Instrument Flying

I have watched several video documentaries on how pilots fly their airplane, and it is just always fascinating, seems like I could never get enough of it, perhaps because flying was one of the dreams I had as a younger man, which I have not yet had the opportunity to pursue. For all that I have learnt about pilots and airplanes, one thing that really stands out is that pilots are taught to trust more in their flight instruments on the airplane than in their senses when flying an airplane. It means that you will never find any well-trained pilot who will simply begin to maneuver or change the course of his airplane simply because he feels he is on a wrong course while his flying instruments still says he is on the right course. In fact, I have watched a few aircraft investigations that were caused by faulty instruments that probably misled the airplane pilots.

The concept of instrument flying is a no brainer to pilots, you just cannot trust your senses when you are high up there, so you had better trust what the instruments say. This same truth also applies to our faith walk with God, you cannot trust your senses, but you must totally rely on what the word of God says. You see, as a Christian you are called to a life of faith, and relying on your feelings or on your senses could be absolutely misleading in the same way that a pilot could be misled who chooses to follow his senses rather than his instruments. Even in the case of an emergency, the pilot can still not simply begin to follow his senses, he rather must initiate emergency procedure based on a manual that he has on the airplane.

For us as believers, the word of God and the leading of the Holy Spirit have been given to guide us on our voyage on earth. Trusting absolutely in your senses or based on the happenings around you could be disastrous to your walk of faith. The word of God and the leading of the Holy Spirit are superior to your feelings. You may be wondering how this affects you in practical terms, well, it does in so many ways; When things are going just fine, you are feeling good, even though you have not been doing so much of instrument flying, but when rough and difficult times come, that is when you need your instruments the most. However, if you have not been giving so much attention to the instruments in the first place, you may begin to have doubts, and seem somewhat confused like you were caught unawares when you shouldn’t have been. But like we say in faith circles, faith expects the best, but is always prepared for the worst.

This immediately brings to mind a documentary I once watched of the son of one of America’s ex-president who was flying an airplane. He took off in daylight and was able to maneuver the airplane even without instruments. But it was night before he could begin to make his way back to base and he was flying over an ocean. He was using visuals rather than flight instruments to fly the small airplane. He later became disoriented and began to head for the ocean since he couldn’t differentiate the ocean from the cloud in the dark of night. He eventually crashed the plane into the ocean and lost his life.

So, you may be at a point in your life where you are feeling like life is unfair to you or that you are simply unfortunate because your life hasn’t gone just as you have expected and based on how things are for you at this moment, you may have concluded that you could be under a curse or some kind of spell. That will be trusting in your own judgement rather than flying with your instruments. If you continue in this line of thought, you will eventually crash. What you should be spending more time doing at this point is consulting your instruments, if you look carefully at the instrument of the word of God, it tells you that Christ has redeemed you from the curse, so there is no curse that can hang on you now that you are in Christ. You may be feeling broke and down, but don’t ever let it settle in your heart that you are poor and of no good, that will be going by your senses, rather carry yourself with all dignity and stick with what your instruments say; that Christ was made poor that you through His poverty might be rich, and that you have been blessed with all spiritual blessings. You may be feeling sick in your body and the fear of death is hunting you, don’t look at that situation, rather look at the instrument in the word of God that says by His stripes you were healed. We could go on and on, but the important thing is that you must look beyond the circumstance to what the word of God says, that is your instrument.

Don’t live your life all based on your senses, thinking that you have it all figured out, rather, train yourself for instrument flying even against your senses. Remember that the night is coming, because the challenges of life comes to us all and if you don’t want to get disoriented in your night time, then it is time to switch to instrument flying. That is the only guarantee that you can go on to land your life safely.