Pulling Your String

Give us help for the hard task; human help is worthless. In God we’ll do our very best; he’ll flatten the opposition for good. (Psalm 60:11-12)

Winston Churchill reminded us, "Kites rise highest against the wind - not with it." No matter how we live, or where we live, or who we live with - opposition is all around us. The blood might move freely toward your toes, but it faces gravity as an opposing force in order to return to your heart. Your arteries have no valves - allowing free flow outward. They have valves on the 'return visit' through the veins because gravity would pull it all back down again if there weren't some 'chambers' to catch it and move it along with each heartbeat. If God made our bodies with the ability to 'face opposing forces', what makes us think he would make our spirits any differently?

We 'rise' because of opposition - we don't rise going in the same direction as the opposition. We might not think about it, but the force exerted 'against' us isn't really pushing us down as much as it is driving us upward. Hard tasks surround us each day - from the words we will have to choose to speak to the actions we will choose to NOT take. As much as we may try to 'rise above' the 'hard tasks' in our path, we might feel like there is nothing within us capable of risking above them. We are not far from the truth on that one - without God's help, all those opposing forces will eventually weigh us down and keep us from rising above them. Could it be that God needs us to understand the benefits of 'small pit stops' along the way, much like our blood returning to the heart has to make?

Maybe the key to overcoming and rising above isn't so much that we ask for help, but that we take small moments throughout the day to stop, ask, and listen. In that short 'spiritual pit stop' we might just find there is strength to rise, a pull toward doing what is right vs. what is wrong. Maybe God's hope is that we will call out more, listen more, and rely upon him just a little quicker each time we take a 'pit stop'. Our spirit is refreshed when we do, much like the wind catching that specific pitch of the kite's fabric at the very point where the resistance is the greatest, causing it to soar high. 

If you have ever flown a kite, you know there are times when it seems to dip, almost like it is going to crash to the earth. At that point, what keeps it up? A hard pull on the string! The kite faces the resistance once again and begins to resume the position of rising. The one holding the string has the greatest control over the kite. Perhaps we need God to give us a hard pull on the spiritual strings of our life in order for us to rise above the opposing forces once again! Just sayin!