Being Prepared

He now knew he had two flame-outs, the engines were toast since he had flown through that flock of geese and sucked a few of them through each turbine. He had a plane full of souls over a city full of souls, every second counted. He didn’t have time to think, there literally was no time for thinking, but only time for acting, if he hadn’t paid attention during all of those hours of training, then it would show, because it was all pure instinct now baby. He called out orders in the cockpit as the co-pilot Jeff responded quickly. The flight attendants also jumped as he issued orders and fearlessly prepared the passengers for the worst. They had to announce the one thing over the PA system that every flight attendant hopes they never have do, “ladies and gentlemen, please prepare for a crash landing”.

The pilot had located a place to set the big bird down that would have the least amount of impact (literally) on the crash zone, and would also suit their needs the best, it would be a water landing on a wide river. As he brought the plane about and fought the controls with no power, the big jetliner was effectively nothing more than a glider now as he lined it up over the river and began to feather the flaps as the plane started its descent.  He knew the river was plenty wide and long, now all he had to do was watch out for watercraft, but it was midwinter, so that should minimize things a lot. As the big plane neared the water, the pilot and his co-pilot Jeff braced for impact and gripped the controls with both hands firmly. As the plane hit the dense water, he feared it would break up, but he knew he needed to stick with the procedure for a water landing and follow it to the letter. They held on tight as the huge airliner skipped smoothly across the water like a flat rock thrown across a pond, not near as bad as he had suspected. The crew, even the passengers held it together like you wouldn’t believe, courage and professionalism ruled the day. The Pilot looked down and saw the big plane had stopped moving altogether, they had survived, and it was a miracle. He wanted to shout from the rooftops and tell the world, but their work was far from over, it had just begun.

Emergency doors were opened and the cool inflatable slides deployed and were then pulled over so that they slid out onto the wings. As Sully watched the last of his passengers deplane, he began to walk the cabin of the plane looking for anyone that may have stayed behind or been injured. Sully kept going as the water in the cabin was first an inch or two, then soon ankle deep, after checking the lavatory, Sully looked out the window at the evacuation progress and noted that they were about two thirds finished. A coast guard cutter and a white boat that had just pulled in and started taking people aboard had already rescued most of the passengers. Sully had already decided that he would be the last one to be rescued, because that is how it is when you are the captain of a vessel. He turned and made another full sweep of the cabin, restroom, attendant’s area and the water was getting deep now. He had one more thing to do; he retrieved the captain’s logbook, placed it in a plastic bag, and left the plane for the last time.

I was recently reading in Luke 6:46-49,    “Why do you call me, ‘Lord, Lord,’ and do not do what I say?  As for everyone who comes to me and hears my words and puts them into practice, I will show you what they are like.  They are like a man building a house, who dug down deep and laid the foundation on rock. When a flood came, the torrent struck that house but could not shake it, because it was well built.  But the one who hears my words and does not put them into practice is like a man who built a house on the ground without a foundation. The moment the torrent struck that house, it collapsed and its destruction was complete.”

This reminded me of Sully, because after this incident occurred, sully became a trainer for other pilots, and the thing he talks to them about is being prepared. In my job, we are trained similarly to the way Sully is trained, we run big turbine engines that cost hundreds of millions of dollars too, but we are not trained to monitor them when everything is going well, but to respond with lightning speed accurately when everything goes wrong. We are trained to act with fast reflexes, superior (right the first time) decision making, to not get rattled, and to be able to put everything back together when things go terribly wrong. That is why I know when Sully landed that plane in the Hudson and not a soul was wounded, Sully was a remarkable man. He is a man who was committed to training, he took his job seriously, if you had run in his circles, he probably would have been the one ridiculed by the others for being too much of a bookworm. When the guys were going out to let off steam and have a few beers, Sully would have passed because he would have been studying a bit more than the rest.

The same is true of us as followers of Christ; the level of our rooting is going to be determined by the level of our commitment. It is great to go to church, to take the little study guide that they give out each week and follow along with the pastor, writing down notes as you get to the key points. It is great to sing praises to God, raising hands in worship to him and to commune with him when the cup and the bread are passed, but does it go further, how deep are your roots? If Satan came and tried to pry you away from your faith like we do a weed in springtime, would it be a chore, would he have a hard time, or would you just pop right out. “But the one who hears my words and does not put them into practice is like a man who built a house on the ground without a foundation. The moment the torrent struck that house, it collapsed and its destruction was complete.”

They are like a man building a house, who dug down deep and laid the foundation on rock. The foundation on bedrock is simple, do you know the word, do you know the stories of the Old Testament, or do you know the stories of the New Testament? The word holds the answers to this life that we seek, that we need, the covenant that God made with us, it is the bedrock on which we build our house. If we build our house there, what can stand against it, what can rail against the power of God? Nothing, so in my opinion, Sully showed us a great example of what can happen if you are prepared. So I ask you, are you prepared for a crash?

God Bless-JFT