You're at 35,0006 feet, heading due east at 538 miles per hour. Statistically, the likelihood of an airplane accident occurs less frequently than a fatal deer attack. But somehow, fear doesn’t factor statistics before it decides to mess with your mind. Somehow, my brain doesn’t care that you’d have to fly every day for 300 years before you’re likely to experience even an nonfatal airplane accident.
It doesn’t matter how much I’ve read about planes (a lot), how much I’ve researched and diagnosed each and every noise a plane makes (That rushing sound? Engine coolant.) or how infinitesimally small the probability of an accident — I’m terrified of flying. Five days before a flight, it’s already consuming my thoughts. The night before, I’m lucky if I get five hours of restless sleep and I can’t eat a bite until that plane touches down at our final destination. I practically kneel at the feet of the pilots on my way off of the plane.
My own fear of flying has long since been indicative of a larger issue: I hate surrendering control. No matter the setting, be it group project or airplane cabin, I’m always more confident when I’m in command. At a certain point, that’s a natural human instinct. When consequences depend on action, the natural inclination is to secure those actions with our own fingertips. Control is confidence is insurance. It’s only when that outcome is suddenly dependent on the decision-making of an unfamiliar individual in the front of the aircraft, and when that aircraft happens to be moving at 500+ miles per hour while 32,000+ feet from any trace of soil, that I let my doubts creep in.
So it’s appropriate that as I’m writing this, I’m staring through the Boeing window from Seat 37A, aboard Delta Flight 14 with service to Atlanta. And I’m terrified. My fingers are trembling and my heart is pounding, all indicative of a shaken demeanor. I realize how ludicrous it is to be afraid of a setting which statistically is safer than my own home. I’m sure the reader does as well.
How crazy is that? I’ll readily admit that even in this setting, I’d rather be in control of my own destiny. That would mean removing from the hands of two dedicated, thoroughly trained airline pilots all control, and handing it to an inexperienced, spooked 20-year-old excuse for confidence. The worst thing that could ever happen to this plane isn’t the realized possibility of bad weather, mechanical malfunction or even a hijacking. The worst thing that could happen to this plane is if I were to receive exactly what I want: control.
Often, we laugh at a circumstance until we can see ourselves in it. If life is the plane, then we’ve all been here. So often we want control of our own lives; we would rather be handed the steering wheel to facilitate control of our own lives, at almost any cost. And the cost is a heavy one. We’d be removing that steering wheel from a power who, just like the airline pilots, has absolutely everything in control. In fact, our life pilot has a list of credentials which starts with voluntary crucifixion. The pilot of our lives chose to die for us, rather than accept the possibility that when we steered our own lives, we would fail. Just like this plane, the worst thing that could ever happen to our lives isn’t the realized possibility that something could go wrong. No, the worst thing that could ever happen in our lives is if we stole control from the God who offers it. And the greater thing that our lives could contain is the willing surrender of control back to a God who through free will grants it first to us.
Flying sucks. I’m still shaking, and I still glance out the window to make sure we aren’t plummeting toward certain death. But sometimes, it’s not about getting around it. It’s about asking for the grace to get through it.
There’s a lot to look forward to upon landing. But God is using me right now; he’s changing me right now. Don’t wait for the landing to appreciate the flight.
