Rising Above!
As you can see, I recently got an opportunity to go for a hot air balloon ride. It was really fun. But it was also surprising.
My expectation was for a few solid hours of casually flying very, very high above the desert terrain with no regard for anything. Not direction or regulations or any of the other practical realities of ballooning. Had we followed this plan to only fly high and fast, who knows where we would have landed or possibly crashed! 
Fortunately our balloonist diligently prepared and tediously completed the many tasks of ballooning to give us a safe and enjoyable flight.
Recently while reading through the Bible, I read portions listing other tedious tasks and details listed in the books of Leviticus and Deuteronomy. Wow! Not only are there details. There are layers and layers and layers of them often addressing topics I don’t even understand.
Similarly, even though flying a balloon seems simple, the reality is, there are many tedious details. Balloons do not auto-pilot themselves and then self land. There are many steps based on careful attention to observation while simultaneously metering correct responses. I was surprised at how detailed and tedious the task of flying was, but our pilot was well prepared and appeared to enjoy it. He made it look fun.
So why, all of the lists of details in the bible? How do we benefit from understanding these ancient dictates, principles and values in the context of today? What do these ancient texts have to do with our modern lives? And how can they provide direction when our lives seem so different?
Answer: By empowering us to truly accept our present reality! In the same way that a balloonist is empowered to control his craft, when he observes and understands the dynamics of the changing wind currents and temperatures in the sea of air around him.
Empowerment is to become aware enough to competently deal with what is happening NOW in the context of the BIG PICTURE. It needs to happen on a moment by moment basis, and it is hindered by our preoccupations with illusions of control. In reality, we actually control very little. These illusions cause is to ignore our real priorities of spiritual growth and seek relief from minor discomforts like boredom. Illusions cause us to exchange seeking Gods Kingdom with the vain glory of controlling stuff.
The chasm between empowerment and our illusions of control is huge.
Although we have been created in the image of God, and may have even submitted to His Lordship to be empowered by Him to accomplish all that He has planned for us. We are not, “in control.” He is.
When we first boarded the balloon, my wife asked, “How do you control where the balloon will go?” Not liking his answers, she rephrased her question several more times before she realized that even though we were totally, “at the mercy of the wind,” and would only be able to go where the air currents would take us, the balloonist’s knowledge and experience with the air currents and his diligence with his craft gave him a valid confidence in his ability to have a safe and purposeful flight.
What he didn’t say was that he had no actual control over how the wind would direct our flight whatsoever. Although dynamic, the wind moves in mostly predictable patterns. A balloonist is wise to accept and appreciates this. He is also required to be very attentive to what he sees and to frequently bend his will to match the sea of air that directs him. It is his ability to understand and cooperate with these realities that empowers him to succeed.
Understanding this difference between vain imagining and reality is the key to benefiting from the writing of the text in these ancient books. Although we are not presently walking through a desert receiving a daily miraculous provision of food from God, or needing instructions in how to carry out a theocratic form of martial law, we are still dependent on this same God.
King David wrote about the difficulties we may create when our expectations do not match the realities of life around us.
In Psalm 78: 17-24 He wrote about the amazing good fortune provided by God to His people and their unwillingness to come closer and to be empowered by it. They were caught in the trap of rejecting anything out of their control, including the God that saved them.
“But they sinned even more against Him By rebelling against the Most High in the wilderness. And they tested God in their heart by asking for the food of their fancy. Yes, they ‘spoke against God: They said, Can God prepare a table in the wilderness? Behold He struck the rock, so that waters gushed out, Can he give bread also? Can He provide meat for His people?
Therefore, when the Lord heard, he was full of wrath; a fire was kindled against Jacob; His anger rose against Israel, because they did not believe in God and did not trust in His saving power. Yet he commanded the skies above and opened the doors of heaven, and He rained down on them manna to eat and gave them the grain of heaven.”
But the wind is impersonal and our God is not.
There is also a big difference between being, “at the mercy of ,” any overwhelming power source and being “empowered by it.” Empowerment is a form of, directive control.
This difference is greatly multiplied when the source of the empowerment comes through a relationship. The dynamic of this benefit is often multiplied to multiple generations and even cultures when it is relational. Consider the case of a father empowering a son or daughter to start a business, or a king commanding an army to come to the rescue of a city. Or of God bringing forth a nation through His promise made to their forefathers.
But why all the details in the bible?
It is very common to feel bogged down and discouraged when we face seemingly endless details. We may dread, and seek to avoid them. We may discount their importance and ignore them, or see them as too tedious and give up. We can become frustrated, especially when we don’t understand or feel there is a reason behind them. We may feel that they don’t relate to any of our interests, plans or goals and resent how they consume our days. Left to ourselves, unaided by an awareness of the bigger picture, we can easily become angry and resentful and reject this God that robs us of our time and our sense of control.
Saul, renamed Paul, the student of Rabbi Gamaliel wrote, “For I do not want you to be ignorant of the fact brothers and sisters, that our ancestors were all under the cloud and that they all passed through the Red Sea. They were all baptized into Moses in the cloud and in the sea. They all ate the same spiritual food and drank the same spiritual drink; for they drank from the spiritual rock that accompanied them, and that rock was Christ. Nevertheless, God was not pleased with most of them; their bodies were scattered in the wilderness. Now these things occurred as examples to keep us from setting our hearts on evil things as they did. Do not be idolaters, as some of them were; as it is written: “The people sat down to drink and got up to indulge in revelry.” We should not commit sexual immorality, as some of them did and in one day twenty-three thousand of them died. We should not test Christ, as some of them did and were bitten by snakes. And do not grumble, as some of them did and were killed by the destroying angel. These things happened to them as examples and were written down as warnings for us on whom the end of the age is come.
The balloonist’s careful attention to the dynamics of the changing wind currents and temperature at different altitudes helped him direct his craft to its planned destination. In like manner, May we also become truly attentive to study and appreciate the processes that were used to demonstrate honor and order, respect and loving kindness, mercy and power and majesty in honor of our great and awesome God! And may we become empowered to both see and understand and do His will here on earth even as it is done in heaven.
“But they sinned even more against Him By rebelling against the Most High in the wilderness. And they tested God in their heart by asking for the food of their fancy. Yes, they ‘spoke against God: They said, Can God prepare a table in the wilderness? Behold He struck the rock, so that waters gushed out, Can he give bread also? Can He provide meat for His people?
Therefore, when the Lord heard, he was full of wrath; a fire was kindled against Jacob; His anger rose against Israel, because they did not believe in God and did not trust in His saving power. Yet he commanded the skies above and opened the doors of heaven, and He rained down on them manna to eat and gave them the grain of heaven.”
But the wind is impersonal and our God is not.
There is also a big difference between being, “at the mercy of ,” any overwhelming power source and being “empowered by it.” Empowerment is a form of, directive control.
This difference is greatly multiplied when the source of the empowerment comes through a relationship. The dynamic of this benefit is often multiplied to multiple generations and even cultures when it is relational. Consider the case of a father empowering a son or daughter to start a business, or a king commanding an army to come to the rescue of a city. Or of God bringing forth a nation through His promise made to their forefathers.
But why all the details in the bible?
It is very common to feel bogged down and discouraged when we face seemingly endless details. We may dread, and seek to avoid them. We may discount their importance and ignore them, or see them as too tedious and give up. We can become frustrated, especially when we don’t understand or feel there is a reason behind them. We may feel that they don’t relate to any of our interests, plans or goals and resent how they consume our days. Left to ourselves, unaided by an awareness of the bigger picture, we can easily become angry and resentful and reject this God that robs us of our time and our sense of control.
Saul, renamed Paul, the student of Rabbi Gamaliel wrote, “For I do not want you to be ignorant of the fact brothers and sisters, that our ancestors were all under the cloud and that they all passed through the Red Sea. They were all baptized into Moses in the cloud and in the sea. They all ate the same spiritual food and drank the same spiritual drink; for they drank from the spiritual rock that accompanied them, and that rock was Christ. Nevertheless, God was not pleased with most of them; their bodies were scattered in the wilderness. Now these things occurred as examples to keep us from setting our hearts on evil things as they did. Do not be idolaters, as some of them were; as it is written: “The people sat down to drink and got up to indulge in revelry.” We should not commit sexual immorality, as some of them did and in one day twenty-three thousand of them died. We should not test Christ, as some of them did and were bitten by snakes. And do not grumble, as some of them did and were killed by the destroying angel. These things happened to them as examples and were written down as warnings for us on whom the end of the age is come.
The balloonist’s careful attention to the dynamics of the changing wind currents and temperature at different altitudes helped him direct his craft to its planned destination. In like manner, May we also become truly attentive to study and appreciate the processes that were used to demonstrate honor and order, respect and loving kindness, mercy and power and majesty in honor of our great and awesome God! And may we become empowered to both see and understand and do His will here on earth even as it is done in heaven.
Below is the hot air balloon ride we took!
The following playlist is from the Church we attended in Arizona, a series of sermons on the Prophet Daniel. I found it very informative and very sobering. I would title it, "Even when it looks like God has left us... God is in full control. Hear it at;
