new church life: november/december 2015
ignore it, tune out. And that might not be the best strategy for success.
One time my wife and I were on a flight from Denver to London, but had
to stop in Washington, DC. So on that first leg we did all the normal things:
we ignored the flight attendants as they gave us the information we needed.
Everyone continued what they were doing.
A couple of hours into the flight someone came on the intercom and said,
“The tire blew up when we took off and we need to prepare you for a crash
landing,” then added, “We are going to go over the safety instructions again.”
This time EVERYONE paid close attention.
As we descended I held my wife’s hand and prayed and thought about
a lot of things. There were a lot of those “should haves” that I thought about
and those “what ifs”. As we got closer you could see out the window all the
fire trucks and ambulances arriving alongside us. And we landed safely. There
had been an error in reading the tire. It had mistakenly said that the tire had
exploded.
Life can be difficult. We can have our fair share of crash-landing moments.
You have a unique opportunity to learn all about things that really matter in
your life – more than anything else you learn in life ever will. Things that will
last forever. Things about your eternal life. Not only how things function but
the deeper questions of why? For what reason? How is God present in the
world? How is God present in these tragedies? Why didn’t He stop them?
Could He have stopped them? What is true happiness and how do I find
it? So I invite you to pay attention to those safety instructions. There is vital
information there for you!
The greatest thing you will learn in your lifetime – and it will take your
whole lifetime – is to learn how to love. To truly love – to love selflessly, to love
wisely. And we need Divine help to show us how. We need Divine truth and
revelation to show us.
From many years of trying I can
tell you it is tough! I still have so much
to learn, so much to practice, and so
much to change about myself. Part
of me wishes I was just like a dog or
some animal where I just could follow
my instincts – eat, sleep, catch some
Frisbees, be off the charts excited about
just about everything. Where I don’t
have to learn everything; it’s just built
in. If I make a mistake I will be told,
“Bad boy!” If I do the right thing I am
told, “Good boy, that’s a good boy!”
We are on a journey.
We are being led
somewhere. We may not
know exactly where it is,
but we need to trust that
the Lord is there and
He is with us on every
step of that journey.
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