Taken from Faith on the Frontline compiled by Liesel Parkinson and published by CWR.
Instrument flying is quite unlike any other flying. To simulate it, a hood is put over your helmet so that you can’t see anything other than the instrumentation. You have to develop the ability to build a picture in your head of what is happening around you, using information only from the instruments and what you are told. On one of my first instrument flying lessons, I had just taken off from RAF Church Fenton, with my instructor in the left-hand seat, when Air Traffic came on the radio and told me about another aircraft in the area. I couldn’t see anything and because, at the time, I wasn’t very good at building these mental pictures of the situation, I believed I was on a collision course and would hit the other aircraft in a matter of seconds.
Actually, we were about 5 miles apart and the Air Traffic Controller, with her radar screen in front of her, knew we were completely safe, but I was totally convinced I was only seconds away from death. I have to trust God in prayer, just like I have to trust the Air Traffic Controller.
So often we, too, navigate our way through life unable to see the whole picture, our fevered imaginations creating a distorted impression of reality. We struggle against fear, not able to see things from a divine perspective. God says through Jeremiah, ‘Am I only a God nearby … and not a God far away? Who can hide in secret places so that I cannot see them?’
God, like the Air Traffic Controller, has all the information about every aspect of our lives at His fingertips. There is nowhere we can go, the Psalmist reminds us, that is too far away from His tender love and care. He sees the whole picture, unlike us, who see only a small part.
*Photo Credit: https://www.pexels.com/@terrence-bowen-6926582