TAKING FLIGHT

I did it again. I let my weakness define me. It's easy to stumble. We all do. The thing that determines if we learn to fly or not, is whether we get back up and try again. Love is teaching me not to let the tumbles define me, but to let the cross. It is not to dismiss or to deny my failures, rather it is not to allow them to define me. When I fail, I feel lessened or lowered. I may try to defend myself with my last breath, but hidden in the recesses of my being, I'm trying to convince you as much as myself that I'm not a failure...I'm not as hopeless as I may appear. I defend myself as a way of elevating myself back to the place from where I fell. Truth is, if I am IN Christ, then I am seated in the heavenlies. You can't get any higher than that. If that is true, then for me to be lowered or lessened, Christ would  have to be as well, and that simply isn't going to happen.

I may fail in my experience, but positionally I am seated in Christ at the right hand of the Father. I am seated, not running around hiding in fear or pretense from my weaknesses, but at rest in His righteousness and not my own. When God sees me, He sees me through the righteousness of His Son. He sees my failures but He never stumbles there. He sees who I'm becoming, for He sees the end from the beginning.

His love is portrayed through a mother of a 10 month old child, whose learning to take her first steps. It seems she may be falling more than stepping. Not once does that mother let fear overtake her and give up hopes for her daughter. Nor does she get so disappointed with the thought that her little one will never get it right! For she knows with time these failures will only be a memory and her little one will not only walk but will learn to run like the wind. It is true that this little one in experience will fall and bruise, but what kind of mother would refuse her little one the opportunity to learn and to grow? What kind of mother refuses to let her little one learn how to run and fly like the wind? A good mother knows that bruises are temporal but learning to fly is eternal. So true Love kisses the bruises and gently lets go of the tiny hand as she gives way to flight. Her destiny has always been to fly-not to remain in the falling.

We will fall. We will give in to temptations. We will bruise. We will have to learn to walk through sins consequences, whether ours or those of others...but He never grows weary or fearful with our tumbles, for He knows we are learning to fly! This MUST be the way we view ourselves, not though our experiences, our ups and downs, our own righteousness, but through His righteousness...which is our position if we know Him. For we are seated with Him in the heavenlies, our spirits haven taken flight, and there bruises are only memories!