Guidance systems

I was taking my afternoon walk around a nearby lake today. I was watching a couple of geese flying inches apart and only an inch or two off the water. They were executing low level formation flying at it's finest. When I was in the the U.S. Air Force, I used to instruct formation flying in jet aircraft. If you have never tried to do it, you may not be aware how difficult it is. It isn't anything like you see in the movies. It requires skill, precision, and concentration to fly close to another aircraft in perfect formation and close to the ground or a body of water. Some of today's aircraft have the ability to be guided by a Global Positioning Satellite (GPS) system and maintain perfect formation.

In your car, you may have a GPS device. Aren't they great? You can turn them on and they will guide you to where you want to go. Some of them will even speak to you and give you verbal directions. If you didn't know, the GPS signal that the receiver uses comes from satellites orbiting thousands of miles above the earth. The GPS receiver uses this invisible signal to determine where it is and where it is going, including speed, direction, and altitude.

Do you think these birds have tiny GPS devices on their backs that guide them? Well, maybe today's birds do, but birds have been flying the way they do for centuries before GPS came along. But, suffice it to say that their invisible guidance system is extraordinarily competent.

Once upon a time, a great and knowledgeable teacher in Israel came to Jesus to find out some answers to some of life's hard questions. Jesus surprised him with some of his answers. One of the surprising things Jesus described was how God's Holy Spirit guides and directs those who believe in Him and have been born again. When this teacher didn't understand what Jesus was trying to say, he gave him the following analogy:

John 3:8

"Do not marvel that I said to you that you must be born again. the wind blows where it wishes and you hear the sound of it but cannot tell where it is coming from and where it goes, so is everyone who is born of the Spirit."

Later in John 16:13, Jesus describes the Holy Spirit:

"However, when He, the Spirit has come, He will guide you into all truth for he will not speak on his own authority, but whatever he hears he will speak, and he will tell you things to come".

So, you see, the Holy Spirit who comes into a believer (when they are born again, which is to say, born of the Spirit) is just like an invisible guidance system that directs the believer's actions, thoughts, and life; enabling them to "fly" (manuever) through life with a certainty and confidence that only a Spirit filled believer can have. Unfortunately, some believers don't understand this and choose to "turn off" or disregard their Holy Spirit guidance system, preferring to try to guide themselves. That is just like turning off or disregarding GPS guidance in your car. Why would you want to do that?

Anyway, the good news is that the Holy Spirit guidance system is available to those who know Jesus Christ as savior and lord, and can be counted on for guidance just like the invisible guidance system that those "precision-flying" geese rely on. Hmm..are you sure they don't have tiny GPS receivers?

Have a blessed day,

George