A young, black boy was sitting at the school gate waiting for his mother to pick him up.

He was watching a man selling helium balloons in the park in front of the school. Every now and then the man would let go of a balloon and let it float off into the sky in an attempt to attract customers… a red one, at times a yellow one, and so on.

Puzzled, the boy crossed the road and asked the vender:

Sir, why can’t the black balloon fly?

Immediately, the man released a black balloon into the sky and said:

My dear young man, the color of a balloon is not what makes it fly, but what’s inside of it.

People search for excuses for why they can’t get ahead in life. They feed the phobias of skin color, a lack of education, money or opportunity, a criminal record, homelessness, being overweight or excessively thin, feeling ugly, being poor, coming from a poor area of town, etc.

Deep down, it can all be summed up in a single word: doubt.

Doubt blocks anyone from moving forward, regardless of a person’s intellect, or their social or financial status.

When it comes to faith, many link it to being religious, or to prayer, church attendance and things like that.

But contrary to what many think, faith in God has nothing to do with religion. It is the power of God at work in the inner most parts of the poor in spirit (balloons) to enable them reach great heights.

It causes the weak to believe in themselves and opens their spiritual vision so that their dreams can come true.

No wonder the following has been determined:

“But God has chosen the foolish things of the world to put to shame the wise, and God has chosen the weak things of the world to put to shame the things which are mighty; and the base things of the world and the things which are despised God has chosen, and the things which are not, to bring to nothing the things that are…” 1 Corinthians 1.27-28

Why has the Lord God has done this?

To demonstrate the difference between those who believe in Him and those who do not.