Whee!

The younger me loved a good roller coaster ride – did you ever ride with your hands in the air?  Whee!  Only a few times in 45+ years have I been able to persuade Mr. Bill to get on a roller coaster.  Not once did he turn loose of the grab-bar; he held on so tight, his knuckles turned white!  He didn’t yell, “whee” either!

 

We humans tend to be a’lookin’ people.  Mr. Bill and I are routinely looking for something – usually it’s reading glasses, but more and more often it seems to be things we have laid aside momentarily … only to be looking for them later.  It's human nature to look around or [worse yet] to look behind us.  Paul writes of a forward mind-set, “… one thing I do, forgetting those things which are behind and reaching forward to those things which are ahead, I press toward the goal for the prize of the upward call of God in Christ Jesus.” (Philippians 3:13-14).  He doesn't write about what he did or will do, but in the present tense ... what I do.  It's not uncommon to have in focus a goal yet have it elude our grasp time and time again. Ella and I were playing with a grabber recently: repeatedly, I moved the grabber with jaws flexing towards her, and she ran away squealing. How is it possible to actually grab hold to the Hope we have in Christ Jesus, and wean ourselves from ever reaching for who-knows-what? Philippians 3:12 says, "... I press on to make it my own, because Christ Jesus has made me His own."  As Sandi Patti sings it, "And taking hold of Hope, I have discovered that What I took has taken hold of me."  In the looking toward Christ, we find something amazing -- we are actually in His Grip.  No longer are we hanging on to Him, but He has secured us in Himself!  Mr. Bill and I are learning it's best to never lay an item down until we're finished with it or we risk never finding it again!  Mr. Bill would have been terrified [even more] if he hadn’t had the grab-bar to hang on to – LOL!  Believer, stop looking for something to hang on to, and simply rest in knowing Christ knows you and holds you firmly.  Whee!