A kite as a life lesson
Posted by Ben Rasmusen , Thursday, June 12, 2008 Thursday, June 12, 2008
"What's going on? What's new?" We've all been asked these questions or some variation of them, and our response is often "Nothing" or "Not much". I understand that a lot of times we're just responding out of habit and aren't really spending much time really thinking through our answer. But if you stop and ask yourself that question and really put some thought into it, does the answer change, or is there really nothing new going on in your life?
I often use a kite as an analogy for life. For a kite to fly it needs two things, wind pushing against it and an anchor. Without the wind constantly pushing against it, the kite won't fly. It's only through being under consistent stress from the wind that it's able to soar, and the harder the wind blows the higher it soars. The other side of that is the anchor; if it's not tied to anything it will float around aimlessly. If a kite is properly anchored and the wind is strong the kite will soar as high as the line will allow.
I think this is true for our lives. As I've spent time thinking about how God has called us as believers to live I don't see living a comfortable life as necessarily part of that plan. I believe a good indication of a problem is that we don't have anything pushing us, nothing new in our lives. I'm not saying that we should always be stressed out and in constant flux. There are certainly times in our lives where we need to recover and take some time to rest, but that should be the exception not the rule. In our lives we should constantly be looking for a challenge, looking for ways to grow, getting out of our confort zones and really pushing ourselves. When we don't have anything in the physical that we can depend on, all we have left is God. Our security, comfort and happiness should all emanate from God while we continue through the struggles in our lives. With God as our anchor and trusting that He won't allow the wind to blow beyond the abilities that He's given us to handle it, we can be excited that through that stress we are soaring higher and higher.
We've got something new coming up in our lives, and as with all change there are things that make us both excited and nervous. I don't expect our move to Hawaii to be easy (though it's certainly not the worst place to move to :)) especially not emotionally, but I'm excited to see how stepping out of our comfort zone is going to bring us closer as a family as well as closer to God. Moving away from the carefully crafted support system leaves us no choice but to rely on God and each other. I believe that Amber and I won't fully understand the impact of what we're doing until much later. I'm excited to look back in 3-5 years and see how this act of stepping out in faith has changed the landscape of our lives.
So ask yourself "What's new"? If the answer truly is nothing, then re-examine your life and see where God may be asking you to step out of your comfort zone and challenge yourself.
Image by Logan Williams
