Going to an air show is a unique kind of thrill.
There are the sights—watching a sleek machine blaze through the sky at hundreds of miles per hour, or seeing a pilot perform acrobatic feats in his plane hundreds of feet from the ground. There are the sounds—the unmistakable roar of a fighter jet announcing its power, or the nostalgic rumble of a World War II-era Mustang or Corsair telling the story of battles won, by God’s grace, long ago. There are the smells—fuel and exhaust mixed in with the cool, spring air.
Growing up, my dad would take our family to an air show every year, and I developed a lifelong love of all things with engines that fly. Taking my wife and children to share such an experience recently, I discovered that the thrill has not been diminished with time.
To get those amazing machines in the air requires an incredible mastery of physics, chemistry, aerodynamics, engineering, and design—and that is just to build the things. To actually lift them off the ground and maneuver them through the air, a pilot must have an almost superhuman degree of focus, vision, reflexes, strength, and physical stamina.
A pilot navigating an F22 through the clouds points to the glory of Almighty God as much as anything in nature. Share on XAll of that is a testimony to God’s handiwork. A pilot navigating an F22 through the clouds points to the glory of Almighty God as much as anything in nature. As we discover more about how the universe works, the imagination and skill of man may be able to craft some profoundly complex inventions. But only an infinitely creative and knowledgeable God could make human minds that could dream up and build an airplane or a spaceship or a car or a computer.
Not only that, but all of the materials used to create all of those technological wonders come from elements that were already in the earth. Whatever kind of incredible inventions we are talking about, they were built with pieces that God made. They were built on a planet that God made, in a universe that God made. They were built by people whom God made.
And people, in turn, look to God’s creation to figure out how to create instruments that move and fly and compute. When Orville and Wilbur Wright sought to discover how to keep an airplane in the air, they looked to what God had already placed in the sky. As historian David McCullough records, “‘Learning the secret of flight from a bird,’ Orville would say, ‘was a good deal like learning the secret of magic from a magician.’”
Birds on the wing, birds of every kind by the hundreds, filled the air—eagles, snow-white gannets, hawks, pigeons, turkey vultures, or buzzards as they were known on the Outer Banks, with wing spans of as much as six feet. Wilbur devoted hours to studying their movements in the wind, filling pages of his notebook, sometimes adding small drawings. The reality of what birds could do—the miracle of birds—remained a subject of continuing importance and fascination, and birdlife on the Outer Banks was beyond anything they had ever imagined.
In no small measure, I could enjoy watching high-tech jets soar through the air because two men on the coast of North Carolina obsessively studied how the Almighty Creator designed birds.
We are right to be awestruck by man’s skill and ingenuity, but it ought to remind us that the brilliance of man is infinitesimal compared to the mind of the Lord. And the most life-altering creation by man is completely subservient to and dependent upon the God who gives him breath.
As the apostle Paul says about Christ, “For by him all things were created, in heaven and on earth, visible and invisible, whether thrones or dominions or rulers or authorities—all things were created through him and for him. And he is before all things, and in him all things hold together.”
The next time you are awed by a man-made marvel, lift up your eyes and worship the one who made man. Share on XThe Lord holds together all things, including airplanes, smart phones, boats, microwave ovens (and the actual microwaves that make them work), and every person who creates or operates any of them. People cannot help but show God’s greatness and glory. Even the most astounding feats of mankind are but a glimpse into His power. “For as the heavens are higher than the earth,” He says, “so are my ways higher than your ways and my thoughts than your thoughts” (Isaiah 55:9).
And when Job tries to understand the will and ways of the all-powerful Creator, God asks him, “Where were you when I laid the foundation of the earth? Tell me, if you have understanding. Who determined its measurements—surely you know! Or who stretched the line upon it?”
So the next time you are awed by a man-made marvel, lift up your eyes and worship the one who made man.
