Learning to Fly
I'm sad.
It is officially the final season of one of my all-time favorite shows. Clark Kent and Lois Lane will be leaving "Smallville" for good. Of course I went through this same emotional roller coaster last year when "24" ended and its protagonist Jack Bauer saved the world for the last time. I thought, "What will we do now?" But I was comforted by the notion that somewhere in the celluloid digital realms Superman was still on the scene.
Until I heard the news, after ten successful years - the show was OVER.
Next year will be a world without "heroes." It seems vampires and werewolves have taken their place.
On this, the final season of my super hero, he may actually come to be known as Superman (currently the Daily Globe in Metropolis refers to him by the moniker "The Blur"). And he might even learn to fly!
"For I know the plans I have for you, plans to prosper you and not to harm you. Plans to give you a future and a hope." Jeremiah 29:11
Today I fly.
Not on my own - mind you, but under the wings of yet another Lufthansa aircraft. And the verse in Jeremiah, I carry it with me. God not only knows the plans He has for me in India, He knows the plans He has for all the people I will meet: the widows, the orphans, the lepers, the untouchables, the "no-caste" beggars. We are the small part of His plan to give them the hope of the Living God, the Truth, the Light, and THE Way.
"I'm ready to fulfill my destiny."
Clark Kent, looks off into a distant horizon as he shares thoughts on a future bigger than he can imagine; a DESTINY! On last week's episode, a man from the future is trying to teach him to let go of his past mistakes (sounds a bit like biblical Paul), and to see what is right in front of him. Only then will he discover his ability to fly. In one of the closing scenes he is reminded of this when he embraces Lois Lane, who he loves - low and behold he lifts off the ground!
Forgive me if you think my penchant for heroes is childish, but remember I live in a world, where by the worlds standards, heroes are not only absent, so is God.
"Faith is the belief in things hoped for, as yet unseen. And without faith it is impossible to please God."
I am ready to fulfill MY destiny!
I am following the advice of Paul by "forgetting things past, I press on to the upward high calling of God in Christ Jesus." God is not absent from the places I go. He is present and waiting to reveal Himself to those who are listening. I have never seen more beauty, than while holding the disfigured hand of a man with leprosy and tying on a Gospel bracelet while telling him how valuable he was to the Creator.
I have never received so great a gift as when an orphan girl (who was having a birthday) ran back inside to share a piece of candy with me. This precious child (at 6)had seen her mother murder her baby brother and realizing she was next ran to the train station to find safety.
Jesus found her a loving home at Jane's House orphanage. Her smile that day was evidence He is faithful to help us to press on for the upward high calling.
The people of India we will be working with next week all need to hear and know and believe, there is a plan for them; a future and a hope for them. Their caste cannot stop it, their lack cannot, their poverty and disease cannot, the 330 MILLION opposing gods cannot.
God's promise!
"Look, up in the sky, it's a bird, it's a plane, no it's....."
Lufthansa flight 439.
But I hear there is a clown on board!
Flying high with a smile
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