Flying by Faith Through the Clouds of Failure

There are times in our lives when the failure of a relationship or a dream will take us by surprise. When this happens, we think that part of our life is sure to crash. Crashing is not God’s plan. He has trained you to successfully navigate these difficult moments if you have learned what it means to live by faith.

When I was a young flight instructor, I remember the day I passed the check ride for my multi-engine rating. The examiner put me under a black plastic hood that restricted my vision and allowed me to only see the instrument panel and nothing else. The check ride with the hood was done to simulate flying in the clouds under instrument conditions. I had trained for this moment and knew what to do. 

At one point during the flight, the examiner “failed” one of the aircraft engines requiring that I feather the propeller of the failed engine and adjust the aircraft to fly with only one engine running. The simulated engine failure had to be corrected while still flying the intricacies of an instrument landing. If I could not manage an engine failure during the ILS approach, I would have failed the check ride.  I successfully passed the exam and was awarded my multi-engine rating.

In real life, if a pilot cannot manage an in-flight emergency and continue to safely fly through the clouds they would eventually crash. The same applies to our life of faith. In this life, if you live long enough, you will eventually experience the failure of something you thought would last forever. When this happens, we need to maintain a safe emotional and spiritual status just like a pilot with a failed engine needs to maintain a safe altitude, proper airspeed and a correct heading that will lead to a safe landing.

If you have been flying along in life and something failed in route, you know what to do. Yes, it is painful and knocked the wind out of you, but you have been trained to live by faith. You can still fly your life if you keep your eyes on the instruments of faith and trust God to get you through the murky darkness of this painful experience. God knows how to deliver you safely to a new season. He has a safe landing planned. You just need to keep flying.