Finding our Wings

"If we listened to our intellect, we'd never [love]. We'd never have a friendship. We'd never go into business, because we'd be too cynical. Well, that's nonsense. You've got to jump off cliffs all the time and build your wings on the way down." Annie Dillard quotes ThinkExist.com

I love this quote for it's inspiration and alignment with what God says. We can place anything in the [ ] above. God did not give us a spirit of fear - all fear comes from darkness. In place of fear God gave us power to accomplish anything we are called upon to do at His request. His expectations are courage and obedience. If He says to "stand down" and wait, we wait; if He says to jump we get a running start and jump. None of this is easy because we are wired to fear, wired to question, wired to respond based upon our experiences and not our goals.

My husband is extremely security oriented and had been with Duke Power Co. for twenty years. Bruce was extremely unhappy in his job and had been sending out resumes to no avail through a headhunter. All doors seemed to turn into brick walls. One day I had this revelation from God which showed a brick wall becoming a curtain of feathers. I immediately called my husband and told him that we were thinking in the wrong terms and felt we needed to consider opening a business. He had been toying with the idea also but faced it with great fear since this would place him in the middle of his biggest fear - one he had always tried avoiding. After much prayer my husband and I were being led by God to open a business which made us step way out of our comfort zone and jump off of the cliff. We had neither clients nor money but knew God was calling us to accomplish this.

Five years later God has continuously shown us his blessings on this business and leads us triumphantly through any fears, setbacks or frustrations from our leap of faith. I guess you can say that we have developed our baby wings and have faith that our wings will strengthen through His orchestration of our life.

I remember I used to climb a high diving board as a teenager with great hopes that I would finally jump. My courage climbing the ladder was quickly dashed when I got to the top and looked down and focused on the fall instead of the guaranteed catch. I would disgracefully turn around and climb back down the ladder. When God calls us to leap we fix our eyes upon Him and what He guarantees - not upon the freefall. Our logic and intellect will always be a barricade to our God ordained accomplishments.

Are you building your wings going down or do you turn around and climb back down that same old ladder?