Pushing the envelope

The phrase "pushing the envelope" became popular in the 80's when Tom Wolfe used it in his book, The Right Stuff, in which he described how the test pilots would test the upper and lower limits of speed and maneuverability in new types of experimental aircraft. Chuck Yeager was one of those pilots who was the first to officially fly faster than the speed of sound. In 1947 they dubbed him the fastest man on earth. Chuck Yeager, a man who came from a back woods farm in West Virginia, would literally push aviation into a new era because of his willingness to go beyond the pale of what was safe and secure.

In 1946 Michael Howe, a cognitive psychologist, who did extensive research in the area of environmental influences on the human psyche, explained that for a person to feel secure, they must not have any aspirations or desires for anything in which they might be disappointed. To live within the pale, so to speak, is not only about being safe from disappointment, but it is a result of ones own effort to be protected from fearful circumstances which might alter the course of ones life in a negative way. Living that way becomes a prison of the soul.

In the movie, Legend of 1900, a story is told about a talented musician who spent his life on a cruise ship. When once, for the sake of love, he was challenged to leave the ship for the first time in his life, he came face to face with his most dreaded fear. He would be stepping off the ship and embracing an ominous and unpredictable world which he had never known. In the moment that he descends the platform, your hoping he will make it to the end, step off onto solid ground and be free of his metal cell forever. Unfortunately he never makes it. Midway he turns around only to return to what he has always known, even if it meant sacrificing an opportunity for true love and fulfillment. Fear was the invisible shackle which would hold him fast; a prisoner to the Virginia, which was soon to be permanently harbored as relic of the past.  Consequently he finds himself alone in the empty hull of the ship hiding and unwilling to come out even though it was soon to be demolished. While still on board, the movie ends, as does his life, with the ship blowing up and sinking.

Safety and security promise us peace, but it is an illusive and unattainable goal outside of ourselves because the lack of it is rooted within our inability to face fear and live with circumstances beyond the small confines of our own control.

Joni Eareckson Tada, as a young teenage girl, dove into the shallow waters of the Chesapeake Bay and suffered a spinal fracture which left her a quadriplegic; paralyzed from the shoulders down. She went through a period of major adjustment in her life, which threatened to destroy her with depression and suicide as the only means of escape from this new dark and horrific world of confinement and loss of self-control. Over the next several years, she found her faith in God and her relationship to Jesus Christ, to be her continual source of strength. She was then in a position to make a choice either to stay within that prison or stretch forth the wings of faith and fly beyond her severely limited physical boundaries. She discovered in that the liberating power that faith could bring, and so presently brings a message of hope and a ministry of help, not only to the crippled of body, but to those of the mind and soul all across our globe.

The message to the church today is not to focus on numbers or the embellishment of a personal lifestyle of comfortable entertainment, but one of challenging one another in living out the true message of Jesus Christ. His Spirit working within us will not leave us content to live for ourselves, but for those whom Christ died.  Those who profess faith in Jesus Christ have the resources for living a life that resembles His character. Instead of "living safely" within the confines of our own small world we can become explorers going beyond boundaries with the faith that has been entrusted to us. By engaging it or should I say pushing the envelope we can go beyond our fears and self-imposed limitations. Active faith reveals God's faithfulness, which builds trust and reinforces our hope, but it also encourages others when we live courageously in our relationship with Jesus Christ. It is in this we soon discover the liberating power of God who longs to take us high above the limitations of human talent or effort so that we might see Him, touch the hem of His garment; know Him and make Him known by the way we live outside the pale of popular contentment.