Pebbles on the Pathway

Have you watched the birds, and the soaring eagles, and sometimes thought, "How wonderful to be able to soar above the grime and slime and weariness of this old world, and see life from a different perspective."

A good friend gave me lessons years ago, and I finally did the big "solo" thing. "I could fly!...but I couldn't afford financially to continue, so I haven't done much since."

John Gillespie Magee, Jr. in "High Flight" said it so well:

"Oh, I have slipped the surly bonds of earth

And danced the skies on laughter_silvered wings;

Sun-ward I've climbed, and joined the tumbling mirth

Of sun_split clouds__and done a hundred things

You have not dreamed of__wheeled and soared and

swung...

High in the sunlit silence. Hov'ring there,

I've chased the shouting wind along, and flung

My eager craft through footless halls of air.

Up, up the long, delirious, burning blue

I've topped the windswept heights with easy grace

Where never lark, or even eagle flew.

And while with silent, lifting mind I've trod

The high un-trespassed sanctity of space,

Put out my hand, and touched the face of God."

I'm not an angel, and I would like to "touch the face of God", but my Bible tells me that I was made "just a bit lower than the angels". I may not have wings yet, but the potential is there.

This world is my home, and yet it is not my only home, for there is another dimension to this flat existence. A lot of my life is lived with my nose to the grindstone, and that's where it has to be much of the time. Nobody promised me a rose garden. But one of these days, I'm goin' to fly!

And Sunday after Sunday, I practice the process...of loving, and giving, and forgiving, and caring, and lifting my eyes to Him who can deliver me from this bondage of death, until with Jesus, I can fly.

Our Faith has regular "Fly_ins". Our Lord invites you and me to take the ground course, and "lift_off" is possible, whenever we need Him, and whenever we cry out in desperation.

Come fly with the Lord Jesus. Here is the only air_line that can give you an eternal guarantee.

STARTING A NEW HUMANITY

Someone has given us an interesting illustration: What if a musician in an orchestra would strike a sour note? It was not the fault of the conductor. He was competent. The music was not at fault, for it was correct. But a discord was introduced and there was no way to correct the situation.

That false note was now traveling at the speed of sound into space at over a thousand feet per second. As long as time would endure, that sour note would carry on.

Is there no way to correct it, and restore harmony? Would there be some way to stop it on its way...but still it would be a false one. Only one answer can be given. Someone from eternity could take that false note, and make it the first note of a new melody. And that, the author says, is precisely what Jesus Christ has done. The false note was struck at the fall of Adam and Eve. This sour note has gone down all through human history, and has infected the world.

But in the annunciation, God asked a woman to give Him a human nature, so that He could start a new humanity. And Jesus was born. As the first Adam brought death, so the second Adam (Jesus Christ) is the beginning of that new melody of life. And the great new music of Christ’s Kingdom has begun.

Sometimes, we inject the false note. Sometimes we send the music of discord into our homes and families. Sometimes we are the very instrument of the evil one to disrupt and spoil life’s symphonies.

But the Savior of the universe, takes the dissonances of our lives, the bad "vibes" of our sinfulness upon his own shoulder, and blends his marvelous vibrations into the great symphony of life.

I shudder to think of the many sour notes I have sent out into my world. But I thank God that there is One who can reach out and stop that terrible vibration, and transform it into an anthem of love. Very simply, that is what salvation is all about.