The Divine Pilot: A Weekly Reflection

By Patheos team

Be still and know that I am God. ~ Psalm 46:10

Shhhhh . . . be quiet . . . watch and listen, thanks to YouTube.

I'm sitting at Logan Airport in Boston waiting to pick up good friends flying in from a weekend away. Airports are interesting places, if you like to people watch.

"Where is she heading? Where is he coming back from? Why are they leaving? What's in their hearts? What's their story?"

Just watching the flight screens are metaphorical too: on time . . . delayed . . . arriving . . . departing . . . canceled . . .

Like the plan of our lives: sometimes on time, often delayed, and even sometimes, canceled. We arrive . . . we leave . . . we start over, we spiral out of control, in a freefall toward destruction . . .

Up in the air, life takes on a different perspective. At 5000 feet, we realize just how small we really are. We get a new sense of our place in the cosmos: in the clouds, suddenly we don't seem like the center of the universe anymore.

But God does. 

God who makes the clouds, and the crowds, and the planes that carry them, is indeed the center of the universe. 

All of those stories of all of those interesting and not-so-interesting people coming and going in the airport, and in all the airports and all the cities, and all the tiny villages in the world: God knows their stories, each of them, as if they were the only one.

God knows their story . . . and cares. Whether your life is arriving or departing; whether your marriage is on time or delayed; whether your kids love you or hate you today; whether the bills are paid, or your health worries you again, or the smile has faded from your memory, God cares about you.

God loves you, and keeps your life in the air . . . and in God's loving hand and heart.

And for all those times when it feels like your life is crashing . . . spinning, careening perilously out of control, in that moment, be sure that all that is happening is that you are falling ever more quickly into Love.

That just as surely as it feels like everything is over, God is waiting to assure you that your flight is right on time.

Maybe not on your schedule . . . but then, since when were you the Pilot anyway?

Now pray. . . .