LEAven Blog

I was on an airplane last week. Takeoff went as usual. The plane gained speed. The engines got louder. The body of the plane shook, and we felt the big bird ascend from the ground. I looked out the window and watched the ground gradually, steadily get farther away. For those of us who have flown before, this is a familiar sequence. However, on that plane, about seven or eight rows ahead of me, was a boy, probably seven or eight years old. As the plane lumbered up off the asphalt into the sky, the young man shouted in an excited voice, “We’re flying!” Most of the passengers, including myself, chuckled at our young traveler’s enthusiasm! It got me to thinking about a couple of things I’d like to share with you.

Trust and joy go together. The young man on the plane wasn’t worried about who had built the plane or the qualifications of the pilot or whether his family would be flying if it wasn’t safe. He trusted that those who built and flew the plane knew what they were doing, and that mom and dad had made a wise choice by flying that day. This trust allowed him to enjoy the experience and brought out the joy in him. We trust our heavenly Father in many ways. Because that trust is well placed, we can respond to life with joy. We can open ourselves to new endeavors and approach them with the joyous desire to be a witness to God’s mercy and love.

 The young man on the plane didn’t say, “I’m flying!” He said, “We’re flying!” Takeoff was such a wonderful experience that he wanted to share it with everybody! “We’re in this together; isn’t that GREAT?” Our experience with God is great too. It is so great, in fact, that we simply must share it with others! Our Lord Jesus came to Earth and lived, died, and rose to save us from our sin. Jesus did what He did because the heavenly Father loved us and wanted us to be with Him forever. That’s exciting news! It’s news that we want to proclaim so that others will have the same eternal hope and destiny that we have in Jesus. “We’re the redeemed children of God!” we proclaim with our lips and our lives. We proclaim it so others will know and be a part of this glorious eternal experience with us.

We praise our great God that He has brought us into His eternal family. How immense our joy is! It is a joy that overflows our hearts and falls from our lips. It is a joy that is built on our trust in our eternal, loving God. He has claimed us. He has redeemed us. He fills us with such joy.