Preposterously Impossible Hypothesis #10: “What goes up, must come down.”

When I was a boy I loved flying things. One of my favorite TV shows was Air-Wolf which was about a helicopter. I loved making all kinds of paper airplanes and remember one year for Christmas when my mom bought me a model rocket kit. I recall periodically climbing a high tree on our farm and tossing my latest paper airplane into the wind to see how far it would go. When it made it past the branches and got out into open air, it would just glide—seemingly forever, but eventually, every time, it would come back down. Our dear friend gravity has that affect on things in this world.

Regardless of how big, small, aerodynamic, or sophisticated a piece of technology is it will not keep you aloft. The device which would allow you to bypass the effects of gravity all together has yet to be invented. And so, in that sense, what goes up must come down. But is that all there is to this? What about your hope, expectations, faith, and dreams?

In the film ‘The Astronaut Farmer’, Billy Bob Thornton plays a farmer who dreams of building and launching his own rocket. He rallies his family behind him and together they set to work engineering the craft and learning what to do with it. I won’t go into all the details of the film here, but as soon as word gets out about what the farmer is up to he begins to face opposition.

Some of you have big dreams. Hopefully all of you have big faith. I have great hopes that all of you harbor grand expectations for your life and what God will do through you, for you, and in you. But what will you do with your goals and expectations when opposition comes? It will come.

Opposition, like gravity, is always there. The moment you have success someone will oppose you. The moment you allow yourself to dream bigger than your circumstance, someone will try to anchor you to reality. As you begin to feel caught up in the wonder of hopeful expectation some sour soul will shoot you down.

Now, depending on what your hope is in, how you attained it, and what you plan to do with; you may or may not be grounded by a little dose of opposition. Success comes in all shapes and sizes. It comes in a multitude of ways and brings along a smorgasbord of diverging results.

I like to climb the highest tree and toss my dreams into the wind, but it is not the wind that matters. It is neither the careful planning nor finely crafted bit of imagination I am willing to lose upon this world which would identify me. It is the tree that holds me up. It is the fact that I would go to something bigger than myself, allow myself to be caught up in it, and reach for the highest heights it has to offer.

God can be like that for each and every one us. We need only begin to take hold of a branch and climb one step at a time. He offers assurance and He brings steadfastness. He is the only thing which will not be thwarted by opposition, of—or beyond this natural realm. What better place to dream, and dare to loose them on this world, than from the boughs of the very one who authored, and finished our faith. I’m glad this dreamer has found his place with the Father. Have you found yours?