Swinging Into the Air
“But he giveth more grace. Wherefore he saith, God resisteth the proud, but giveth grace unto the humble. Submit yourselves therefore to God. Resist the devil, and he will flee from you. Draw nigh to God, and he will draw nigh to you…” James 4:6-8
As I hurried through a store parking lot to my car one day after grabbing a few items for a contractor graciously donating his time to help me with something, I saw the most remarkable sight. A man was swinging a woman up into the air until her legs swung back onto either side of the front of his body just like a child in its daddy’s arms so he could then lift her totally limp body into a wheelchair. I live in an area with tons of retired people, so seeing wheelchairs and people helping people into and out of them is commonplace. But these people were relatively young, and this was the most unusual way of helping someone into a wheelchair I had ever seen. What struck me was three-fold. First, the phenomenal strength this man had given how hard it is to even help a limp body directly into a wheelchair from a sitting position. He had swung her clear up into the air like a prize weight lifter. Second, she clearly had 100% faith he would get her to where she needed to go. Third, the way they worked together seemed synchronized, so right, and so seamlessly natural that it appeared they had total love for and trust in one another, total focus on each other, total confidence in one another, and an intimacy that nobody, not myself, nor the couple standing with them, nor anybody else could break into the middle of, disturb, distract them from, or draw them away from.
Throughout the day, I thought back to this couple, sensing the Spirit of God wanted to show me something. That night, He did. Isn’t this the relationship God wants us to have with Him? Love. Trust. Confidence. Focus. Fellowship. Intimacy. Synchronized. Seamlessly natural. Not distracted by anything or anyone. Him swinging us up into His arms and leading us to where He wants us to go. Total dependence on Him. Limp in His arms because in our weakness He is our strength. Jesus died on the cross to pay the punishment for our sins so we could repent of our sins, believe in Him, turn our lives over to God and enter into a relationship with Him we couldn’t otherwise have because of His holiness and our sins – a relationship in which God wants to swing us up into His arms forever.
How tragic it is we spend so much of our lives resisting God instead of being limp, humbly yielding entirely to Him, surrendering all we are as broken sinners so He can swing us up into the air, and one day when our lives are over, into the heavens with Him forevermore. Intellectually believing in Christ is not enough. God wants us to submit our hearts and lives to Him – for eternity.
Have you? Are you? Will you?