Bumpy Landings

Tuesday, June 11, 2002

I was on an early-morning airplane flight, 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, suddenly commanding the attention of all the passengers who are usually numb from frequent travel. I thought, "I wonder what the flight attendant is going to say - this was not just a routine landing." Well, the attendant simply got on the P. A. and said, "Ladies and gentlemen, now that I have your attention, I'd like to make a few announcements..." Man, did he 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. It could be that God is 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 could otherwise never see.

My experience has been that God has three tools that He seems to use over and over again to show us 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. "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 there's nothing random about the weather - God uses it, God designs it, to accomplish His purposes - and to show us His greatness. We can have the most elaborate plans, but one storm can change all that. The weather is beyond our control. God uses it to get our attention, to change our plans, 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 our life. But sickness and disease aren't random either. They, like the weather, are ultimately subject to the sovereignty of Almighty God. And God accomplishes His perfect will through our health - and does some amazingly beautiful things through painful times.

One other tool God uses is our finances. Again, our financial situation is at the mercy of so many things we cannot control - but God can - and does. And our financial needs become a powerful tool in God's hands to draw us much closer to Him, to make us evaluate our priorities, to put His Kingdom first.

The weather, the money, your health - three power tools that God uses to show us His Lordship and power, to get our attention, to restore or maybe deepen our dependency on Him, and to surgically remove the spiritual cancers in our life. Our God reigns, 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 using those bumpy landings to get your attention and give you messages from Him.