I was having some “play” time in prayer with the Lord the other day and to my surprise, he showed up in my mind’s eye on a bike. He wanted to go bike riding with me. What? Why? Of all the things we could do, why would he choose bike riding? Then I got it. He was trying to show me something. He was reminding me of the freedom I enjoyed as a child when I rode a bike - like the wind blowing in my hair, exploring places just beyond my normal boundaries, getting away from everything and everybody when things became too overwhelming. He then invited me to jump a ramp. Whoa! Wait a minute! This was a whole different level of bike riding that I wasn’t so sure about. Remember those homemade contraptions? I do and I never once had the courage to jump one. I was perfectly content to have my feet planted on the ground.
Or was I?
Jesus said he would go first and he did – without incident mind you. He then motioned for me to go. I shook my head no. I was too afraid. I so wanted to feel the exhilaration of being off the ground, flying through the air without a care in the world, to experience something new, that appealed to me. It was the landing that put me off.
What if I wiped out? What if I got hurt? What if I failed?
The thoughts that were running through my head were suddenly replaced with another image. I began to see things as Christ saw them. I saw myself pedaling as fast as I could, bent down low toward the handlebars, with a fierce look of determination on my face and I was headed for that ramp. I went for it with all the gusto I could muster up. I hit the board with a “whomp” and was airborne. Oh, what joy! I was smiling and taking such pleasure in the experience that I temporarily forgot that what goes up must come down. Then it happened. The bike left me. It just flew off into the wild blue yonder and there I was flying through the air.
I thought to myself, “See, I told you this wasn’t going to turn out good!”
But it did. Standing on the other side of that ramp wasn't another board, it was Jesus. He had his arms held out and “whoosh,” that is where I landed. He was laughing, not at me, but for me. How do you laugh for someone? It is sort of like clapping or cheering except it is so deep and rich that it comes out as laughter. Musical, adoring, I could kiss your whole face, laughter!
At that moment, I caught the vision.
To gain freedom, and the inexpressible joys of it, sometimes you have to take risks.
Is it scary? Yes! Is it worth it? Yes!
Now granted, there have been times in my life where I felt like I took risks for the sake of freedom and the outcome was not as smooth as this vision. I did not land in the cushy arms of Jesus. Why? I believe one reason is that the sovereign God who created us gave us a free will and free will can be used for good or evil. There are times when we are airborne and someone comes out of nowhere exercising their free will, blindsides us and knocks us to the ground - hard. Sometimes, in exercising our own free will, we make tactical errors or use poor judgment and that gets us off course and we miss the target - can you say "crash and burn?" I can. Been there done that a few times. The fact of the matter is that neither of these scenarios changes the truth:
Jesus is still there. He is the constant factor that does not change.
If we land in His arms, he rejoices with us. If we land on our faces, no matter the cause, He picks us up, brushes us off, and tends to our injuries. In both cases, from my experience, He says,
“Go ahead, give it another try. I will be right here."
Now that's freedom!
