Flying Blind

In our culture, it’s common to think of faith as an internal, subjective feeling of positivity that is generated from within by willpower. The Disney gospel is that you can do anything you want if you “believe in yourself.” You just have to ramp up the positive self-talk in spite of what you know to be true. Or think of every Santa Claus movie. The problem is that someone doesn’t believe, but if everyone can generate enough “faith,” then Santa’s sleigh can get off the ground. This kind of “faith” is internal and subjective. If you can produce enough positive feelings inside yourself, you can change the world around you.

That’s the exact opposite of biblical faith, which is anchored objectively in God and his Word, not our feelings. In Scripture, faith is taking God at his Word and acting on it, no matter how you feel, leaving the results to God (1). For biblical examples of faith, read Hebrews 11.

I want to share a metaphor that has helped me over the years. Living by faith is like flying an airplane by instruments.

When I was in high school, I got my private pilot certificate. A private pilot is licensed to fly under Visual Flight Rules (VFR) only. Basically that means you have to be able to see where you’re going. To fly in the clouds or other weather conditions that hinder visibility (called Instrument Flight Rules, or IFR), a pilot needs an additional instrument rating. That’s because when you can’t see outside of the cockpit, you have to be able to fly entirely based on your instruments.

However, even VFR pilots have to know the basics of instrument flight in case of emergency. When my flight instructor introduced me to flying by instruments, he had an effective way to teach me never to rely on my inner feelings. He took the controls, told me to close my eyes, and put the plane through a few maneuvers. Then he told me to keep my eyes closed, retake the controls, and attempt to return the plane to a straight and level path.

Flying with your eyes closed does weird things to your sense of balance and direction. When I thought I had the plane straight and level, I opened my eyes to find that we were actually nose-down and banked to the left. The human sense of balance is completely unreliable in an airplane. Every pilot must rely on his instruments for accurate information, not his feelings. I’ll never forget that crucial lesson.

The next step in learning to fly by instruments was wearing a hood. The hood looks like half of a lampshade. When you put it on, you can’t see outside of the plane, but you can see the instrument panel—airspeed indicator, attitude indicator, altimeter, heading indicator, etc. With reference to nothing but the instruments in front of him, a pilot can fly safely.

What makes instrument flying challenging is the sensory conflict between your internal sense of balance and the instruments. Your instruments say you're straight and level, but your head says you’re spinning to the right. Or your instruments tell you you're plummeting too fast, but your head thinks everything is fine.

Every pilot flying by instruments has to know how to fight the fight of faith. The internal, subjective sense of balance cannot be trusted, no matter how strong it feels. The external, objective revelation coming from the instrument panel must be trusted, again, no matter how you feel.

That’s what living by faith in Christ is like. You can expect frequent sensory conflict between your internal thoughts and feelings and God’s objective Word. Just like pilots have to learn to fly by instruments, Christians must learn to live by faith. That means taking God at his Word and acting on it, no matter how you feel.

The important thing is that you can exercise such faith from varying degrees of feelings. One pilot may be internally disoriented while another has an accurate sense of direction. So long as both of them rely on their instruments and not their feelings, they will arrive safely. Likewise, one Christian may wake up feeling great clarity and confidence and joy, while another starts the day feeling discouraged and apathetic. Both can cling to and rely on the same promises from God with complete assurance that God’s promises are true because of Christ, not because of how we feel about them.

What if you don’t feel like God is near and you are overcome with loneliness? Lay hold of a promise like Deuteronomy 31:8:

“It is the LORD who goes before you. He will be with you; he will not leave you or forsake you. Do not fear or be dismayed.”

—Deuteronomy 31:8

What if you don’t feel delight in or desire for God? Address the sensory conflict with reorienting truth from God’s Word:

“Whom have I in heaven but you? And there is nothing on earth that I desire besides you. My flesh and my heart may fail, but God is the strength of my heart and my portion forever.”

—Psalm 73:25–26

“I say to the LORD, “You are my Lord; I have no good apart from you.””

—Psalm 16:2

“You make known to me the path of life; in your presence there is fullness of joy; at your right hand are pleasures forevermore.”

—Psalm 16:11

What if you feel like God is against you? Let God’s Word correct your feelings:

“What then shall we say to these things? If God is for us, who can be against us? He who did not spare his own Son but gave him up for us all, how will he not also with him graciously give us all things?”

—Romans 8:31–32

What if you are struggling to trust that God is good and wise in the way he is directing your life?

“The LORD is good to all, and his mercy is over all that he has made.”

—Psalm 145:9

What if you don’t feel like going to church?

“It is good to give thanks to the LORD, to sing praises to your name, O Most High”

—Psalm 92:1

We could go on and on (2). And we must, as we learn to live by faith in the everyday stuff of life. Living by faith requires learning how to arrest and confess the incorrect thoughts and feelings of our hearts so that we can turn in faith to the truth of God’s Word.

Footnotes:

(1) —  I first heard this helpful definition from Ron Allchin.

(2) — For a great resource that catalogs the many promises of God in Scripture, see Tim Kerr’s Take Words With You—a resource we have available to Emmaus Road Church upon request.