you can still fly, part 2

Do you not know? Have you not heard?
The LORD is the everlasting God, the Creator of the ends of the earth.
He will not grow tired or weary, and his understanding no one can fathom.
He gives strength to the weary and increases the power of the weak.
Even youths grow tired and weary, and young men stumble and fall;
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. (Isaiah 40:29-31)

I was writing yesterday about the movie Hook in which Peter Pan grows up and forgets how to fly. His children are kidnapped by Captain Hook and he is forced to try to remember how to not only fly, but also to fight.

When he is in the village he sees his son hit a home run and then sees him go to Captain hook to be congratulated. He realizes he has to win his son, Jack, back. When he finds out that he has to do all this, he becomes very focused on doing it. He even gets to the point of hurting himself trying to fly. He cannot do it.

As he stands there in despair, the fly ball Jack hit comes down and hits him in the head. It is only then that he begins to remember how to be Peter Pan.

All of the trying in the world will not give him the ability to fly. It is only after he has an encounter with something from above that he remembers.

Not to be too metaphorical with a silly movie, but life in God is like that.

We remember when we were younger and things came so easily to us. The power of God seemed to come effortlessly. Then something happened and it stopped. And we want it back.

So we try. We read church growth books, and go to seminars and talk to people who have successful churches, and go to conventions and read on the web. But the harder we try, the further away it becomes.

I remember the first time I tried to do 100 pushups in the army. I got to the high 90’s and then the 100th pushup. The harder I pushed, the closer the floor got. I failed. It was just too hard.

The harder we push, the harder it gets. The harder we try to do the work of God, the more impossible it gets. It is like Romans 7, where the apostle Paul talks about trying to do the will of God in his life by himself. I do not understand what I do. For what I want to do I do not do, but what I hate I do. He finally ends with wretched man that I am. Who shall deliver me from the body of this death.

What will do it? He answers, for the law of the Spirit of Christ Jesus has set me free from the law of sin and death. (Romans 8:1)

It is death to try to do the will of God without God. You cannot do it.

You cannot fly with him. You cannot fight the good fight of faith without him. You cannot do anything except fail and get angry without him.

With him, however, you can fly. He will give you that strength to mount up with wings like eagles and fly. He and only he can make you fly.