Once I watched kids playing with balloons at a birthday party. My littlest niece barely touched them, so they bounced lightly off her fingertips. Older kids alternated between gently batting to something resembling a volleyball spike!
Sometimes I need a picture for what I know to be true from the Bible, like my ultimate safety in Jesus. Ann Voskamp describes it as having a bridge fall out from under you and finding a net catches you. That’s Jesus. It’s hard to grasp that while it feels like the world is caving in, we will indeed sail on through and find ourselves safe when our God recreates our world.
So maybe I’m like a balloon. Sometimes I stay afloat on gentle fingertips and sometimes I feel like someone just spiked me. The big difference between me and a balloon is, there’s nothing in this world capable of popping me. Satan can’t pluck me out of my Father’s hand. My spirit may be bruised, but that just means I’ll cross into eternity looking like those week-old, forgotten balloons we find half-shriveled behind the couch. But I’ll be there.
Do you remember singing, “This little light of mine…I’m gonna let it shine.” The truth of this simple song rolls over me these days. God set me aglow and lives inside me and shines out. Darkness can’t even fight light. Have you ever seen darkness snuff out a candle? Or push back light? No. When the sun shows up, darkness fades away. Satan can’t blow it out.
We will sail on, Jesus will catch us, and we’ll shine until we live right next to God and our shining gets lost in His.
