One windy spring day, I observed young people having fun using the wind to fly their kites. Multicoloured creations of varying shapes and sizes filled the skies like beautiful birds darting and dancing in the heady atmosphere above the earth. As the strong winds gusted against the kites, a string kept them in check.
Instead of blowing away with the wind, they arose against it to achieve great heights. They shook and pulled, but the restraining string and the cumbersome tail kept them in tow, facing upward and against the wind. As the kites struggled and trembled against the string, they seemed to say, “Let me go! Let me go! I want to be free!” They soared beautifully even as they fought the imposed restriction of the string. Finally, one of the kites succeeded in breaking loose. “Free at last” it seemed to say.
Yet freedom from restraint simply put it at the mercy of an unsympathetic breeze. It fluttered ungracefully to the ground and landed in a tangled mass of weeds and string against a dead bush. ‘Free at last’ free to lie powerless in the dirt, to be blown helplessly along the ground, and to lodge lifeless against the first obstruction.
How much like kites we sometimes are. God gives us adversity and restrictions, rules to follow from which we can grow and gain strength. Restraint is a necessary counterpart to the winds of opposition.
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