6. GOD MAKETH MY WAY PERFECT
“As for God, his way
is perfect: the word of the Lord is tried: he is a buckler
to all those who trust in him.” (Psalms 18:30)
“Almighty God in Heaven my Creator, I acknowledge that Thy Way
is Perfect. Thou art Perfect
in Power to help me in any and every need. Thou art
Perfect in Life from Everlasting to
Everlasting. Thus, Thy Help to me will never cease. I
praise Thee for Thy Perfection, and worship Thee as the One True God Whose Way
is Perfect. Amen.”
“It is God that girdeth me with strength, and maketh my way
perfect.” Psalms 18:32
“Lord God in Heaven, please convince me that Thou
doest desire to make my every way perfect. Please help me to fully
yield myself to Thee, for the Purpose of Thee making my way Perfect.
Amen.”
Several
days in February and March 1972, I take off solo from Cherry Point Marine Corps
Air Station in a TA-4 Skyhawk and fly the few miles down to Bogue Field (closer
to the ocean) to practice aircraft carrier landings. Bogue Field’s “metal
airstrip” is set up like an aircraft carrier’s deck with arresting cables to “catch”
my jet when I touch down, and a catapult to “launch” me off that short
airstrip.
Precision
flying is a must to be able to always land safely on an aircraft
carrier at sea, even at night, and maybe in a storm. Captain
Barksdale trains me. His title is “Paddles”. He stands just to the side of the
narrow airstrip at my designated “touchdown point” (wearing “earmuffs” because
of the loud jet noise), and coaches me on the radio.
With
speed brakes out and flaps fully down (to slow my jet as much as possible), as
I descend the glide slope on final approach aiming for my optimum
touchdown spot, my eagle eyes are constantly monitoring my
angle-of-attack gage on top of the firewall just inside the windscreen, to keep
at optimum airspeed. To stay precisely on the glide slope,
I am also constantly glancing at the “lighted” crossbar located
on the ground beside the narrow landing strip at my touchdown spot. With my
brain in high gear monitoring both of those critical “gages”, I am constantly
making ever so slight, minute movements of the control stick with my right hand
and the engine throttle with my left hand.
On
each such training flight, I would do 20 or so “touch and go” landings,
striving to be as diligent as possible, mainly so as not to kill myself during
that dangerous task. After several practice flights of “touch and go” landings only,
on the next flight, I would “warm up” with a few of those, then hear
Captain Barksdale’s order to me, “Drop your hook.” My heartbeat greatly
increased as I now carefully descend for an “arrested landing”. After
it, the catapult would “launch” me off that short metal airstrip. Fun!
Fun!
I practiced those arrested landings and
catapult shot launches at night also. Scary Fun! I got a passing
grade on each flight and qualified well, thank God. But after the very last
flight when Captain Barksdale debriefed me back in our squadron’s ready room,
the negative point he made about my flying has stayed with me since then.
“Yerby, you flew well, but you could have
flown better. When you became good enough to safely
land there at Bogue Field, you settled for that, not trying
to hone up your skills any more. I regretted to see that. You should have
gone all out to be just as precise as possible, because
if and when you land on a real aircraft carrier in a storm at
sea, especially in a storm at night, possibly only the very
best job of piloting will get you safely arrested on that carrier
deck.”
My
Friend, you are sailing on the sea of life, where many storms blow. But the most fierce storms lie just ahead in the near future. “This know also, that in the last days perilous times shall
come.” (2nd Timothy 3:1) As the time approaches for our Lord’s
rapture of us Christian believers, death and destruction will steadily increase,
likely to the worst extent that the human race will encounter. It behooves us
to have a primary goal of being perfect as
is spoken of in these 3 Scripture verses I have written in this story.
“Be ye therefore perfect, even as your
Father which is in heaven is perfect.” Matthew 5:48
“My Lord and my God, right
now I call upon Thee to make my every way perfect.” Please save me from the thoughts that naturally pop into my
natural thinking, telling myself that this is ridiculous and impossible
for me, because I could never be perfect. Give me faith to trust
in the Perfect God Who maketh my way perfect. Amen.”
“I will spue thee out of my mouth.” (Revelation 3:16) Present day Laodicean church members have gone
so far from God that He is soon to do that to this church. But any Christian
can strive to be an overcomer and thus avoid that fate. “To him that overcometh, will I grant to sit with me with me in my
throne, even as I also overcame, and am set down with my Father in his throne. (Verse 21)
Sweet, Precious Lord Jesus, I yield myself to Thee for the
purpose of Thee making me into an overcomer. Please make me into
the most zealous Christian on the face of this earth, before You soon return to destroy sinful mankind. Please pour out
Holy Ghost conviction and the Fear of the Lord on the Japanese to whom
Missionary Richard preaches. Bring them to repentance, I plead. Amen.”