Raccoons vs. Blackbirds

Hours and hours of work were about to be released from her hand. Would it fly? It was totally her design and crafted with many fingers almost glued permanently together. The moment of truth had come. If it didn't fly, it was back to the drawing board. We all held our breath, stopwatch in hand; video camera poised.
"What is its name?" I asked.
"Rocky Raccoon!" she called. Hmmmm.... a land mammal.... was that the best name for a machine that should fly?

She held her hand up after winding the helicopter rubber motor (this is a fancy word for excruciatingly expensive rubber band). With a deep sigh, she opened her hand.

The helicopter shuddered, its rotor spun..... and it plopped on the ground. The rotor sputtered and the helicopter hopped and skipped sideways on the gym floor. Flight time: .9 seconds- the speed of gravity's pull on a falling object from that height.....

Asherel smiled bravely and said, "Really?"

The helicopter flopped around. Ben peered at it.
"You put the rotors on counterclockwise! That means we wound the motor the wrong way!"
That meant the poor rotors were pushing the air up, driving the helicopter down.
"We just have to remember to wind it the opposite way," said Ben, "I don't know why you make things so difficult!"
"I like to be unique," said Asherel.

So they rewound the rubber motor, this time in the correct direction. Again Asherel stood in the middle of the gym, sighed deeply, murmured, "I'm scared..... ok, 3-2-1......" and opened her hand.
The helicopter's blades spun slowly, gracefully, smoothly. There was no telltale wobble of an unbalanced copter. It rose gently through the air, straight in its slow motion rising hover. And the point she had put on the top of the rotor kept it from crashing against the ceiling and falling. It stayed there 10, 20, ....30 seconds! Then drifted slowly down. A 40 second flight from a craft designed by Luddites that knew nothing about flight taught by someone who knew maybe less!

I thought of how sometimes all the elements of success are in place- hard work, excellence in execution or design, attention to details, care and effort..... and we still fail!  I wonder how many times we then stomp on our "helicopters"- whatever form they may take in our life, and never realize that all we had to do was change the direction of our motor, of that which powers and guides us upward. I have to stretch a little on this one, but bear with me.... I think I may stumble upon an important concept of living victoriously.

I have noticed almost unfailingly that when Asherel and I begin our homeschool day with prayer, Bible study, and a cheerful adherence to the rules and respect of each other, it goes well. Our "motors" are wound properly putting God and then mutual respect before selfishness.  It doesn't happen as often as I would like- it doesn't take much to gum up the motor, put snags in our rubber bands, or even snap us. Even the small acts of irritability, disobedience, laziness, or disrespect sometimes grind our day to a disappointing halt and we are dialing the number of the Public School Enrollment department. (Or at least threatening it....)

We are not alone, of course. We are all human, subject to the same dismal set of defeating sins. Consider, for example, the great Bible giant, Paul- the co-author of most of the New Testament books.  He tells us he tried repeatedly to wipe out the Christians, working with conviction, sincerity, zeal.....Finally Jesus appeared to him and said, "Paul, why do you wear yourself out kicking against the goad....you are winding your helicopter backwards, dude!"

Or think of Haggai the prophet who tells Zerubbabel, governor of Judah, "Have you noticed that you spend a lot of time planting and harvesting but not reaping and your money is going in a wallet that has a giant hole in it? You are winding your helicopter backwards, Zubby!"

Or Saul, the King with the potential and assets to become truly great, who ends up being completely defeated and ousted because he is forever, putting his interests before God's. Ultimately, despite enormous gifts of personality and talent, he crash lands with a motor that was, yep, wound backwards.

Sometimes even when we wind the motor correctly, the helicopter doesn't fly. There are always factors we have not considered. But I think perhaps the very first thing we should do when we encounter failure is ask ourselves if we started off in the right direction- winding our way upwards towards God instead of downward towards the way of the world.

"Can I change its name?" asked Asherel, " I want to call it Blackbird."
Ah...now I think we are heading the right way......

Haggai 1: 5-6
 ⁵ Now this is what the LORD Almighty says: “Give careful thought to your ways. ⁶ You have planted much, but harvested little. You eat, but never have enough. You drink, but never have your fill. You put on clothes, but are not warm. You earn wages, only to put them in a purse with holes in it.”