Believe...
[posted July 30, 2007 • 10:44PM • Bill Gibson]

Well, the family and I arrived back in lovely Gibsonville, NC yesterday, after a vacation in hot and humid Orlando, Florida. No, we did not go to Disney. Nope... Instead, this year we decided on a new experience for everyone. We had never been to Universal Studios and Tyler really wanted to go there. And I was the only one who had ever been to Seaworld, but it was when I was very young. Did I say it was hot in Orlando? It was dang hot. And humid...

Have you ever had one of those moments when it felt like you saw just a little bit more into the future, or got a clearer picture in your head — a glimpse — of something you were pondering? You know... It's how you feel when you know something that no one else has figured out yet. It's a special moment, kind of suspended in time. OK... maybe that's not the greatest description... But at least some of you know what I am talking about. It's a moment, event, epiphany, or happening that kind of makes you feel all warm and secure inside.

I like to call these "purpose" moments.

They are like building blocks on our journey of discovery. Sounds cheesy, I know. But it is true. I really believe these are defining moments. Sometimes we recognize them and sometimes we dismiss them. Either way, they are linked to our inner child. They remind us of simpler days when we believed anything was possible — like trying to fly by jumping off the roof of my parent's garage with a flimsy umbrella (but that story is for a different blog entry!).

I had one of these "purpose" moments at Seaworld this trip.

In fact, it happened at Shamu's day show called, Believe. The short of it is this... When I saw, for the first time through adult eyes (remember, I first visited Seaworld as a kid), that an 11,860 lb. killer whale — the predator of the ocean! — could be trained to do what I saw with my own eyes, then I remembered that anything is possible. I believed! A human and a killer whale — two mammals — swam, interacted, communicated, and cooperated with one another to create an amazing experience for an excited audience. Awesome. Amazing. Inspiring. Refreshing...

Sometimes we have to see spectacular things in order to be shook loose from our way of seeing things. The lens through which we see possibilities gets clouded with uncertainty, fear, and grown-up-ness...

There are all kinds of stories throughout the Bible that tell this same tale. We read about miracles, people, and happenings in their lives. And sometimes we just say, "Humm..." Too often, there's no "WOW!" or "Amazing!" or "Holy Smokes!" Just the "Humm..." of grown-up-ness overtaking the child inside of us.

In the Gospel of Mark (read Mark 9:14-24) there is a story of a man who desired his son to be healed by Jesus, and he ends up shouting out to Jesus, "I do believe, but help me not to doubt!" I'm not sure there is any other statement recorded in the Gospels of a human being coming to a point of such truth and humility in dialogue with Christ — desire meets need. When this happens for real — no strings attached — we can expect fireworks.

This man's statement represents you and I. It represents all of humanity. We "get" the desire part — we have that down pat. We all want something. It's admitting that we need someone else's help — particularly a Jewish carpenter boy turned travelling evangelist! — that seems to trip us up.

I so want to believe all the time. But the truth is, like you, I have doubts.

Ironically, Shamu — an 11,860 lb. killer whale — helped me see beyond my grown-up-ness and into the heart of a child who desperately wants to believe. (God cracks me up sometimes...)

Jesus said to the man, "Anything is possible if a person believes."

So I will start there. Heck, if the predator of the ocean can be trained to play the lead in his own water show, then I suppose anything is possible if a person believes...

This "purpose" moment, on a Tuesday afternoon at Seaworld, helped be remember something very, very, important... That it's a good thing my faith doesn't rest on me (read Hebrews 12:2a).