aviation | Musings of Milton

His flying was limited to the short duration of World War II. Mine, though later and longer, was far less remarkable.

My dad was a fighter pilot. A Navy fighter pilot. And he flew in one of the first night-fighter squadrons in the Pacific. His flying skills not only included landing on an aircraft carrier …at night, but in finding the aircraft carrier …at night. After he departed the carrier to begin a mission, the carrier continued to proceed in that vast ocean. Upon his return, my dad had to locate the carrier in its new location using a combination of celestial navigation, rudimentary radio equipment, and … math. Math that included the actual, real-life math word problems of “if you leave the aircraft carrier at 1800 hours, and you were gone for 2:30 hours, and the aircraft carrier was traveling at 5 knots on a heading of 030 degrees, where would the aircraft carrier be when you returned? And oh, by the way, how much fuel would you have left in case you had trouble finding the carrier?

Yes, that was remarkable.

My dad passed away when I was a young man and one of the possessions I inherited was his Navy ring displaying the Navy wings.

It is quite the heirloom. One, because of whose it was, but two because those who earn the right to Navy wings belong to a distinct group, a family of Navy pilots.

From time to time, I will wear the ring. I feel sheepish doing so in public. Though I am a pilot and have earned my wings, I have not earned those wings. I often wonder what Navy pilots would say to my donning. Like I said…I am self-conscious about putting it on.

That is an intriguing story Rod, but what is the point?

Though the Navy ring is significant, there is something far more notable that I wear. Something else that I have not earned, yet is always with me. And unlike the ring, it conveys to me rights, it grants privileges, as if I had earned them all, though I have earned none.

What is this, you ask? It is the grant of perfect righteousness. I did have my own righteousness, but it was a self-righteousness, and a worthless one at that.

For all of us have become like one who is unclean,
And all our righteous deeds are like a filthy garment; (Isaiah 64:6a)

Yes, I had a filthy righteousness, if you could call it a righteousness at all.

as it is written, “There is none righteous, not even one;
There is none who understands,
There is none who seeks for God;
All have turned aside, together they have become useless;
There is none who does good,
There is not even one.” (Romans 3:10-12)

Yes, not even one…not even me…not even you. Neither you nor I is the exception.

for all have sinned and fall short of the glory of God, (Romans 3:23)

I needed a perfect righteousness. A righteousness that would allow me to enter where Perfection dwells, Heaven itself, to be with God Himself.

Jesus Christ had a righteousness that He could impart. By His life perfectly lived, death on a cross, followed by burial, then resurrection, and through my repentance of sin and faith in this act of Christ, my sins were placed on Christ and he was treated on the cross as if he had lived my sinful life. This granted that, in exchange, I could be treated as if I had lived his perfect life.

An exchange. A wonderful exchange. A Great Exchange.

As the Apostle Paul states …

[God] made [Christ] who knew no sin to be sin on our behalf, so that we might
become the righteousness of God in [Christ]. (2 Corinthians 5:21)

Just like that? Just like that…

For by grace you have been saved through faith; and that not of yourselves, it is the gift
of God; not as a result of works, so that no one may boast. (Ephesians 2:8–9)

I cannot boast in having earned righteousness, just as I cannot boast in having earned Navy Wings. In truth, the only thing we had to offer in this exchange for perfect righteousness was our sin that made the exchange necessary.

As for the ring, I do still wear it from time to time. In fact, I have it on now as I type. And I am sure that I will wear it again in the future, while all the time knowing that I have been granted no rights to what it represents.

But better still, is the grant of the better prize of Christ’s righteousness. I do wear it always, having been clothed in it by God, and granted all the rights and privileges, including heaven itself, with no need for shame.

As Paul wrote: Therefore there is now no condemnation for those who are in Christ Jesus. (Romans 8:1)

Christ’s righteousness is quite the gift. One, because of whose it is, but two because those who have it belong to a distinct group, a member of the family of God. And that is a family to which there is an ongoing open invitation to join. Christ is still granting righteousness to those who acknowledge that they have none, and who repent and believe the gospel.

Rod
S.D.G. – 19

Photos ~ McCrae Haider
Bible verses ~ New American Standard Bible 95

It was a gray and low overcast day. Ceilings just above legal limits and a good day to fly with a friend shooting instrument approaches at a couple of airports.

We had just completed an approach and taken off again, entering into the low overcast when <BANG> the aircraft starts violently shaking…

Not knowing what was wrong, we did for certain know we were in trouble.

A declaration of “Mayday” allowed us to deviate from our assigned heading and turn back toward the airport, seeking the sweet spot of visibility just below the clouds and just above the treetops. After prayerfully looking for the airport, while nursing an airplane that seemed determined to hurt us, we saw the runway and landed without further incident, other than greeted by the airport firetrucks that dutifully rolled after our declaration.

Once stopped, we discovered the cause…approximately six inches of one of the propeller blade tips was missing. This had created blade imbalance in the propeller, the disparity magnified when spinning at 2500 revolutions per minute. Usually such imbalance rips the engine out of its mounts and off the aircraft. Should this occur, the absence of the weight of the engine moves the center of gravity of the airplane far aft, leaving the plane uncontrollable.

Now in a rented car for our return, my friend and I nervously chatted about the event. I was pleased to be able to tell him of my faith and trust in Christ, of my comfort and assurance that following my death, I would be forever with my Lord.

However, some time later, I began to struggle when thinking about the flight. Not that I was concerned about the next flight. In fact, I had already flown many times since. I was still concerned about THAT flight. Rethinking it. Rehearsing it. Re-fearing it. The fact that the motor should have left the airplane, left me unsettled.

Sometimes it is hard to pinpoint exactly what moves us into right thinking. But there is nothing like sound theology to bring perspective to one’s soul.

General Thomas Jonathan “Stonewall” Jackson once penned: “My religious beliefs teach me to feel as safe in battle as in bed. God has fixed the time of my death. I do not concern myself with that, but to be always ready whenever it may overtake me. That is the way all men should live, and all men would be equally brave.

_{National Parks Service photo}

Jackson’s religious beliefs were grounded in Scripture.

David, the shepherd, military leader, then King of Israel had written:

Your eyes have seen my unformed substance;
And in Your book were all written
The days that were ordained for me,
When as yet there was not one of them.
Psalm 139:16 (NASB95)

And Job of old before him declared:

“Who can make the clean out of the unclean?
No one!
“Since his days are determined,
The number of his months is with You;
And his limits You have set so that he cannot pass.
Job 14:4–5 (NASB95)

I began to meditate on and grasp the fact that because I did not die that day, in sovereignty, I could not have died that day. And that day, and its remembrance, became no different for me than other days. Other than I had quite a “There I Was” pilot story to tell. To paraphrase Stonewall, I was as safe that day in the plane as if I had been in bed. And conversely, if that was the day the Lord had ordained for my death, there would have not been anything I could have done to make it not so.

So with Jackson, trusting God’s ordained timing, let us move through each day without fear, and together “…be equally brave.”

Rod
S.D.G – 18

_{*aircraft above trees photo by Sam Willis}

Musings of Milton

Tag Archives: aviation

I Do Wear The Ring

Equally Brave