Rocket Science

When I was seven years old, I learned quickly that defying gravity was risky business. Sir Isaac Newton, as the legend goes, learned that truth while sitting under an apple tree. As for me, I learned it while free falling about twelve feet off of a neighbor’s back porch. Nobody pushed me; I didn’t slip either. I jumped off the porch – on purpose, or dare I say, with purpose. It was one small step for a kid, and one giant leap for children all over the world. It was the culmination of a plan that was inspired a year earlier on a family vacation. On that trip, I stood at the top of a very steep hill, and dreamed of building a “soap box derby” car that I could race down to the bottom. Part of that dream involved deploying a parachute that would bring the racer to a safe stop – like the ones on dragsters.

The time in between that first inspiration and my leap into the sky was filled with watching drag races, clandestine scavenger hunts in my mom’s linen closet, and sewing the world’s first kid-friendly parachute. The day I tested the “chute,” a few of my friends came out to witness the inaugural jump. Soon, the transformed bed sheets would be carrying me slowly and gently back to earth and eventual fame. As the countdown started, all systems were go – Three, Two, One! Thud! Amid the screams and laughter immediately following my very sudden impact, I checked to see if anything beside the parachute was broken. Luckily, the only thing shattered was my dream of taming gravity. In the challenge of my will vs. gravity, gravity won; it was a formidable foe. Though defeated, I had considered myself in the company of the many test pilots who had risked their lives attempting to defy or even escape the constraints of gravity.

In the years that followed, I abandoned my own pursuit of being free from gravity, and instead I followed the exploits of NASA. I imagined, along with all those rocket scientists, what life would be like without being bound by the earth’s gravitational pull. How much more could man achieve without that limitation? I knew defying gravity was risky, but I learned through the space agency’s trials and errors that escaping gravity and its restraining force was downright dangerous and unbelievably expensive. Events like that of the space shuttle Challenger exploding shortly after liftoff, and the space shuttle Columbia burning up and disintegrating upon re-entry into earth’s atmosphere serve as more recent reminders of just how dangerous, expensive (both in dollars and human lives), and complex overcoming gravity can be.

Even when all goes well, and it often does, astronauts who find themselves “free” in zero gravity aren’t really free at all. Every movement in space is very deliberate. Every task is well thought out; and each one is planned before it is executed, because tasks in zero gravity take a tremendous amount of effort. Simple activities are, at best, very difficult chores. When space-walking outside the safety of their shuttle or space station, they are tethered (hardly free) to keep from floating away. It doesn’t take long to figure out that every task in the “freedom” of space takes more time, thought, energy, and expense to complete than it would under the influence of gravity. Even the most basic movements, like walking, become a matter of rocket science when performed beyond the earth’s gravitational field. It is a cruel irony that after expending a vast amount of resources, as well as risking life and limb to experience the freedom of space, astronauts experience more constraints and limitations than they do on planet Earth. I’ll bet it doesn’t take too long in space to realize that gravity is not a “drag,” but useful.

Only a select few have experienced that truth first hand, but countless millions have experienced a parallel truth. Just as mankind has yearned to break free of gravity and its limitations, the human race has yearned to break free from the “restrictions” and “limitations” God has placed on people. Stepping off the path of obedience was the first journey that mankind (Adam and Eve) embarked on. It immediately followed their desire to be free of rules, restrictions, constraints, and limitations, and their desire to be like God. It started with one small bite for man (and woman), and one giant bellyache for mankind (Genesis 3). The world without limits that Adam and Eve desired turned out to be full of more stringent constraints, limitations, and influences than they ever dared to imagination. Restraints such as shame, guilt, sickness, pain, and death ruled their lives. Life’s basic activities became energy intensive and painful. I’ll bet that it didn’t take too long for them to realize that the “one rule” world God had given them was much freer than the “zero rules” world they had leaped into.

It’s not a matter of rocket science – without the invisible force of gravity, meaningful and productive life is impossible. The same could be said of the life that Jesus offers; without the carefully crafted restrictions and limitations God places on us, “More and Better Life” is impossible. It seems counter-intuitive, but God’s restrictions, limitations, and influence provide real freedom for me, and for you too.

Grace to you.

Dave Paukner