Full Speed Ahead in 2016

Sometimes I wonder how it would feel to fly.

I have come close.  With the right music blaring through my speakers and nothing but open road before me, I occasionally look down at my car’s dashboard and realize that I’m driving much faster than intended.  Yet even when I am approaching my most reckless speeds, I have not even scratched the surface of the vehicle’s capabilities.

According to my car’s speedometer, it has the capacity to drive at 180 miles per hour.  However, while its manufacturers equipped it with the necessary tools to reach that speed, government speed limits and a healthy fear of wrapping my car around a tree prevent me from taking it up on its offer to push it to the limit.

I recently wondered what it would be like to throw caution to the wind, though.  How would it feel to float down a stretch of the Autobahn with no speed limit and no fears, no restrictions from external or internal forces?  How fast would I go?  Would I push the needle all the way to 180 or decide 150 was enough of a roller coaster ride?  What’s the adrenaline rush like when you come that close to flying?  How does it feel to allow a car to be all that it can be?

I don’t just wonder about vehicles.  I also wonder about human beings, persons made in the image of an all-powerful, all-knowing God for whom nothing is impossible.  Psalm 139 (NIV) reminds me that God “created [our] inmost being” and “knit [us] together in [our] mother’s womb.”  So I wonder what we are capable of, the maximum speed that God has marked on our spiritual and physical speedometers.  I wonder whether we’re attuned well enough to His will to recognize the moments and places in life in which all restrictions have been lifted.  I wonder just how fast we could go if not for the external and internal limits placed on us.

As we begin a new year, I have some heart-to-hearts with my Manufacturer on my agenda.  I would like to know what He had in mind when He designed me.  I want to discover how fast and how far I can go.  How much wisdom can I obtain, how clearly and often can I hear the voice of God, how deeply can I love, how much passion can I pack into my writing, how much of myself can I give to others, how much joy can I spread to the world, how much change can I produce through my prayers, how long and boisterously can I laugh?

If God allowed us to see our internal speedometers, how many of us would realize that we have barely scratched the surface of who we could be?  As I’m rolling down the roads of life, if there are any stops, stalls or moments when traffic comes to a crawl, I don’t want my lack of knowledge or faltering courage to be to blame.  I want to be prepared for any opportunities 2016 will present for me to take the limits off and push full speed ahead.  I want to embark on the ride of a lifetime.  I want to have enough nerve to risk the fall, just to know how it feels to fly.

Photo courtesy of Isaac Jenks, Unsplash.