Here in Wake Forest we’re enjoying a beautiful week: cool mornings, warm afternoons; spring on the cusp of summer. There’s new life in the air, excitement, anticipation, a buzz about the future. Everyone around here seems to be graduating from something.

I don’t have an extensive “bucket list,” but one item close to the top would be the opportunity to offer a commencement address at a high school or university. If I did I’d probably cover much the same ground as today’s blog post, “Getting the launch right.”

Initial trajectory has been a recurring theme in my writing, and I found myself thinking about it again this morning when I waved goodbye to Rebekah as she headed in to the office. So I grabbed my iPhone and captured the image you see at the top of this post.

It’s the beginning of a new day; and, as with any beginning, it’s important that it starts out in the right direction. I’m no rocket scientist, or ballistics expert, but even I know that a small error at launch can translate into an enormous miss down the road.

Hence the photo, below, of breakfast. Nourishment for the body, nourishment for the mind, and nourishment for the soul. We’ll be taking all three with us when we get up from the table, so it only makes sense to give them all something they need.

“Set your minds on things that are above,” the Apostle Paul writes, “not on things that are on earth” (Colossians 3;2). Paul isn’t talking about having our head stuck “in the clouds,” so much as viewing our relationship to the earth through a spiritual lens.

Our initial trajectory, then, our launch sequence, must be a carefully chosen direction that at least gets us out of the gate with our primary identity as “God’s Beloved Children” front and center. That way we can be proactive ambassadors of Christ rather than reactive victims of circumstance.

Because if there’s one thing we can count on – and in short order – it’s a boatload of “circumstance.” And who among us wants to be a half step behind that mess, when we have the opportunity to meet it head on and in the loving presence of Jesus?

Rebekah headed out to WFPC in her RAV-4 having been served coffee by her husband, words of encouragement from our devotional reading, and words of life from the scripture. It’s not an elaborate intervention, but it means that we are heading into this new day, and whatever comes along, as beloved, redeemed, equipped, joyful children of the Living God.

In love, and because of love – DEREK