Unconscious faith
It seems that I am always doomed to sit near the wing when I'm on an aeroplane. Humph.
Anyway, as I was looking out at the wing, wishing it weren't blocking my view (clouds are so much more interesting), I could see all the places where different plates of metal had been joined together and the screws and whatnot that held those pieces down. The plane's wing was immense, stretching out into the sky, long and straight... the whole sight just rammed home the fact that the entire plane is a marvel of engineering.
I was just amazed at it. I mean, a plane is such a huge thing. How did anyone ever think to create something like this? How did we get so smart that we could put it all together and not have it fall apart in the middle of the air? For that matter, how did we get so smart that we could even make something so heavy get off the ground?
In fact, even scientists were sceptical about the possibilities (or probabilities) of aviation. Lord Kelvin, president of the Royal Society, an academy of the most distinguished scientists of the day, stated categorically in 1885 that heavier-than-air flying machines were impossible. Professor Joseph Le Conte from the University of California wrote in the November 1888 issue of Popular Science Monthly that "a true flying machine, self-raising, self-sustaining, self-propelling, is physically impossible". In 1902, Simon Newcomb, professor of mathematics and astronomy at Johns Hopkins University said that flight by machines heavier than air "is unpractical and insignificant, if not utterly impossible". Harvard astronomer William Pickering said in 1910 that the idea of gigantic flying machines speeding across the Atlantic, carrying innumerable passengers "must be wholly visionary".
So when you think about it, the mind boggles. I'm sitting in this gigantic aeroplane, which I know nothing about I don't even know how the pilot navigates, when he can see nothing but blue sky and white clouds (no landmarks!! Maybe he relies on a compass?) trusting it to carry me across oceans to my intended destination. Do you realise that simply taking a plane is an act of faith in itself?
We put so much faith in the aviation engineers, maintenance crew, pilots, air traffic controllers, and goodness knows who else; all the people who are involved in building, maintaining and helping to get the plane to go where it needs to go. If just one of them doesn't do his or her job properly, all the passengers (not to mention crew!) could be in big trouble.
I find this amazing. Consciously or unconsciously, I'm trusting tens or maybe hundreds (all the factory employees are important too, you know) of people whom I do not know, have never met, and may never meet. I'm trusting them to know what they're doing, to be competent and to do the job they're supposed to do.
We talk about the faith that moves mountains, about "extraordinary faith" and wanting to have "more faith". But in actual fact, we perform acts of faith every day without even realising it.
Those who have been reading my writings over a period of time will note that I've had lots of problems with my little car. I'm at the point where every day, getting into the car and driving to wherever I want to go has become an act of faith. I've gotten the car checked out by a mechanic, and I've changed so many parts that Dad has yelled at me for being too free with my money; but I still hear rattling noises. I don't know what's rattling but something sure is. Dad assures me the noise is nothing serious well, pardon me for still feeling insecure despite his assurances! So every day, I get into the car, and pray.
When my handbag was snatched by thieves way back in March 2002, I learnt that even the simple act of walking is an act of faith. Recently, two women died after thieves snatched their bags; when the thieves made a grab for the bags, the women fell and hit their heads, went into comas, and died. The same thing could so easily have happened to me. It rammed home Mom's earlier counsel not to take God (or His protection) for granted. Whether I'm walking, driving, flying or whatever, I depend upon God every second for my very life & health.
It's all good and well to talk wistfully about wonderful big spectacular acts of faith, but I think the problem is not that we have not enough faith. It's that we only think extraordinary faith is somehow "valid". We don't see the small acts of faith we perform every day, maybe because we don't realise that they are acts of faith. So we beat ourselves up and we say things like, "I wish I had more faith."
Maybe faith, like everything else, starts from the little things. Maybe if we learn to be conscious of God's presence with us throughout the day, involve Him, as it were, in our little tasks, we'd be more aware of just how faith fits into the various simple everyday things we do. Maybe, if we learnt how dependent we are on Him for even the smallest things, we'd find it easier to let go and depend on Him for greater things.
What a thought!