Theme: The art of not getting lost.
A story in the Los Angeles Herald dated June 21st, 1910, had the headline, “Human Fly falls 60 feet to death”. This “Fly,” Charles Miller, would crawl up the walls of skyscrapers by clinging to window ledges, putting his fingers in the little crevasses in the bricks, and pulling himself up. People were amazed at his ability because he could climb a sheer wall like a fly.
On the day of his demise, the 28-year-old Miller was scaling the multi-story Hamburger building in downtown Los Angeles. As the crowd watched with police holding them back, Miller moved upward floor by floor until he almost reached the roof.
He was standing on a ledge and needed to get up a little higher to reach the roof's top. It was reported that he must have seen a little protrusion sticking out from the building like a piece of stone and thought that if he could reach that protrusion, he would have the strength to pull himself up to the rooftop. As the crowd watched, they saw him struggling to get that protrusion. The problem was it was just beyond his grasp, right beyond his fingertips. So, he stood on his toes on that ledge, reached out, gave just a little jump, and grasped it with his hand. When he did, he fell from that building down to his death.
When they went over to his body and gathered around him, they opened his hand and found the crust of a spider's web. What this man thought was brick was nothing but a spider's web. The Human Fly’s end came about by a spider’s web of all things.
I am unsure of many things, especially those minus our Lord. However, I am sure that most people spend their lives grasping at things that seem rock solid but are no more than fragile webs that trap and cannot possibly support the weight of their expectations.
We, the crowds, gather daily around social media and twenty-four-hour news channels, watching as men and women seek after their 15 minutes of fame, grasping onto a few temporary anchors, climbing higher and higher until a slip of the foot or a hand grasping on a spider’s web brings them crashing to the ground. We stare at the crumbled souls, smashed lives, and disillusioned dreams and seldom wonder why.
Eventually, we who know Jesus as our Lord and Savior will be able to see the charade and that nothing in this world is solid or secure. We will see that solid and secure exist only in Jesus Christ, the Scriptures, and our surrender to that Rock.
When we do, we find our purpose to tell others where the safe paths are, talking fellow travelers off the ledges, and being guides to those who cannot yet see.
Then, we can fully grasp the Rock that we discover has been holding onto us all along and accept the truth of Jesus when He said, “The thief comes only to steal and kill and destroy; I have come that they may have life and have it to the full.” (John 10:10 NIV)
In the clips of Christopher Robin, along with Pastor Dan’s message that touched me deeply, we hopefully rediscovered what we need to anchor our lives in, and the joy that is so subtly, but completely lost, when we lose our way. Instead of seeking things, we need to seek that childlike love of life again, and the passion we once had long before we matured. And we know where we must seek that, and in whom we can find it. He has always been there, patiently waiting and never letting go.
As Morgan Freeman’s character said in ‘The Shawshank Redemption,’ “You can either get busy living or get busy dying.” We can also get busy showing others how to truly live.
Scripture: Ecclesiastes 2:10-11 (NIV)
“I denied myself nothing my eyes desired; I refused my heart no pleasure. My heart took delight in all my labor, and this was the reward for all my toil. Yet when I surveyed all that my hands had done and what I had toiled to achieve, everything was meaningless, a chasing after the wind; nothing was gained under the sun.”
Prayer:
Lord I am so grateful for the messages you send me in your Word and in the messages, I experience during worship. And Father, thank you that you never left me, patiently waiting for me to crawl back into your presence, leaving behind the illusion of life I thought was so real for a time. Lord, give me eyes to see the truth of life and to discern what is false. Please allow me to be free to be childlike in my love and relationships, vulnerable and true. Let me see the difference between maturity in you, and false maturity that keeps me from laughing loudly and loving boldly and outrageously. Oh my Lord, thank you for life abundantly, as I am smiling broadly just writing this. Amen!
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