I was on one of those early-morning airplane flights that's packed with business people. And as we landed that morning, we had one of those "two for the price of one" landings. We bumped and jumped along the runway as we landed. A lot of fun! And suddenly that commanded the attention of all us passengers who are usually numb from frequent travel. I thought, "I wonder what the flight attendant's going to say? I mean, this wasn't in any way a routine landing." Well, the attendant simply got on the sound system and said, "Ladies and gentlemen, now that I have your attention, I'd like to make a few announcements..." Man, did they have our attention!
I'm Ron Hutchcraft and I want to have A Word With You today about "Bumpy Landings."
Now, maybe you've been experiencing some bumpy landings lately. Maybe God's saying, "Now that I've got your attention, I'd like to make a few announcements." Often, life's bumpy landings are God's way of getting our attention to tell us things and show us things that we otherwise would never see.
My experience has been that God has three tools that He seems to use over and over again to show His glory and to shape our lives. One example is in our word for today from the Word of God in Psalm 135:5-7. God's wakeup tool here is the weather. He says, "I know that the Lord is great...The Lord does whatever pleases Him, in the heavens and on the earth, in the seas and all their depths. He makes clouds rise from the ends of the earth; He sends lightning with the rain and brings out the wind from the storehouses."
OK, well now there's nothing random about the weather. God uses it; God designs it to accomplish His purposes, to show His greatness. We can have the most elaborate plans, but believe me, one storm can change everybody's plans. The weather is beyond our control. So, God uses it to get our attention, to change our plans sometimes, and to accomplish His plans.
Another tool God loves to use when He's trying to get our attention is our health. Again, it's something we have little control over. It's amazing how one visit to a doctor's office can change your life. But sickness and disease? They're not random either. Like the weather, they're ultimately subject to the sovereignty of Almighty God. And God accomplishes His perfect will through our health and He does some amazingly beautiful things through painful times.
One other tool God uses is our finances. Here again, our financial situation is often at the mercy of a lot of things we can't control, but God can and God does. And our financial needs become a powerful tool in God's hands to draw us a lot closer to Him, to make us evaluate our priorities, maybe to get us to put His Kingdom first.
The weather, the money, your health: three power tools that God uses to show His Lordship and His power, and yes, to get our attention, to restore or maybe even deepen our dependence on Him, and then to surgically remove the spiritual cancers in our life.
Our God reigns! That's what the Bible says. And He is using the things we can't control to get us to give Him greater control of our lives. Things aren't out of control just because you're experiencing some bumpy landings. God is actually using your bumpy landings to get your attention and then to give you some important messages from Him.