Just some early morning thoughts from me to you…
“For I know the plans I have for you,” declares the Lord, “plans to prosper you and not to harm you, plans to give you hope and a future.”
Jeremiah 29: 11 (NIV)
So often time it happens, we all live our life in chains, and we never even know we have the key.
The Eagles, “Already Gone”
“There it is Wendy. Second star to the right and straight on till morning.”
The words are those of Peter Pan to Wendy pointing the way to Neverland. And as I sit here this morning, I can’t help but believe it’s one of the great lines in all of literature.
And today again as we begin another new year together—perhaps it should be a theme for all that can be in this year which will unfold before us. Maybe it’s just what promises to be another beautiful morning that causes me to hear again all the hope to which that line calls us. Maybe it’s our two Granddaughters running around the house and yard showing me things I haven’t seen in years.
Maybe it’s because we celebrate Lynda’s birthday today, and during the more than forty-four years we have been together she has been pointing me toward Neverland, always encouraging, inspiring, supporting and reminding me that I had the key to reach beyond where I have been and where I am, to where I should be and to all I can be. Maybe it’s that there are dreams—needing dusting off—that today are still smoldering in my heart.
I wonder what J.M. Barrie had in mind—I suspect it was a little bit of all of that—when he penned those words in his classic book “Peter Pan.”
Here we are, standing together on the threshold of a brand new day, a brand new year—and I wonder what’s in our hearts waiting to come out? What’s inside you longing to come out? What Neverland have you longed to fly to one day? What is it you can’t seem to overcome in your life that is holding you back and chaining you down from reaching for Neverland, and keeping you from becoming all you can be? What mold or stereotype has the culture fit you into, or dragged you down to, which is keeping you from become all who God created you to be? What music within you has yet to be sung? What flower planted deep inside you—by the One who created you—has yet to bloom? What dream smoldering within your heart, has yet to begin to burst into flames?
Where ever it is, you have the key to get there. It’s part of God’s plan of hope and a future for your life. And He—going with you—has all the strength and power you will even need to get there—and to all He intends for you to be. Oh sure, you and I may fall a few times along the way, but the way remains clear: “Second star to the right and straight on till morning.”
We might take some encouragement from some others throughout history have who refused to accept their present circumstances as the picture of their future and instead have reached beyond the chains that could have held them back, and on toward the dreams burning within their hearts—
Bury him in the snows of Valley Forge
and you have a George Washington,
Raise him in abject poverty, and you have an Abraham Lincoln,
Subject him to a life of bitter hatred and racial prejudice
and you have a Martin Luther King, Jr.,
Subject her to a life of being blind, deaf and mute
and you have a Helen Keller,
Let his teachers tag him as “hopeless” at the age of 7
and you have a Thomas Alva Edison,
Give up on him as a child saying “he’ll never amount to anything”
and you have an Albert Einstein,
Sit her on the back of the bus one time too many—
after a life full of years of racial segregation—and you have a Rosa Parks stepping forward for the dreams of people everywhere.
What’s inside you longing to come out? What dreams smoldering within your heart are waiting to burst into flames?
“For I know the plans I have for you,” declares that Lord.
And He stands ready to help you get to where He created and intended for you to be. He placed the key within your hands.
“There it is Wendy. Second star to the right and straight on till morning.”
Why not this year? Why not today? Why not now?
Happy New Year—See you in Neverland!
In His Name—Scott
P.S. Happy Birthday sweetie! Thanks for always pointing the way!
Copyright 2012. Scott L. Whitaker. All rights reserved.
