Wednesday, February 20, 2013

Close To Danger, Far From Harm

Tim Harold





We crossed the abrupt drop-off at the beginning of the airstrip a few feet above the ground doing something like 65 mph.  For some reason, on this day, the thought flashed through my mind that if, in that critical second, we bumped the power back ever so slightly, we'd land short of the airstrip and strew expensive aluminum all over the place.

Most of the time I don't think about stuff like that.

But occasionally I have one of those hyper-aware moments when the reality of what you're doing snaps into uncomfortable focus...like the fact that you're taking a 5000 pound projectile freight-training along at 100 feet per second and attempting to slide it into a 100 foot box at the business end of a patch of ground carved out of no-nonsense jungle.  Successfully pull that off and you find that your real fun is only beginning...you now have to figure out how to corral the hurtling beast to a stop on a surface with the same consistency as the stuff coming out of a two-year-old's nose...and this needs to be done with some dispatch lest you exhaust the snotty--but mercifully treeless--surface, slide off the far end of the airstrip into the no-nonsense jungle...and strew expensive aluminum all over the place.

Draconian rules require that you keep your eyes open through the entire process.

Life's a bit like that too...except, you are allowed to close your eyes.  And most of us do, creating the warm illusion of a safe and secure world where danger resides far, far away...somewhere on a CNN homepage.

The reality is, that once sin broke this incredible, used-to-be-perfect place we live in, death and danger became our constant companions.  They are just a bump of the throttle away.

But what if... 

What if that which is most real, most valuable and most desirable to me is also totally secure and absolutely untouchable?  What if no one, no event, no circumstance, no illness...nothing can take away what is most important to me?

Ah, now danger still surrounds me, but harm?  

I'm far from harm.

No matter what happens.

Even if the throttle gets bumped.

For I am convinced
that neither death nor life,
neither angels nor demons,
neither height nor depth
nor anything else in all creation,
will be able to separate us 
from the love of God
that is in Christ Jesus our Lord.

2 comments:

Anonymous said...

Thanks, Mr. Gordon! How true. May God continue to use you in mighty ways and keep you in His everlasting arms.

about the long and winding road... said...

Your life begs the reality of this phrase... My 'normal' going to less dangerous job implicates the same...are we not all close to danger spiritually, mentally, emotionally because of the broken world we live in..but to be far from harm...that is our enviable hope.

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