It never ceases to amaze and astound me how thorough God is, how completely he has everything in my life in the palm of His hands.
Last year, I took my first flight. Naturally, I was nervous, my legs were shaking as soon as the plane started taxiing (is that a word?). To make matters worse, this flight came right on the heels of the flight out of Malaysia carrying 200 people that magically disappeared into the Indian Ocean. I think I said the Lord’s Prayer under my breath about 40 times before takeoff. I started to get that passenger anxiety kind of like when I’m traveling in a car in which the driver is going way too fast, and my right foot instinctively slams on the breaks. Yes… that, but multiplied by about 1,000. It was because I normally am in control when I travel (I’m usually driving), and suddenly I was traveling with no control to be had. The most frightening thing was that I could not see what was up ahead.
At some point shortly after takeoff, I said to myself, “This is your first flight, and you were lucky enough to get a seat by the window. LOOK!” I realized something: I don’t know how to fly a plane. If I were to be thrust into the cockpit at that point, rest assured all of us would have been meeting our Creator sooner than expected. But the pilot knew, obviously, since I’m writing about this experience more than a year after the flight took place. The one who knew how to navigate what lay up ahead was the one who was in the cockpit, able to view it.
I realized something else: viewing what lay up ahead wouldn’t have mattered, because all of that would’ve just overwhelmed me…. but I also wouldn’t have been able to just sit back and take in the magnificent intricacy of the highway interchanges one drives on each day,but never puts thought into how it was planned out from 10,000 feet above, or the beauty of the sun glistening off of fluffy, marshmallow-like clouds sitting like cotton candy boulders in the middle of the deep blue sea of the sky, or the horror of flying right alongside and over top of a dark, furious thunderstorm just outside the window, so close one could almost grab the thunderbolts with their hands… If I had spent so much time worrying about what lay up ahead on the horizon that I’d never be able to see, I would have missed all of that as we passed by at 200mph. There is no rear-view mirror on a plane, after all. Something also tells me that nobody aboard would’ve been too happy about asking to pull over or go back.
Such is life in Christ. I can’t see what’s on the horizon. Even if I could, would it make a difference? If I were in complete control of my flight, I’d be so overwhelmed with all the instrument panels, and radio communications from different towers, and burning enough fuel so that the plane is not too heavy to land, and storms to bypass, which ones to climb over and which ones to make a safe detour for, and which ones to fly through that I’d choke, crash and burn. I can control which plane I board, and to which destination, but that’s all. I can’t look back, either. All I can do is trust the Pilot. There really isn’t much of a choice but to sit back, enjoy a bag of peanuts, and take in the beautiful (sometimes terrible) view as it’s happening right then and enjoy the moment. At 200mph, it’ll be gone by before I know it, anyway.
Not so fluffy 