Tip of My Iceberg

It’s on my bucket list.

I’ve been skydiving, which only whetted my appetite to do it more and by myself. (I had to be strapped to someone who knew what they were doing.) As incredible as that was, I’d like to ride in a hot air balloon. That’s a long time wrapped in clouds, the chance to see far away spaces more significantly.

Six-month-old Kolly got to see it in person before I ever did.

My youngest and her family went to Albuquerque, New Mexico for the Albuquerque International Balloon Fiesta. Debbie’s husband, Taylor, grew up there and has had the pleasure of seeing this Fiesta often.

This was Debbie and Kollie’s first time.

Like most young children, she was so unimpressed with the large balloons bobbing around in the wind above her stroller that she fell asleep.

Not the expected response.

Hot air ballooning is a popular sport as well as a remarkable spectator sport. People come from all over to visit northern New Mexico at the beginning of October to see the colorful pockets of buoyant nylon filled with helium or nitrogen bobbing around in the sky.

There are hot air balloon festivals all over the world, from the International Balloon Festival of Saint-Jean-sur-Richeileu in Quebec, Canada to the European Balloon Festival in Igualada, Spain to the Saga International Balloon Fiesta in Saga, Japan.

Kolly was not impressed. She chose sleep over the noise and the spectacle.

We don’t always recognize wondrous happenings at the moment. Our minds are elsewhere, we’re focused on something we consider more important, or we’re just tired.

When Jesus began His ministry, He did so in Capernaum, a Gentile town in Galilee, not in Nazareth, where He’d been raised. When He arrived in Nazareth to people who’d known Him as He was growing up, people thought they knew Him. When Jesus began preaching, they were impressed with His wisdom and words.

But they didn’t believe He was the Messiah.

Wasn’t this Joseph’s son?

Jesus told them a prophet wasn’t accepted in His hometown. All they wanted to see from Him were the miracles He’d done in other places. He used examples from the Old Testament to tell of two famous prophets, Elijah and Elisha, who’d helped Gentiles in need rather than Jewish people who were skeptical.

These people were angered by this response. They believed they knew Him and couldn’t conceive that this man could be the long-awaited Messiah.

“That set everyone in the meeting place seething with anger. They threw Him out, banishing Him from the village, then took Him to a mountain cliff at the edge of the village to throw Him to His doom, but He gave them the slip and was on His way.” Luke 4:28-30

These people weren’t impressed with who Jesus said He was. They didn’t want to have their perceptions questioned.

So many today refuse to consider that Jesus was exactly who He said He was–the Son of God. They’d rather listen to what others say or believe rather than ask the hard questions themselves. Like those in Nazareth, we too often think we know it all.

Do we really?