AUGUST 7-8 - Soaring with God

“Trust in the Lord with all your heart, and do not lean on your oown understanding. In all your ways acknowledge Him, and He will make your paths straight” - Proverbs 3:5-6

“The Lord is my strength and my shield: my heart trusts in Him, and I am helped: therefore my heart exults, and with my song I shall thank Him” - Psalm 28:7

It's impossible to pass through life without experiencing times when you can't see your way through a deep valley. Right now you may be faced with one of the hardest decisions of your life, a time when you may have to take a deep breath and make a giant leap of faith.

These thoughts went through my mind last evening as I watched a nature programme on TV. The scene was set around the Grand Canyon in America, and the life of the remaining Giant Condors. Regarded as one of the rarest birds in the world, the California condor (Gymnogyps californianus) is the largest land bird in North America with a wingspan up to 9 1/2 feet and weighing up to 23 pounds. Incredible creatures. Using thermal updrafts, adult condors can soar and glide at up to 50 miles per hour and travel 100 miles or more a day searching for food while expending little energy.

It was the condor chicks however, that caught my interest. Hatching from an egg after 56 days – an egg that is five inches in length, weighing in at 10 ounces, the chicks grow rapidly as both parents share responsibility for incubation and for feeding the nestling. At 5 to 6 months old young condors are ready to leave the nest. This was the point at which it struck me that the Giant Condor chick has something in common with us. Roosting in the clefts of high cliffs above the Grand Canyon, the day came for the chicks to make the leap of faith – flap their wings and launch out into the unknown – ride the thermals, or plunge to the valley floor (a mile and half below).

Did you know that, like the Giant Condor chick, we operate at your poorest when we are scared? A little fear is good when danger is present, but a lot of it is demoralising, taking away hopes and dreams First Peter 5:7 invites us to cast “all your anxiety on Him, because He cares for you.” He cares about our fears that are like heavy anchors dragging us down.

Moses had an anchor dragging him down. Running for his life, Pharaoh and his men were looking for him to kill him (Exodus 2:15). Then forty years later God told Moses to return to Egypt (Exodus 3-4). Needless to say Moses was reluctant but eventually agreed to go. It was only then that God told Moses the men who had sought to kill him were all dead – it was safe for him to return.

The experience of Moses demonstrates the truth of the before-and-after proverb (Proverbs 3:5-6). We have certain responsibilities that must be dealt with, by us, beforhand, so that afterward something might occur that is God's responsibility. We must make the leap of faith – jump off the cliff edge of the mountain, “Trust in the Lord with all your heart...” Rely on Him, let Him take the lead - be the thermals under our wings. Get rid of the crutches we normally depend on – don't lean on them, lean on God, “....acknowledge Him....” that is our part.

The “after” part? “He will make your paths straight....” (Proverbs 3:6). If we do our part, He will be there with us through all our fears, our scares, our disappointments, and failures. God takes care of the barriers when we take our hands off....and He often does it in the most surprising ways – ways that defy explanation, and at times appear illogical. That's God working. Things happen that seem to be totally contradictory, but these are God's arrangements. That's simply the way God works. He honours faith and obedience. And when we trust Him completely, we will have a secure confidence that we are walking in His will.

The Giant Condor chick flapped it's wings and leapt off the cliff edge. Catching the thermals it soared high into the air above the Colorado River – twisting, turning, rising and falling with every flap of it's wings. It had made that leap of faith, and now was soaring free.

“From Heaven's Point of View” - sung by Jessy Dixon is our music of faith today.