At the end of the second World War, the United States found itself in need of developing new aerospace technology. Looking for a suitable place to test the experimental types of aircraft that would provide that technology the government turned it’s attention to a little piece of realestate known only as Muroc Army Airfield in the High Desert of California. Over the next 60 years this place would become home to numerous types of aircraft and countless numbers of men called Test Pilots. One of those Test Pilots would die while testing a prototype Northrop YB-49 flying wing. His name was Glen Edwards. On January 27, 1950, the base’s name was changed from Muroc Army Airfield to Edwards Air Force Base in his honor.
Most Test pilots were known to be cocky, arrogant men. But what set them apart from the rest of the flying world was their willingness to put their lives on the line in the name of national security. So many aircraft were tested in the years following the Second World War, more often than not by pilot’s who were unfamiliar with their operational capabilities, that pilots were dying at an alarming rate. In 1952 alone, sixty-two pilots flying out of Edwards died over the course of thirty-six weeks. But the Test pilot program was undeterred. Regardless of the number of men lost, there were always others ready to respond to take their place. The only thing you would ever hear from any of them was, “We’re ready! No matter what you need us to fly, we’re ready; one hundred percent!”
But are we ready to respond that same way when God calls?
Like the Test Pilots of the 1940’s, 50’s, and 60’s, we need to be willing to go faster, farther, and higher for the Lord than those that have gone before us. We need to be ready, one hundred percent, to do His work. We need to become like Isaiah when the Lord asked, “Whom shall I send? And who will go for us?” For he answered like a Test Pilot, saying, “Here am I. Send me!” (6:8).
We need to respond like the disciples when Jesus called them into action while walking along the shoreline of the Sea of Galilee. Four men, Simon Peter, his brother Andrew, and James and his brother John were all working that day in their chosen profession as fishermen. Like us, they knew this man who walked along the shore. He wasn’t a stranger. But they didn’t expected Him to come calling one day asking them to leave all they had ever known in order to follow Him. But they did. And they did it without hesitation.
The other day I watched for the upteenth time Hollywood’s adaptation of Tom Wolfe’s book “The Right Stuff.” Having always been a lover of the experimental aircraft of the 40’s, 50’s, and 60’s, and the space program I know the truth behind the film which is much different than the romanticized view of good old Hollywood. Contrary to what the film depicted, test pilots were not "born" on a whim – they were painstakingly made and so are disciples.
It’s easy to claim to be a Christian. In fact it takes very little effort. But it takes alot more to be a true Disciple of Christ. A true Disciple will go the extra mile to learn the ways of the Lord like a Test Pilot who is required to attend a very rigorous training school where at every stage of their training some candidates find it too difficult and quit, or wash out. But those that persist are greatly rewarded in the end. With the greatest reward being one of those few that are chosen to test planes, planes that fly faster and higher than those flown by regular pilots. They become like their teachers, who were also Test Pilots just as we will become like Christ for He said: “Most assuredly, I say to you, he who believes in Me, the works that I do he will do also; and greater works than these he will do, because I go to My Father” (John 14:12).
Superstition had always claimed that there was a “demon” that lived in the air somewhere around 750 miles an hour, which is the speed of sound and that anyone who challenged him, would die. But on October 14, 1947, Chuck Yeager proved that too be wrong by going faster than the speed of sound. What Chuck Yeager accomplished that day was to pave the way for countless men and women to follow in his footsteps and many have by going Mach one or faster. Some as fast as Mach six, which was achieved in the X-15.
What Yeager did for aviation history, Christ Jesus did the same for all of us. He demonstrated not only to His Disciples, but all of us as well, what is expected of those who desire to obtain eternal life. The works that He did we too must do. No one can ever go back and become the first to break the sound barrier, they can only achieved a greater accomplishment by going faster. Likewise what we accomplish will not be greater in quality than the Lord’s, but merely in quantity.
What the world needs today, especially this country of ours, is someone to stand up and demonstrate the same love and compassion that Christ bestowed upon this sinful world. People today don’t need to hear nothing but condemnation, they need friendship, they need to see Christ. Are you willing to become that friend, are you willing to soar higher than the average Christian, do you have what it takes to demonstrate the love of God to a dying world in a way that it has not seen? Do you have what it takes? Do you have “The Right Stuff?”
Most Test pilots were known to be cocky, arrogant men. But what set them apart from the rest of the flying world was their willingness to put their lives on the line in the name of national security. So many aircraft were tested in the years following the Second World War, more often than not by pilot’s who were unfamiliar with their operational capabilities, that pilots were dying at an alarming rate. In 1952 alone, sixty-two pilots flying out of Edwards died over the course of thirty-six weeks. But the Test pilot program was undeterred. Regardless of the number of men lost, there were always others ready to respond to take their place. The only thing you would ever hear from any of them was, “We’re ready! No matter what you need us to fly, we’re ready; one hundred percent!”
But are we ready to respond that same way when God calls?
Like the Test Pilots of the 1940’s, 50’s, and 60’s, we need to be willing to go faster, farther, and higher for the Lord than those that have gone before us. We need to be ready, one hundred percent, to do His work. We need to become like Isaiah when the Lord asked, “Whom shall I send? And who will go for us?” For he answered like a Test Pilot, saying, “Here am I. Send me!” (6:8).
We need to respond like the disciples when Jesus called them into action while walking along the shoreline of the Sea of Galilee. Four men, Simon Peter, his brother Andrew, and James and his brother John were all working that day in their chosen profession as fishermen. Like us, they knew this man who walked along the shore. He wasn’t a stranger. But they didn’t expected Him to come calling one day asking them to leave all they had ever known in order to follow Him. But they did. And they did it without hesitation.
The other day I watched for the upteenth time Hollywood’s adaptation of Tom Wolfe’s book “The Right Stuff.” Having always been a lover of the experimental aircraft of the 40’s, 50’s, and 60’s, and the space program I know the truth behind the film which is much different than the romanticized view of good old Hollywood. Contrary to what the film depicted, test pilots were not "born" on a whim – they were painstakingly made and so are disciples.
It’s easy to claim to be a Christian. In fact it takes very little effort. But it takes alot more to be a true Disciple of Christ. A true Disciple will go the extra mile to learn the ways of the Lord like a Test Pilot who is required to attend a very rigorous training school where at every stage of their training some candidates find it too difficult and quit, or wash out. But those that persist are greatly rewarded in the end. With the greatest reward being one of those few that are chosen to test planes, planes that fly faster and higher than those flown by regular pilots. They become like their teachers, who were also Test Pilots just as we will become like Christ for He said: “Most assuredly, I say to you, he who believes in Me, the works that I do he will do also; and greater works than these he will do, because I go to My Father” (John 14:12).
Superstition had always claimed that there was a “demon” that lived in the air somewhere around 750 miles an hour, which is the speed of sound and that anyone who challenged him, would die. But on October 14, 1947, Chuck Yeager proved that too be wrong by going faster than the speed of sound. What Chuck Yeager accomplished that day was to pave the way for countless men and women to follow in his footsteps and many have by going Mach one or faster. Some as fast as Mach six, which was achieved in the X-15.
What Yeager did for aviation history, Christ Jesus did the same for all of us. He demonstrated not only to His Disciples, but all of us as well, what is expected of those who desire to obtain eternal life. The works that He did we too must do. No one can ever go back and become the first to break the sound barrier, they can only achieved a greater accomplishment by going faster. Likewise what we accomplish will not be greater in quality than the Lord’s, but merely in quantity.
What the world needs today, especially this country of ours, is someone to stand up and demonstrate the same love and compassion that Christ bestowed upon this sinful world. People today don’t need to hear nothing but condemnation, they need friendship, they need to see Christ. Are you willing to become that friend, are you willing to soar higher than the average Christian, do you have what it takes to demonstrate the love of God to a dying world in a way that it has not seen? Do you have what it takes? Do you have “The Right Stuff?”
