Our city’s small airport recently added direct flights to two vacation hotspots in Florida. It’s a big deal here in Springfield, being able to fly straight to Orlando or Tampa in a couple of hours. How perfect, I thought as I booked the flight that would take me to a work conference.
What I hadn’t counted on was the anxiety that would set in a few weeks before I was to take off on this relatively untested airline. “Never heard of them,” people said when I reported the well-priced fare I’d found. Always a nervous flyer, I prayed off and on for a few weeks before I left. But on the plane, with every bump or ding of the seatbelt sign my silent prayers took on a more frenzied pace.
Until this started echoing in my mind: actively trust Me. I tried it out, praying “I will actively trust You,” every time turbulence shook the plane.
It worked, mostly. Over the course of two hours, I tried to train my brain to actively trust God, even as I sat silently in my seat. I prayed, “You are in charge of my life.” I remembered the refrain from a gospel song: “My life is in your hands.” Literally, I thought.
The small step of active trust was one I had to remind myself to take dozens of times during that single flight. The disciplining of my mind to remember God’s authority over my life was hard work, even though it didn’t look like I was doing anything other than sitting still.
Back on the ground a few weeks later, a small group I’m in started a study a “Celebration of Discipline” by Richard Foster. His approach to spiritual disciplines is that they aren’t a matter of willpower. Rather, God uses the disciplines to bring our hearts more in line with his. They are small, consistent steps toward a deeper love of him.
I had to take the small step of active trust on my return flight as Springfield was fogged in. “Don’t be alarmed if we experience a ‘missed approach’ due to low visibility,” the pilot said. That would have put me in the aisle four days earlier, but I remembered the peace God had brought when I focused on actively trusting him.
Our plane broke through the clouds just seconds before touching down smoothly on the runway. And that comforting refrained echoed again: “My life is in your hands.”
Meredith Day Flynn is a wife and mother of two living in Springfield. She writes on the intersection of faith, family, and current culture.