I’d guess that I was probably 8 or 9 years old when I got my first kite. It was an orange diamond-shaped kite that had a blue dinosaur on it. I didn’t really know how to use it, but I had seen kites in cartoons and seen something about Benjamin Franklin flying one in a thunderstorm or something, so I knew what kites were supposed to do. I just didn’t know how to launch one.
There was another kid in the neighborhood, I’ll call him Billy. He was a little older than me, so he had a little better idea of what needed to happen. One breezy day we went to a nearby area that didn’t have many trees, and he was able to get the kite aloft.
Once it was up in the air he kept letting out more and more string, and the kite went higher and higher. It caught more wind, and its tails fluttered in the breeze. Every now and then it would start to dive, but giving a tug on the string helped turn it back skyward.
Eventually it got so high I wondered how much higher it could possibly go. The string that came with the kite was on a roll, like a smaller, sturdier version of the cardboard at the center of a roll of toilet paper. It turns out Billy let out almost all the string; with so little left, it came unraveled and the last of it slipped off the roll. My kite blew away.
I figured that was the end of that. I was pretty bummed that my kite was gone. Billy said he was going to go look for it, but I wasn’t real hopeful. After seeing the way that thing had danced around the sky, it seemed the wind may as well have carried it to the next state. Sure enough though, he tracked it down, wound up all the string, and brought it back to me.
Kites, as it turns out, soar when they’re securely tethered to the ground and fighting against the wind. A kite’s shape is designed to lift it higher when it meets resistance. Once that anchor is lost or there’s suddenly a lot of slack in the line, it has no way to resist the wind and loses its ability to create lift, then falls lifelessly to the ground.
To all you Christ-followers out there: you live in a dangerous time. The free ride is over. America was founded as a nation that embraced Christianity, but those days are gone. People that dislike Christianity are more proficient at attacking it than Christians are at defending it. Although Christianity might represent the biggest slice of the nation’s remaining religious demographic, that slice’s voice is drowned out by culture, influencers, and other messages that run counter to it. To be a Christian and take a stand for the principles Christ taught, you have to, without doubt, stand against the wind.
You can choose to keep a low profile if you want. Keeping with the kite metaphor you can stay low, not letting a lot of string out and thus not getting high enough to really let a lot of people see you taking a stand. If you start taking too much heat you can introduce some slack, going with the flow and falling back to a lower profile where you blend in better and get seen by fewer attackers.
Or you can realize the full potential of the way you were designed: to rise higher when the wind blows against you. There will be ups and downs, no doubt, and the tension on the string will sometimes seem like it can’t possibly get any worse, but I’d urge you not to be the one to prevent yourself from soaring. Instead of self-limiting, let the one holding the string be the one to determine how high you’re allowed to go. He knows what’s coming, what He’ll equip you to handle, and what the wind’s going to do. Why not see how high He’ll let you go?
God, I know some of the Bible stories of how You used men and women of faith. That was so long ago and seems like it’s not how You work anymore. Help me remember You’re the God who doesn’t change, and that You still reward great faith. Help me stand for You and not be afraid, no matter what the wind is doing. In Your name I ask, Amen.