When you’re flying 37,000 feet above the earth and your plane’s engine suddenly quits working, it will get your attention! This was brought home to me in an alarming way recently, when my wife Lindsay and Richard Roberts flew to California to celebrate my father‘s birthday. We were on our flight home and had been in the air about 25 minutes when, all of a sudden, we heard what sounded like a sonic boom. In fact, it sounded like a bomb had exploded!
There was a strange grinding noise, and the plane tilted over to one side. We were flying over the mountains and strong crosswinds, going every direction, caused the plane to shake and vibrate as it was tossed to and fro.
Fear tries to come in Now the first thing that usually happens in a situation like that is you panic. Fear comes rushing in, and the thought races through your mind: We’re going to die! Lindsay and Richard Roberts grabbed on to each other. We had a split-second choice to make: We could react in faith, or we could let our own feelings of fear take over. We could go into agreement with what God’s Word says, or we could go into agreement with the circumstances that we were in. Satan was rearing up, and I could feel the fear coming all over me. But while I could almost hear him shouting at me, “You’re going to die! You’re going to die!” I could also hear another voice—a still, small voice on the inside of me—and it was saying, “Your work is not finished yet. You’re going to Africa next week for a crusade. I’ve called you to 40 nations. You’re not going to die in the California desert today.”
We started praying together in the Spirit out loud. In fact, we got so loud, I’m surprised they couldn’t hear us on the ground. After a few minutes the pilot motioned to me and said, “We’ve lost the left engine. We’re going to circle back and make an emergency landing.” As we began our descent, we caught sight of a sea of long green fire engines waiting on the runway, with ambulances on either side. We began to declare, “In the name of Jesus, this plane will land. In the name of Jesus, we will live and not die, and declare the works of the Lord!”
About 10 minutes later, with one engine gone, we landed safely. Just as we had declared by our faith, our lives were spared.
We have a choice
Our experience on that plane is an example of choosing faith over fear and doubt…of believing God and His Word no matter what circumstances you may be facing. The world has it backwards—it says, “Seeing is believing. If I see it, then I’ll believe it.” But faith says, What I believe—based on the truth of God’s Word—I can see come to pass in my life.
When you face the storms and troubles of life—whether they happen at 37,000 feet or standing on firm ground—often there’s no time to find a Bible and try to figure out what you believe. But when you feed on God’s Word on a regular basis and have it hidden inside your heart, faith can rise up big inside of you. And when the rubber meets the road, I believe you can do what Lindsay and I did on that airplane: cast off doubt and fear, and declare, “In Jesus’ name, I choose to believe God.”