I Believe I Can Fly

Note: This is a continuation of posts from my Advanced Preaching students at Kentucky Christian University.  I (and they) would appreciate some feedback.

Guest author: Trevor Vice (@KingdomWorkr121)

Have you ever wanted to fly? I remember growing up in classes and teachers would ask if there's one thing that you could do in the entire world what would it be? I remember that so clearly and so many times I remember so many of my friends replying with "I would love to be able to fly." Or if you could be one animal what would it be? And the answer I remember is a bird, because people are in love with the idea of being able to fly.

Just a couple days ago, I go to the church I work at as part-time youth pastor and I hear that our senior minister has had a stroke earlier that day. Some of the elders had a meeting with me after the service and discussed the full extent of the situation with me and ask that I would step in to fulfill his responsibilities at the church until further notice.

So I began to start preparing my sermon for the coming Sunday morning, I decide that I would pick up right where he left off, the 7th chapter of job. So I went to the lake where I tend to write all of my sermons and class lessons and I began to read through chapter 7 of Job. I became incredibly overwhelmed as I was not making any progress with the passage and I couldn't feel God leading me in any certain direction with the scripture. So I became overwhelmed wondering what should I preach, what is appropriate after what has happened, and I still reading through job trying to figure things out and all I'm getting is job's frustration with life. All I'm feeling is the chaos of my life right now. As I'm reading through the scripture and the pain and weight of everything is pressing down on my shoulders, this little speck in the sand of the beach keeps catching my eye. I ignore it in my frustration for a little while and then I couldn't any longer, so I bend down and begin to dust away some of the sand and I realize that it is this ring, that says Love. And in the midst of life and all the weight and frustrations of the world that are weighing down on me I stop for a moment, I realize that God still loves me, and that he just wants me to trust him and find my strength in him.

This takes me back years ago to the first time I saw Titanic. You see like Rose, we all would love to be able to fly, we would all love to soar through this life above the waters and the clouds.

Isaiah 40:28-31

28 Do you not know?

    Have you not heard?

The Lord is the everlasting God,

    the Creator of the ends of the earth.

He will not grow tired or weary,

    and his understanding no one can fathom.

29 He gives strength to the weary

    and increases the power of the weak.

30 Even youths grow tired and weary,

    and young men stumble and fall;

31 but those who hope in the Lord

   He will renew their strength.

They will soar on wings like eagles;

    they will run and not grow weary,

   they will walk and not be faint.