About the video
Sunday Morning Jetpack is our new segment that highlights any kind of media that will provide you with some much needed good energy. You can find spirituality in the music, movies, podcasts, and other media you see every day. This article expands the Sunday Morning Jetpack video titled “Learn to Fly.”
In their song, “Learn to Fly,” the band Surfaces and Elton John talk about how the brokenness and loneliness we feel don’t have to discourage us, but can be opportunities to teach us to grow and fly.
All the broken people put your hands up high
If you lift ’em up, you might just touch the sky
All the lonely people put your hands up high
If you loosen up, you might just learn to fly
Surfaces & Elton John – Learn to Fly
This is a great song because it talks about how we can find hope when we feel broken or lonely. We don’t have to stay stuck in our brokenness and loneliness. Wherever there are weaknesses and mistakes, there are also opportunities for hope.
When you face difficulty, do you focus more on where things are going wrong, or where there are opportunities for good and hope?
God gives us opportunities for hope, but we have to take them. Let’s break down the lyrics of this song with some scriptures in order to see what stops us from taking opportunities, and how God can teach us to fly in the midst of our brokenness.
All the broken people put your hands up high
I think you ought to know, dear brothers, about the hard time we went through in Asia. We were really crushed and overwhelmed, and feared we would never live through it. [9] We felt we were doomed to die and saw how powerless we were to help ourselves; but that was good, for then we put everything into the hands of God, who alone could save us, for he can even raise the dead.
2 Corinthians 1:8-9 TLB
Whether it’s from the chaos outside in the world or turmoil in our own personal lives, we all are experiencing some form of trouble or difficulty. In this scripture, Paul saw his brokenness hardships as an opportunity to turn to and rely on God.
But what makes us miss these opportunities to “put our hands up high” and turn to God?
I’m not just talking theory. There is urgency in all this. If you’re apathetic and complacent, then you’ll miss the moment of opportunity. You should be wide awake and on your toes like servants who are waiting for their master to return from a big wedding reception. They’ll have their shoes on and their lamps lit so they can open the door for him as soon as he arrives home.
Luke 12:35 VOICE
The sins that make us miss our moments of opportunity are apathy and complacency. To be complacent is to be “marked by self-satisfaction especially when accompanied by unawareness of actual dangers or deficiencies.”
If we want to see the opportunities for hope God is trying to give us, we need to deal with apathy and complacency in our hearts. We need to be willing to be aware of our “deficiencies” – or in what areas we need to grow and change.
Reflection questions
- What is your reaction toward difficulty? Do you see it as an opportunity to rely on God, or a reason to become apathetic and self-consumed?
- Are there any deficiencies in your life you don’t like to be aware of? What opportunities are you missing because of that?
If you lift ‘em up, you might just touch the sky
Paradoxically, my bitter experience was pushing me toward wholeness. For You, God, have put behind all my shortcomings and wrongdoings. You have rescued me from death. You pulled me from a black hole of nothingness and held me close to You.
Isaiah 38:17 Voice
We don’t have to let the difficulties we experience push us away from God. They can actually push us toward God making us feel whole. We don’t have to stay stuck in the black hole we may be feeling; God can lift us up out of it if we let him.
So humble yourselves under the mighty power of God, and at the right time he will lift you up in honor. [7] Give all your worries and cares to God, for he cares about you.
1 Peter 5:6-7 NLT
God wants to take care of us in the midst of our brokenness, but in order for him to lift us up we need to be willing to humble ourselves and admit our need for him.
Reflection questions
- Where are your “bitter experiences” pushing you? Toward God and your friends, or away from them?
- What would it look like to humble yourself with God?
All the lonely people put your hands up high
If you loosen up, you might just learn to fly
From there I will give back her vineyards to her, and turn the “Valley of Trouble” into an “Opportunity for Hope.” There she will sing as she did when she was young, when she came up from the land of Egypt.
Hosea 2:15 NET
God can turn our “valley of trouble” into an “opportunity for hope.” Every valley, every mistake, weakness, or difficulty in life is an opportunity for hope, not just in our own lives but in the lives of others.
He always comes alongside us to comfort us in every suffering so that we can come alongside those who are in any painful trial. We can bring them this same comfort that God has poured out upon us.
2 Corinthians 1:4 TPT
The comfort God wants to give you is not just for you, but for you to give to the people around you as well. You are their opportunity for hope!
Reflection questions
- What valleys of trouble do you see in your life? How can God turn them into opportunities for hope?
- Who needs you to reach out to them to show them the same comfort God has given you?
For a real-life example of what turning adversity into opportunity looks like, watch our Sunday Morning Jetpack video, “Learn to Fly”:
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