Human Flight

There is a trail by my house that I like to escape to for a good long run as often as I can. It is so close to the strange Baltimore suburbs, and yet covered by a canopy of trees and a path in the sky of bright blue, that makes you feel like there is no way a main road is less than a mile away. This place is for me an unwavering sanctuary. Small overlooks towards the water, a tiny bridge overhead just passed the 2 mile marker. Covered with ice in the winter, mud in the spring, dust in the summer and well... I'm rarely there in the fall, it is always a sweet escape, relentlessly offering a time sequestered away.

Yesterday, I was running and at one point picked up my pace and let my feet come higher off of the ground. For just a second I had the feeling that you get when you are in a dream, and you realize you are in the dream, so you run really fast and then try and take off into flight. I chuckled at how identical the feeling was. Embarrassingly, I ran faster again trying to get that feeling back. I thought to myself "Jessy- run as if you could really fly, like your dreaming" and .....Thank HEAVEN no one was around because I may have looked like sonic the hedge hog (oh, don't pretend like you don't remember sega genesis!) as I tried to run to "lift off" speed.

Suddenly it occurred to me. I was running way better and faster when I thought that maybe I could fly (or at least pretended to think that). My run was better because I had a hope for something higher. It's silly of course to think I would have truly lifted off the ground...but fighting for it, made me run differently. Suddenly I thought of all of the heroes of the faith. They lived like they believed that God would do what He said they would do, and they lived better lives because of it. The crazy part is that they died before He did. He did indeed fulfill His promise. But what if they had lived their life as if He wouldn't. Because, in their human perspective, in the span of their consciousness, He didn't keep His word... But He did keep is word. So they lived according to truth, and because they kept their eyes on this they lived a life more pleasing to God, and a life more in line with the truth than if they had done anything different.
Thinking I am going to be able to fly for no reason, is not the most substantial belief to live by. However, not all the things we can believe in are that ridiculous, and they are literally spelled out in the Bible. Like healing, salvation, Heaven...

If I run like flight is possible, I run better, faster, more efficiently. Maybe if I lived like healing was possible I would be more joyful in the meantime. Maybe if I lived like my dreams and ideas were possible, I would work harder at what I have been given now. Salvation and joy for those I love. And Heaven... what of that reality?! Maybe if I lived like _______ was possible, and that God actually kept His promises (which is, in fact, the truth) maybe I would just live differently...

All the heroes of the faith
lived like God would do what He said
They died before He did
They died before He did

All the heroes of the faith
lived like
He kept His promises
He kept His promises

Maybe if I
ran like I could
Fly
I'd run faster
Maybe if I
ran like I could
fly