We see this in Peter when he called out to Jesus to bid him jump out of the boat and come to him across the water. Peter was not walking on water, but on the word of Jesus; “Come." This brash and outspoken disciple threw himself out of the boat and landed smack-dab on Jesus’ word. It wasn’t until Simon Peter took his eyes off of Jesus and pointed them towards the waves that he began to "wish I'd brought my swim fins" as he slowly sank beneath the water and Jesus had to rescue him. There is a reason Jesus nicknamed him “Peter” which means “pebble" or "small stone" and not “Rock” which means large boulder.
John Wesley’s quote reminds me of a hiker that wandered off the path and slipped over a cliff's edge and found himself dangling from a bush root sticking out of the canyon wall. It was so dark that the hiker could not tell if he was one foot or a thousand above the canyon floor. He began yelling "Help! Is there anyone up there?"
A moment later voice from above responded, "I am here, my son."
"Oh, thank you! Who are you?"
"I am God."
"Wow!" said the hiker. "Really? That is terrific. So, what should I do?"
God said, "Trust me, my son, and let go."
After a few moments of awkward silence the hiker calls out, "Is there anyone else up there?"
Faith is sometimes difficult especially it we look at it through our “natural” point of view. Even though God is all powerful, we can limit what He can do in our lives by withholding our trust, our faith. Because we are bound to traverse our existence in this world moment by moment, it can be difficult to know how an action or reaction will affect our unforeseen future. But God's point of view is eternal, He stands outside of time and sees our lives in their entirety, from the cradle to the grave and all the fiddly bits in between. It is because we cannot see beyond the moment in which we live that we must have faith; must trust that God has a plan for us. 2 Corinthians 5:7 "For we live by faith, not by sight." Romans 1:17, “For therein is the righteousness of God revealed from faith to faith: as it is written, The just shall live by faith."
I Sometimes wonder if I'm still a child, dependent on the Milk and not yet ready for the Meat (Hebrews 5:12). Even though I may be getting better at living by faith, at times I still consider myself dependent on what I can see even though I wind up hanging from a bush root sticking out of a cliff calling out “Anyone else up there?” At times the verse above in 2 Corinthians stares me in the eye and challenges me to let go and trust him for the wings. It is a level of faith to which I aspire. Phillipians 3:14 - "I press toward the mark for the prize of the high calling of God in Christ Jesus."
What could you accomplish if your attitude was "If God bids me fly, I'll trust him for the wings?" It's your choice: Wings or Flippers?
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