How many balloons would it take to lift you off the ground?
I’ve wondered about this question since I was a kid. Staring at the Pixar movie, Up, did nothing but stoke my imagination. Maybe you’re curious, too.
Adventurist Tom Morgan was determined to find the answer to this question. He and some friends jetted to Botswana in southern Africa, having determined the wide open planes and plateaus were a perfect fit for their crazy experiment.
Strapped into a chair, Tom’s team attached 86 very large (think five-feet in diameter) helium-filled balloons. And then he lifted off, higher and higher. And higher.
According to an article in The Red Bulletin, Tom Morgan eventually climbed to an altitude of nearly 8200 feet, choosing to remain airborne for three hours. Then it was time to settle down to earth. Morgan touched down safely on terra firma, having traveled a lateral distance of fifteen miles. “It was like I knew what I was doing,” he bemuses.
Can you imagine the vistas he drank in at more than 8000 feet? Stretched before him, the carpet of the African Savanna. The photographer in me drools at the thought of peering through the lens of my Nikon at such a height.
Imagine the panoramas that you could stitch together in PhotoShop! Lacking the smog and smoke of more industrialized countries, you would hungrily eat up the sights of Botswana, never to forget this banquet of beauty. You would constantly stare, turn, look—and look again.
This business of constantly looking takes me to a favorite verse, 2 Chronicles 16:9. “For the eyes of the Lord run to and fro throughout the whole earth, to give strong support to those whose heart is blameless toward him.”
Our God is not looking for beautiful scenery. He’s already gone on record as giving approval to His creation (“and behold, it was very good”). So what is God really after? “A heart that is blameless toward Him.”
He’s looking, searching, to and fro. His “camera” is ready. The question is, what does He see when He stares at your heart? At mine?
Not long ago, a doctor insisted I get a scan of my heart. I was afraid of what it might reveal. To my relief, everything looked great. Yet I’m sure a scan of my spiritual heart would reveal plenty of concerns.
A blameless heart is not just God-approved, it’s God-supported. He wants to give “strong support to those whose heart is blameless toward Him.”
So…how’s your heart?