Being Prepared

Isaiah 55:6

Seek the LORD while he may be found; call on him while he is near.

Some people called it a miracle an act of God. I didn't see it that way. I believe in miracles, I believe that God can move in extraordinary ways beyond our comprehension. However, in this instance I think this wasn't the case. One man had the lives of hundreds in his hands. It looked like a certain disaster with the loss of many lives. All power was gone. All hope seemed to disappear as well. A plane with no engines, in a built up city, with no runway within reach. The odds weren't good and the outlook looked worse. Yet one Chesley Sullenberger was at the controls. He coolly and calmly landed his plane, it's crew and 148 passengers safely, not on a nearby runway or open road but on the Hudson River. People called it the "Miracle on the Hudson", but as I said before I don't think it was. Did the passengers on that plane pray for a miracle. my guess is many of them did. Could God have performed a miracle, I know he could. So, why didn't he? Because Captain Chesley Sullenberger was in control. I guess he had about 2 minutes from realising they were going down until they hit the river. Mr Sullenberger didn't have time to refer to the manual, I guess even if he had have done there wouldn't have been much info on how to land with no engines in a river. However, Captain Chesley Sullenberger had been a fighter pilot and he had been a commercial pilot for 29years. All his training, all his experience pointed to this one event. He knew how to fly this plane, he had flown in every weather condition and had flown for thousands of miles. He had trained, he had prepared, he had practise and because of that, he was ready! He got that plane down safely and saved the lives of those 148 passengers and his crew. It wasn't because of some miracle it was one man was trained, experienced, ready and willing.

Now most of us won't be called on in our lives to land a plane on water or to do anything so dramatic. However, as Christians, we are called day in and day out to make decisions for Christ. If we are trained, willing, practised, experienced and ready we will make wise, discerning decisions. If we are not, the chances are our decisions will be far more touch and go. We need to put in the hours to train ourselves in godliness and righteousness in order, not only to be ready when Christ comes or we are called home, but in order to live the lives God has in store for us. I believe that the Holy Spirit will rarely bring to mind a verse that we have not put into our minds beforehand. If we don’t study God’s word, if we don’t put in the effort it can inhibit the work of God in our lives. If we put in the work, if we study, if we pray , if we seek God we begin to know the heart of God. We can live our lives in the knowledge that He will direct our paths and decisions we make when on auto-pilot will be good and wise ones. When the plane of our life faces a sea of uncertainty it will be the hours of training that we have put in that will make the difference to whether we sink or swim.

1 Corinthians 13: 11
When I was a child, I talked like a child, I thought like a child, I reasoned like a child. When I became a man, I put childish ways behind me.

Hebrew 5: 11-14
We have much to say about this, but it is hard to explain because you are slow to learn. In fact, though by this time you ought to be teachers, you need someone to teach you the elementary truths of God's word all over again. You need milk, not solid food! Anyone who lives on milk, being still an infant, is not acquainted with the teaching about righteousness. But solid food is for the mature, who by constant use have trained themselves to distinguish good from evil.