Keep your eyes on the Controls

Superhero is 7 1/2 and I swear he is my mechanical engineer. He loves to take things apart, and someday he will be able to put them back together just as well!

One of his interests is airplanes, and I have told him that when he is a little older, I will let him study for his pilot's license. So, being the good homeschool mom I am, I rented the Moody Science video, "Sign Posts Aloft", thinking it would be a great video for learning about airplanes.

Wrong.

It scared the crud out of me and my younger children. You see, it is a video demonstrating the value of flying by your instruments rather than relying on your own senses and instincts. The video revealed several emergency calls from pilots as they crashed into the ground thinking they were level because they were flying through fog or a cloud. You heard the terrifying cries of the pilots just before they died. Wow, that scared us all!

The point, however, was well taken. Apparently, when you fly a plane and cannot see the ground, your senses play tricks on you. The video narrator conducted an experiment that I have seen in person wherein a pilot in very good health was blindfolded. Then he sat in a chair and was twirled around. At first, he could tell he was turning, but as his equilibrium kicked in, he thought he had stopped spinning. He hadn't. When they did stop the chair, the pilot thought he was spinning the other way.

The point of the experiment was to illustrate that we cannot always trust our senses. In the instance of flying aircraft through fog or clouds, pilots must trust their instruments, even if their instinct and/or senses tell them differently.

I believe there are times in your life when your spiritual and emotional senses lie to you. The flight of life can seem easy when you see the horizon. Children behaving, school going well, jobs are secure, relationships are balanced. But what happens when children get sick, jobs are lost, friends betray and spouses don't live up to your expectations?

When life throws you a curve ball and your senses starting whirling like this pilot's had, you must cling to what you know. When you feel alone, betrayed, angry, scared, you name it, you cannot trust your emotions or your other senses. You must rely on unchanging instruments; things in your life that will always be true.

God's "controls" is the Bible. His words are written down for us to have when nothing makes sense, when we don't understand what is going on and cannot see what step to take in front of us for all the fog.

God is unchanging. In James 1:17 it says, "Every generous act and every perfect gift is from above, coming down from the Father of lights; with Him there is no variation or shadow cast by turning." That does not mean that he only gives gifts that are perceived to be good, but as Romans 8:28 states, "We know that all things work together for the good of those who love God: those who are called according to His purpose".

So, even though a "gift" may not seem to be good, God's unchanging nature assures us that He will work it for our benefit. That is why we need to keep our eyes on Him and on His unchanging nature. His instrument, the Bible, is the instrument we need to keep our eyes on, for it will never change, and it will always bring us in for a safe landing.

Keeping my eyes on the controls,
Brandie