What went Wrong?

The GE CFM 56 were at idle as the KC-135R was waiting for final clearance to launch.  Soon traffic cleared the active runway and we pulled out onto the hammerhead and lined up centerline.  The aircraft commander (AC) advanced the throttles and we begin our takeoff roll.

The pilot called out airspeeds for the AC.  “S-1” came and went, then “pickle,” and finally “rotate” at which the AC pulled back on the yoke, and we went airborne.  Earlier the AC had briefed, “When we hit pickle we are going to takeoff and work our problems in the air.”  In other words, we were committed.

The names are not important.  Any of a number of them would bring up the same thought.  Yes, I admit it; I was confused—even a bit bothered.  There was the magazine publisher, the entertainer, the exotic dancer, all claimed to have become a Christian, and yet the Christian faith made no difference in their publishing, entertaining, or dancing lives.  What went wrong?

How can this be?  Isn’t a relationship with Jesus Christ supposed to change a person outlook, frame every area of one’s life, and make a difference in all one does?  Yes that is so but problems abound when faith is not the dominant influence in every facet of one’s life.   If one’s commitment to faith is anything less that total, it produces a floundering faith that does not function.

 

The point is this.  Just as that aircrew at some point in the takeoff roll was committed to launch, so too for Christianity to work, the Christian is to be totally committed.  Any less commitment will cause airplanes and Christians to crash and burn.