Recently I had to go to Dallas for some meetings. Now I am someone who happens to have no problem with flying. I have always enjoyed it, but with all the plane crashes I hear about lately, I have to admit I was a little uneasy.
I started thinking about this whole flying deal.
The flying industry does not make it easy for you to be confident do they? After all they tell you to wait for your flight in the terminal. Last I checked that particular word meant fatal, deadly, life-threatening. Now that’s a comfort.
Or the person handling your ticket says to you, “Your departure time is 8:35 at gate 3B.”
My departure time? As I am standing in the terminal? This is getting a bit disconcerting.
Then the person taking your boarding pass says to you, “Now your final destination is Fort Worth, but you will have to switch planes in Denver.” (Don’t ask why!) Wait a minute, my final destination as I depart from the terminal? If I wasn’t scared before I am getting scared now.
We find our seats on the plane and I begin to tell myself it will be okay because at least while I’m in the air I am closer to God than on the ground and that calms me down a little.
But I am so distracted that I forget to put the tray table in the upright and locked position and the flight attendant comes by and puts it up after giving me the evil eye. Give me a break, what is such the big deal about having your tray table in the locked and upright position? Have you ever read about a crash where the only people killed were those who forgot to put their tray tables in the locked and upright position?
If anything, I think I will be killed by that “carry-on” luggage that has four wheels and a motor to move it, that the person is trying to stow in the overhead baggage compartment above my head.
Then the flight attendant starts to talk about the exit doors.
“The white lights lead to the red lights that lead to the exit doors.” At 35,000 feet who needs exit doors?
I am starting to hyperventilate again just as I am told the oxygen masks come down and look like they are not working but they are working. They teach you early on not to put your head in a plastic bag and now that is what the flight attendant tells you to do. I am confused.
Then I’m told that my seat acts as a flotation device.
What? I thought we were flying over New Mexico. Isn’t that a desert area? I hear it’s so dry there that the cows produce powdered milk. I don’t need a flotation device I need a cup of Starbucks with real milk and a parachute.
That started me thinking about all the crashes I have heard about recently. Do you realize that they always retrieve the black box? I guess it is made out of some indestructible material. I am wondering why they don’t make the whole plane out of that material. Those aero designers must have had a bad experience with people. The plane goes down and they are hollering – did the black box make it? Yeeessss! High five.
This is getting out of hand, I am really getting a bit scared so I pull out my Bible and it falls open to Matthew 28 and I read, “Lo, I am with you always even unto the end of the age.” And I know now that I may be in trouble because Jesus says lo, I am with you always, He never promises to be with you up high though.
Now I am afraid!
I’ve focused on my fears instead of my faith and we are ready to take off.
That’s when it dawns on me that we are hurtling down a really short road that leads to nowhere. If I were in a car I would not call this a runway, it would be a dead-end and I would be doing the most foolish thing possible by driving full force down a dead-end, but then again I am not in a car I am in a plane and this plane has the ability to overcome the dead-end and make it only a launching pad to heights unknown.
I guess that must be the difference between faith and fear. Fear is seeing the situations of life as a dead-end and faith is seeing them as runways. Either you see something as the end, or you see it as the beginning of something great.
In the Bible, we discover that some people learned how to fly long before the Wright brothers.
Moses at the Red Sea – dead end or runway?
Joshua and Caleb and not allowing the giants in the land to intimidate them – dead end or runway?
Joshua at the walls of Jericho – dead end or runway?
A rod in my hand may ward off an attacker, a rod in the hands of a man of faith parts the sea.
A slingshot in my hands may knock down a can or two but a slingshot in the hands of a man of faith can slay a giant.
5 loaves and two fishes in my hands will make a good meal for one. Five loaves and two fishes in the hands of a man of faith will feed five thousand.
Nails in my hands may build a nice piece of furniture. Nails in the hands of God make all the difference in the world. It allows us to be taken out of our suicidal, dead-end life and causes us to soar to heights unknown.
Fear is seeing situations as dead-ends.
Faith is seeing dead-ends as runways.
Faith is seeing the impossible through the eyes of God and putting the situations in His hands.
(Adapted from an article by Leonard Sweet)
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