Pilot

Oh, goodness. I’M STARTING A BLOG. I guess I could assume you know that since you’re reading it at the moment. For an embarrassingly long time, though, I fought it. Despite a deep yearning to figure my heart and mind out as my fingers release truth (or nonsense that quickly succumbs to my well-worn delete key) onto a blank screen or napkin or legal pad, and despite encouragers cheering me on for years, fear held me back. It whispered, “Sure, you could write, but are you really that narcissistic? Nobody cares about what you think. Get over yourself.”

(Note: this is not a comment on any other blogger; I just have a natural tendency to talk to myself in ways I would never consider talking to others. For some reason, lies seem less like lies when they’re about me.) And sometimes fear would win. But sometimes another voice would whisper back, “But this is how God wired you! What if you could help even one person through what you have to say? Isn’t that worth the risk?” And if you were to think about the whole angel on one shoulder and demon on the other shoulder concept, I’d be getting whiplash from the long and draining debates. Eventually, I’d quiet them both and save it for another day. For years now.

The truth is this: if you have loved the sky since you can remember, and being in planes thrills you down to your toes, and you can’t shake the dream of being in your own cockpit, God may not be intending for you to be, say, a chef. Why do we run from what makes us alive? Is it the thought that experiencing that much fulfillment outside of a church building or our Bible study time seems worldly? Do we imagine Jesus frowns on our fun, hesitant to let us too far away from “holy” things? After all, if we have 1% more enjoyment flying into the sunset than we do singing hymns, won’t that mean that God doesn’t have our hearts anymore? That we are wandering away from intimacy with Him?

But what if?

What if He created you with the urge to soar among the clouds because He wants to be there with you, pointing out the curves and airstreams and stars that He made? What if being in the cockpit is how He meant for you to worship Him to the core of who you really are—away from the expectations and pressures and masks and fears of the world? What if being a pilot is the holiest thing you could do if that’s what He intended you to be? In fact, if being a pilot is the holiest thing you could do, how could you be anything else? You don’t have to keep trying to evade that life-giving dream (assuming it’s not sin or personally irresponsible) you’ve hidden from since you were eight. Let it out; give it space and see what God does. He doesn’t hoard fun from us like a divine Scrooge. Good grief—God invented fun! If you want to fly, fly. If you want to sing, sing. And if you want to blog, then, honey, put on your sassy pants and make it happen.