Some musings that began on a delayed flight about the differences between aircraft navigation and Christian life for our local newspaper.
While explaining the customary delay of our flight to Melbourne last week, the pilot told us that our postponed departure was due to cloud cover requiring all aircraft to rely on instrumentation for their landings. Looking out the window at the horizon-to-horizon expanse of clouds, I appreciated the skill of the pilots and air traffic control staff in managing the arrival and departure so many planes.
To fly to a destination and dip into the clouds, relying entirely on instruments and radio instruction; then descending through the thick bank cloud and emerging into clear space on track for landing is something we take for granted. But it is an amazing combination of skill, intelligence, and technology.
My return trip to Melbourne from Sydney a few days later was a contrast to that experience. The clouds were sparse and we were treated to an expansive view of Melbourne as we approached from the north.
There are seasons of our lives that feel like those times when we fly on a cloudless day. Familiar experiences enable us to track our progress, and though significant challenges may arise we are able to plan how we will manage them well in advance.
Other seasons of life are like the cloudy day flight. We don’t really know where we are and we feel quite anxious about whatever may lay ahead. If only life could life come with an instrument panel and traffic control that enables us to go forward when we can’t see.
Some folk think that’s how Christians perceive their faith. That the Bible and God tell us exactly what’s going on and how it will work out.
But that’s not really how being a follower of Jesus works.
If you read the historic portions of the Old and New Testaments or the poetic expressions of the Psalms it won’t take long to realise that God’s people don’t have magic insight into what’s going on. There can be seasons in a Christian’s life where they feel perplexed, afflicted, and alone. And they have no idea how long those seasons are going to last, and what may lie ahead.
It can seem like a flight above the clouds where landmarks are obscured, or even like the descent through the clouds where visibility is pretty much zero. We don’t have someone telling us directly ‘turn here’, or ‘continue straight on’.
We know we’re travelling through life, but sometimes everything else seems up for grabs.
But following Jesus does give us a sense of destination. In John’s gospel, Jesus seeks to comfort his disciples about the uncertainties of life by telling them that he would come and get them and take them to dwell with his (and their) Father.
The Christian’s goal in life is not to reach a destination, so much as it is to live their lives trusting in the promise of Jesus that he’ll come and collect all those who trust him. We may not know what will happen next, but we know will collect us as the end.
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