When All You Can Do Is Trust

Last updated on: April 10, 2013 at 2:48 pm by Bill Blankschaen

When All You Can Do Is Trust 2013-04-10T14:48:48-06:00 Bill Blankschaen

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A recent airplane flight reminded me that there are times in life when all you can do is trust. They happen much more than we might think, these life moments that require faith from us.

My reminder came with a brief airplane ride, one of those where it takes you longer to drive to the airport than it does to fly to your destination. Because the flight was short, the plane was small. Kind of like a can turned sideways with jet engines attached. And a few vinyl seats tossed in to fool you into thinking the experience might actually be comfortable.

It didn’t help that this tragic crash was in the news that day:

For those who don’t know, I’m 6 ft. 4 in. tall. Let’s just say airline seats were designed with average in mind and I am not average. (More on that lesson later.) They designed the headrest, I suppose, to support the head of someone about a foot shorter than I am. It just made for a bulge in the back of my shoulder blades. But that’s not where the trust came in.

My seat happened to be on the wings, middle aisle. In other words, I had no view out the windows. I had no idea where we were relative to the ground. I never did see a pilot or co-pilot so I didn’t know if they were in the plane, still in the plane, sleeping in the plane, or enjoying the relaxed marijuana laws now available in some states. When we hit turbulence, we could have been crossing railroad tracks for all I knew.

All I could do was buckle up and enjoy the headrest poking me in the spine, being sure my seatback and tray were in their completely upright position (what’s up with that?).

And trust.

I know the seats supposedly make great flotation devices, but I suspect a parachutte might have been better. No such luck.

Come to think of it, all I could do was trust.

As we roared down the runway for takeoff, I realized I couldn’t have gotten off if I’d wanted to. As we came in for landing — at least I was hoping that was why the engines were getting quieter — I could do nothing, nothing at all to help the process.

Helpless. All I could do was trust. All I could do was have faith that the pilots, technicians, airlane quality control, aviation inspectors, etc. had all done their jobs. And that God was doing His.

We find out what we really believe in life when all we can do is trust. [ Tweet this! ] Until then, our faith is just a rumour.

Where in your daily life do you find that all you can do is trust? How does thta make you feel? Leave thought with a click here to help us all live with more abundant faith.

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