Suppose you’re waiting to board an airplane and discover that the man standing next to you is your pilot for the day. You decide to ask a few questions.
“Captain” you ask, “How fast do we have to go before we can take off? And once we’re airborne, what will our cruising altitude be?”
“Well,” the Captain replies, “I depend on the Holy Spirit to lead me. I pray and ask for a lift off speed. That’s the number I use and then I do the same thing for landing. As far as the altitude goes, I use my Bible. I let it fall open and if it opens to the 35th chapter of Psalms, then I fly at 35,000 feet.”
While I may be thrilled that my pilot is a Christian, I would never board that plane. Why? This pilot may understand spiritual principles, but he has no regard for the natural physical principles. There are rules that govern aerodynamics and rules that govern flight operations. You can be as spiritual as you want, but if your approach speed on landing is too slow, you will crash just like the Asiana Airliner did in San Francisco.
I think most of us would say this about a pilot like that, "he is so heavenly minded he is of no earthly good," and we would be right. Life is a balance between the spiritual and the natural. We must understand both, and the lack of either will put us in the ditch. It doesn’t much matter if you’re in the ditch of over spiritualizing or in the ditch of over dependence upon your natural mind, you’re still in the ditch.
Wouldn’t you much rather fly with a pilot that knows the rules, understands aerodynamics and hears from the Holy Spirit when there’s an unseen danger? That is how the Lord expects us to navigate our life. He wants us to understand natural things, but He also wants us to seek Him and listen to the Holy Spirit for guidance. That will keep you in the center of the runway and out of either ditch.
