Adjusting the Load on the Yellow Brick Road

I believe that there is a yearning deep down inside every single heart that genuinely longs for a world of rich Technicolor in the midst of the surrounding black-and-white daily existence.
We were created for so much more than just trying to find a place where we cannot get into any trouble. The yearning for a world somewhere over the rainbow is much more than a fairy tale that adults need to put behind them.
It is time for all of us to bring it back so that it can be front row and the center of our attention. It is the very invitation that was given us by the God who designed us to answer the call that everyone deserves the chance to fly. Are you suffering from clipped wings?
So why more often than not does it seem that we are just clocking in time with no better mission than to just arrive at death safely? When was the last time you embarked upon your own yellow brick road to adventure?
Or are you only content to make a journey where you already know how the story is going to end? Have you become too content to watch others experience the adrenaline that originally had your name on it?
If God made the waves, should we hesitate when it comes to riding them? If God has knit within you a dream, might it be time to wake up and give it a fair shot in order that it might come true?
On any given day we have crucial choices to make? Will we use the brains that God gave us in order that we might think for ourselves and not become so dependent upon others thinking for us?
Do you check the sources before you receive an idea as absolute truth? Just because you heard it on the radio or saw it on television doesn’t make it so. Even the majority of munchkins pointing a certain direction don’t guarantee that this is the best path to take.
There are times that I don’t want to know what the crowd thinks; I want to hear what is cooking inside that mind of yours? Would you tell me if I asked? Or are you waiting to see which way the wind is blowing before you throw your kite of opinion into the air?
There comes a definitive moment in every person’s life when he or she must make a personal stand based and built upon what they believe in whether it is popular or anyone cheers the result on or not.
Have you become too wishy-washy to the point that the precious brain that you were given is stuck in neutral? If so- now is the time to engage your head again before you misplace it because of lack of use.
The heart also is a priceless fragile treasure. Because it so easily breaks- there is a tendency for us to pack it away in the attic of our lives along with other collectables that we think gain value by their lack of use. When it comes to the engine room of your being, this could not be further from the truth. The heart was made to love and be loved.
And just because it gets bumped and bruised along the way is no reason for you to take it out of commission and put it in retirement. When it all comes down, the more you have invested your heart, the richer the individual you will become.
Not everyone will return the compliment of your hospitality of the heart- but a life lived without love is the most tragic of all mankind’s imprisonments. Relationships are the pump that keeps the lifeblood flowing. And it is better to err on the side of risking dancing with the dear ones that are placed all around you, rather than to leave the party having only held up the wall for hours.
And it will take courage to make your move. It is hard to stick out in a crowd. It costs much to hold fast to the truth when everybody else is courting the lie like it is the dearest of friends. For too long, too many of us have said nothing and done nothing and invested nothing and turned a blind eye and a deaf ear when the situation desperately begged for righteous and just behavior. Who will speak up for those that have lost their voice? Who will make a move on behalf of those who have been paralyzed by the ills of our society?
Who will do what’s right even though it ruins the curve and exposes the shallowness of shortcuts? Is there something that you should be standing for rather than falling behind in order to sink into the shadows? Is today the day to change your “there I go again” to “here am I ready to fight for what I believe in?”
Are you ready to be brave about your bark backing up a bite that has some fight still left in it?
Somewhere over the rainbow is the world that God always intended for His children to live in. It might be way beyond the blue- but rather than asking Him to get us out of here, maybe the better request is for us to ask to help make what is happening up there, occur right down here in our backyard too.
We don’t need to be a wiz to open up the front doors of our futures and pronounce quite confidently for all those around us to hear, “Somewhere over the rainbow, I’ll use my brains in order to think out truth clearly and follow my heart so that I will jump in to the life more nearly and have the courage to not back off until I finally find my way home.
Because to all the Uncle Henry’s and Auntie Em’s within the sound of my voice, there really is no place like home when you are at home in the skin of who you were always meant to be.
The author is the senior pastor of The Lighthouse Church, 1248 Route 9 South, Court House.