“View from Altitude - II”

“’Pain with Purpose’ or ‘Pain without Purpose’—You Choose”

Soon after we taxied on to the active, the aircraft commander advanced the throttles and the airframe gathered more and more speed.  The pilot in the right seat called out speeds.  “S1,” “Pickle,” then it came, “Rotate.”   It was then that the aircraft commander pulled back on the yoke and the bump of the tires on the runway was replaced by the sounds of the flaps as they adjusted to the settings for which he had called.  As well there was the sound of the whine and bump of the landing gear as it retracted.

The Vastness of South Dakota

As I sat there in the jump seat I glanced out at the base.  By now we were gaining more and more airspeed and altitude.  There was the taxiway we had just traveled, the hangars with their maintenance folks, Pride Hanger, the various other building, and then as we gained more altitude, base housing came into view.  In a short time I could see 50 or 60 miles out over the patchwork of farmlands toward the badlands.  From up here, how very large this state has become.  It was just a brief look for we were rapidly gaining altitude and soon would turn toward the east and then south on a heading that would take us to the air refueling track.

As I listened to the radios we were passed off to Minneapolis Center.  “Good morning Hoser 54, climb and maintain three five zero.”  The aircraft commander acknowledged with “Hoser 54 out of three zero for three five zero and we would continue our climb to an altitude of 35,000 feet. 

Shifting Perspectives

Ever notice how very quickly the human perspective can shift?  In one moment a person can be traveling the roadways of life, safe, secure, and comfortable.  In the next due to the death of someone near, catastrophic illness, accident of some sort, or some other unforeseen trauma one’s perspective shifts.  It is in those moments and even days that one’s world collapses into the trauma suffered.

Years later during another assignment a pilot stopped by our home one Saturday afternoon.  We both lived on base, he and his family a few streets away.  In a very short period of time and in the telling of the breakup of marriage and family, his emotions took over and he began to grieve, deeply grieve.  His whole world collapsed from all that made up their Air Force life-style and the advantages it offered to the spouse he was soon to lose.   

He was a good pilot, on his way up the promotion ladder, there were good things ahead.  Yet in that moment and other times we spent together he would have traded all—his career, his aviation, and all else for the return and commitment of his wife to their marriage.   

As we continued our climb out, what could and would so dominate one’s view on the ground was soon lost in the vastness of the earth below.  Even  if it could be seen it would be little more than a dot.  By now Minneapolis Center had given us headings to the east and then to the south toward our refueling track.  If one took the time to look outward into the distance, such a view gave one some sense the vastness of South Dakota and Nebraska as we at several thousands of feet crossed the border.  Even now just a few minutes into the mission, the vastness of the difficulties with which the people on the ground struggled, were lost to one’s view. 

The View from Above

Imagine now if you had the power to view the big picture while at the same time viewing all that is lost to one’s view from altitude.  That is how God sees the world and all who inhabit it. 

He sees the eternal big picture to include all that is bounded by time and space and as well that which is without.  The writer of the Psalms notes the vastness of God when he notes that He has a name for every one of the several trillion stars and that not one of them is missing.  At the same time He sees every detail, even the minutest details of every life that has ever lived, is living, or ever will live.

God sees and knows all.  So now comes the question, if God sees and knows all does He understand that there is hurt in my life?  It is at this juncture we do well to look at another word for God, YHWH, or in the English Jehovah.  This is the relational word for God which appears for the first time in Scripture just after the creation of mankind. 

It is the name Jehovah that communicates quite clearly that God is a relational God and that as such He cares when this hurt or that hurt comes into our lives.  When one thinks of God it is not hard to see Him as distant and unrelated but Jehovah or Lord as it is translated gives to us a much different picture.    

Facing Evil

Why is there evil?  Why is there mistreatment of the innocent?  Why was this person allowed to take advantage of another, perhaps a child?  I do not know though I wish I did have answers that brought comfort and calm. 

Most certainly there are those, like C. S. Lewis and J. R. R. Tolkien who from life’s experience and brilliant intellect can give perspective in the face of these questions.  At this point while I might offer some sort of an answer it would be less than others could proffer. 

However, there are two things I do know.  First, I know that to live in this world (no matter how advanced or undeveloped the culture) is to live in an imperfect world among imperfect people and sometimes in such a world the innocent and helpless are victimized and hurt through no fault of their own.

The second thing I do know is this.  For the genuine real deal Christians—the true follower of Jesus Christ there is a promise written by one who had suffered much, who would be jailed, and would like so many others, die for his faith.  This is the promise,

“And we know that God causes all things to work together for good to those who love God, to those who are called according to His purpose.” (Romans 8:28, NASU).

Notice that this was common knowledge “…we know….”  It was not some idle speculation of the demented but the lot in life for the many who would have read those words.  This man knew all too well that following Jesus in no way prevents one from being victimized in this life. 

Pain with Purpose or Pain without Purpose?

However of the many things one might point out, there was and is one more I wish to point out.  We might call this, “The Promise of Purpose.”  It is only in the case of the Christian that God takes things as dismal and distasteful as they may be and brings out of those circumstances “good.” 

Now the question!  If one cannot avoid the painful difficult places of life, and none of us can, would it not be better to live through those things knowing that they can be for “good” purpose as opposed to pain without purpose?

You see one answer leads to being trampled upon, the other to triumph.  

Peace to all who read herein.

"The Truth That Leads To Contrition"

There is a truth that leads to contrition.  There also is a truth that does not.

Imagine that a person is driving and without paying attention drives over the speed limit.  Maybe this has happened to you.  Then it happens, a quick look in the rear view mirror reveals that a police officer is following and he initiates a traffic stop.   He approaches your window and says something like the speed limit is 35 miles per hour and you were observed going 45 miles per hour.

When he tells you that you were breaking the law by speeding you have a choice to make.  The choice is in how you react.  Generally and with most people such an experience will bring forth a sense of contrition.  Another way to put it is that such an experience softens the heart.

The other choice is to respond with a hard heart.  The first kind of reaction is that of receiving the words of the officer.  The second is to reject the words of the officer,  put forth some kind of an excuse, or even argument with the police officer.

Now change the story to the person who while reading the Scriptures, listening to a sermon or a sermon in song, or simply pondering the things of God comes face to face with his failure to live by God's standards--God's truth.

Faced with genuine truth will either bring about conviction which then results in a broken and contrite heart or a heart that hardens against the truth.  The humble and contrite heart receives God's truth and remains soft before it.  On the other hand the hard hearted--the stony hearted person will on some level reject it.

Rejection takes several forms to include seeking to not be responsible with an excuse or two, seeking to rationalize one's way out of responsibility, shifting blame, denying the truth, and so on.  It does nothing more than deceive the hard hearted and such deception further hardens the heart.  There comes a point when the heart becomes so hardened that it neither hears, is convicted, nor cares that it does not conform to genuine truth.

Said again, facing truth will either soften our hearts or harden them.  That is the serious state in which we find many people today, they have traded away the genuine eternal truths of God for those things that are comfortable, acceptable, and temporal.  The consciousness they have of God is not a consciousness of God for it is only of a god that they have created.  Such temporal values masquerade as truth and it is with great danger that some have constructed a whole reality based upon a foundation that at best is subject to failure.

Truth, that is genuine truth can, if allowed soften the human heart.

If allowed it can call us to account, to realize our own failings and sinfulness, call us to conviction, and challenge us to a higher level of behavior that is the living out of our faith.  

If our hearts are soften, we are more likely to hear the voice of the Heavenly Father, more likely to take to heart the written Word of God, more likely to have a God consciousness, to feel the conviction of and communion with the Holy Spirit, and more likely to be in a position to have our hearts further softened, etc. 

If our hearts are soften by genuine truth, it adds a God dimension to life and such a view of life if allowed to germinate and grow, day by day and in greater measure give spiritual understandings to physical realities.  

Such an humble and contrite heart is key and essential for Christian growth.

There is much to be said for the one who seeks genuine and Godly truth in order to be brought to a place of contrition that results in a soft and humble heart.

"The Lost Religious/Character Components of Language"

"We willingly sacrifice much for that to which we are committed."

Maybe take a moment and ponder the thoughts expressed in that statement.

Look with me now at the particulars of the statement and understand the strength of same.  Historically sacrifice comes from two words.  Sacred or that which pertains to God and another word which means to take some course of action.  It has in most instances referred to a priestly function as in offering a sacrifice to God.

As you can see and as with so many other notions and ideas, this word has its origins in religion and since the religious roots of Judaism predates all other religions, it finds its most salient examples in the Jewish Scriptures and in particular in the books of Moses where we read of the people making sacrifice and then came the Mt Sinai experience and establishment of the laws governing sacrifice.  There also are numerous examples of the consequences of not offering sacrifice in the prescribed manner and thus are examples of sacrilege.  And we thought serving God on our own terms and not His is something new.

As an aside, think of the number of words that we use which can be traced to Judeo-Christian faith.  Words such as creation, sacred, love, sacrificial, reverent, sacred, discipline, evil, restoration, patience, sacrilege, sin, irreverent, and so many more.  We certainly find that to be so in other languages for instance Arabic and the word jihad

There was a time that people understood the religious component of life and as well understood the connection of these and other words with faith.  Read the original and unsanitized writings of those who founded America and you will not read long before you realize that they understood the connection of language with faith, in most of their cases Christianity.

One of the reasons that language has undergone change in terms of common usage is that such is necessary for it to be so in order that there be a secularization of the American culture.  Whether language influences culture (my position) or culture influences language or some combination of the two is up for debate.  Whichever view you embrace, such change is quite gradual and therefore more subtle than revising history and misinterpreting the concept of separation.  It has escaped the notice of most even people of faith in general and most religious leaders in particular.

As well we certainly can  add to the discussion that there has been a weakening of the ethical and character elements of language.  The two words in the original statement, "willingly" and "committed" are both character words.  The first speaks to one's volition--that is decision making function.  Such function or decision making apparatus is strongly influenced by one's grasp and application of character qualities such as integrity, honesty, orderliness, etc. in the day to day of life.  Absent character, absent consistency and strength of the volitional processes of life.

The last word, "committed" comes from "commitment" and speaks to one being in a state of that commitment.  Such of course means to be obligated to some course of action by pledge or promise.  The troubling problem is that today we find the common usage of the word is much less binding.  Again, it is a matter of one's character and one's ethical view of life lived out in the practices of day to day living. Again absent character, absent consistency and strength in the commitments we make in life.

The effects of secularizing and the blurring of meaning in language is much more significant than the previously listed trends because in insidious ways it has an effect upon the ways in which we fashion thoughts into expression, identify feelings, combine thoughts and feelings into attitudes, give expression to those thoughts and attitudes, and eventually end up in having an effect in and upon our actions, interactions, and reactions.

Taking then our original statement "We willingly sacrifice much for that to which we are committed"  we now may understand it to say, "We with will, strengthened by character, decide to make sacrificial actions unto God of that to which we have obligated ourselves through pledge and/or promise."  Said another way there is a  God and a character dimension to this statement and in reality to all we do.