A Simple Plane Ride

A routine commercial flight several thousand feet up reveals a world of activity that goes largely unnoticed in our daily living. The passing of clouds being chased by their shadows are endless in their variety of shapes and numbers. They navigate over plains, mountains and bodies of water undeterred in their path and their intent. The brilliance of the sun at this modest height seems dramatic. It fills the environment, leaving no escape from its presence or its effect. The view reveals that the world in which we live is layered, grander and more complex than is realized from our ground view. We see man’s desire to tame the landscape by constructing roads, cultivating farmlands and erecting boundaries but from this level these efforts seem small and of little effect in changing the overall architecture of creation. From this vantage point we realize both man’s ability and his vulnerability. Man’s ability because much ingenuity was required to develop the jet transports that we all now take for granted as we cross our vast nation preoccupied with our latest texts, video game or dramatic movie, munching on pretzels and diet coke. Man’s vulnerability because we realize that we can only take on these pleasures with the provisions of proper air pressure and cabin temperatures. Even at that we are limited as to how high and how long we can go without bumping into the limits of the aircraft and those controlling it. Too high brings peril, too long brings insurmountable obstacles like mountains and oceans without proper preparations. We need specific equipment to achieve these additional heights and distances. These are natural concepts to us. Isn’t it reasonable to ask ourselves how much more additional equipping do we need to surmount and transverse the unseen, supernatural life that surrounds us? That dimension of life that only makes itself known through its intersection with our natural world. We go through life comfortable in our ability to handle all the challenges in our natural world of work, family and general living. But those times when things are no longer in our control and when those circumstances overwhelm us we need additional resources. We need faith. We need a faith that endures. We need a faith based on experience not a faith simply based on information. The good news is that the promise of God is that if you seek Him you will find Him (Mathew 7:7). Find Him and you will have that intersection of the natural with the supernatural. The result will be a faith that endures. A faith based on experience. So what is stopping us? Let us seek and we will find.