The Wind Beneath My Wing

There is nothing like the thrill I receive and the adrenaline rush I get when I advance three throttles up to their stops and feel eleven thousand pounds of raw thrust propel my craft down the runway that leads me into the sky.   The earth falls away, like cut from a string, and the once setting sun rises again as if to give me a second chance to see a beautiful sunset.  From under my breath I murmur “Elvis has left the building!”

As I raced heavenward on this crystal clear evening  I gazed out my window  into the heavens and watched the sky,  looking for meteors or shooting stars.  Upon reaching my cruise altitude of thirty-nine thousand feet, I looked up and saw a brilliant heavenly object racing across the heavens.  My first inclination was to think, “Boy that guy is way up there”.    Suddenly it dawned on me that I was already “way up there.”  Obviously too high to be another aircraft and much too large to be a simple satellite, I realized this object was something  new.  It didn’t take but  a moment to conclude this new heavenly body had to be the new orbiting space station making its way around the earth.  So brilliant was its reflection in the night, I realized I was not alone at the edge of space.

Watching the space station race across the night sky and disappear, I became aware that when life has its troubling moments I look up to see God’s creation and peace settles upon my life.  I was reminded of an earlier chapter in my life when I had lost a loved one and prayed repeatedly for some sign from God that all was well.  At that time I was flying an old Douglas DC-3.   After praying that prayer, I looked up and there in the northern night sky was a bright display of light I had never witnessed before.  The Northern Lights were making a rare appearance in the skies over East Texas.   God’s peace flooded my soul.

Today there are signs and wonders in the heavens a thinking Christian cannot ignore.  God’s Word tells us that in the last days there will be signs and wonders in the heavens.  Joel 2:30 says, “And I will display wonders in the sky and on the earth.”
Isaiah 34: vs 4a  says,  Say to those with anxious heart, “Take courage, fear not.”

When I am discouraged……I remember …………… to look up.
  
 

Steven A. Johnson (C) 2000