The Importance and Necessity of Seeing the True Horizon
In this post I use a flying- an- airplane metaphor for our lives with Jesus and to contrast living in the Kingdom of God with the kingdom of self.
I read a short, self-published autobiography the other day by Paddy O’Flynn. Paddy was a British fighter pilot and flight instructor in WW 2. Toward the end of the war he taught pilots how to fly by instruments, a new concept for most of them. The most important of the new instruments was the artificial horizon. Here is a quote from his book:
“It is not easy to explain to non-fliers what happens when the horizon ceases to exist: you lose all sense of direction and balance, yet are unaware of doing so. Visual senses are replaced by seat-of-the- pants senses which can be fatally misleading. Thus you will be in a cloud and feel that you are flying perfectly straight and level when, in fact, one of your wings is dipping 40 to 50 degrees and the nose is pointing steeply upwards. To overcome the problem an artificial horizon forms one of a number of cockpit instruments. It shows the pilot the true attitude of his aircraft in flight. The trouble is that, when it shows him to be flying straight and level, his deep senses may well convince him that he is banking and climbing steeply; he will refuse to believe the evidence of his eyes and conclude instead that the instrument must be faulty. So the object of the course is to train him to reject his natural impulses in such circumstances and, instead, obey the messages conveyed by his instrument panel” (There I was: Memoirs of Paddy O’Flynn, pg. 49, self-published, ISBN 2493862.
I think that paragraph is a universal spiritual and emotional metaphor for living under the influence of sin and unbelief. Without something outside ourselves to ground us, guide us, and keep us ‘straight and level’ we become disoriented, confused, and lost with respect to what is right and good. Reliance on our senses, intuition, and even our experiences can deceive us and cause us to choose paths that are destructive to ourselves and others, even if in the short-term they seem to be correct. Self, aka pride, really is the root of all evil.
For me, the true Horizon is Jesus. Believers know Jesus as Lord and as Savior. He has self-identified in the Gospel of John as the bread of life, light of the world, the door, the good Shepherd, the resurrection and the life; the way, the truth, and the life; and the true vine. All of these ‘parts’ of Jesus are consistent with Him as the Horizon. Everyone needs a horizon. We take the horizon that we see each day for granted, but if the horizon is removed for whatever reason, our inner ear becomes disoriented. We tell people who are seasick to keep their eyes on the horizon. The horizon is permanent, it seems limitless; it is always bright, we can’t see the horizon in darkness, clouds, or fog. It is always true — it never deceives; it is the dividing line between earth and sky (the flesh and the spirit?), and it is a place of great beauty — sunrises and sunsets occur along the horizon. It seems to me that relying on Jesus as the Horizon, staying focused on Him, and allowing Him to orient us daily through the wilderness of this world is consistent with all of His attributes He describes in Scripture.
Keeping our eyes (the ‘eyes of our heart’) on Jesus means to live with Him in the Kingdom of God where we experience the ‘abundant life’ of love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, gentleness, faithfulness and self-control, especially in the tough times — and no one can steal these from us because they come from God, not the world. With our eyes on the Horizon, we trust something outside of ourselves for purpose, healing and wholeness, strength, for provision, for guidance and direction. When we can’t see the Horizon with the “eyes of our heart”, we depend on our seat-of-the-pants senses to provide our own, internal horizon. Our lives become, to one degree or another, hopeless, aimless, dark; filled with anger, resentment, unforgiveness, blame, sadness, and fear. Out of this dark life without a true horizon grows intolerance, hatred, existentialism, apathy and many other consequences of sin and unbelief seen in both unbelievers and too many so-called Christians.
I can think of three situations where we lose sight of the true Horizon: storm clouds of suffering, the darkness of unrepented sin, and unbelief.
To be human is to suffer. We (I am primarily thinking of believers here) have all suffered and struggled in some way– with grief, times of total physical and emotional exhaustion from battling cancer or some other intractable crises in our lives, when we lived with almost constant physical or emotional pain, or devastating emotional loss. For many of us It is natural to turn inward during these times, looking for the strength for the next minute. When we do, we may take our eyes off of Jesus. But He has not left us alone: He has given us an ‘artificial horizon’. I am referring to the Word of God. Even when Jesus seems far away and we are in the midst of the storm, the true Horizon no longer spiritually visible, God’s Word is always with us to comfort, guide, shelter, and keep us ‘straight and level” — to give us life. It is, in this sense, our ‘artificial horizon’, always before us and always pointing to the right attitude and way forward. It is ‘artificial’ in the sense that it points to Jesus but is not Jesus. It is our responsibility to believe what we read, just like the pilot described above who needs to look at his instrument and believe what it is telling him, even if our ‘senses’ say it cannot be true. For example, you are His beloved, even if some part of your heart or the world tries to convince you of your unloveliness.
Of course, we should be reading God’s word every day, but for those times when Jesus seems far way, when we can’t see the true Horizon, His word continues to guide us in the same way the artificial horizon on the instrument panel keeps the pilot safe.
Second, the true believer is flying without a horizon in the darkness or night of unconfessed and unrepented sin in our lives. Sin (and sins — I explained my view of sin in a previous post) causes us to take our eyes off of Jesus; separating us from Him. It is life in the kingdom of self — my wants, my needs, my desires. It places the ‘eyes of our heart’ on ourselves; we look inward into the darkness of self, not outward toward the true Horizon. We think we are ‘flying’ with a horizon when we are in the midst of this type of sin, but as Paddy says above, it is a type of seat-of- the-pants living that relies on our own senses, often with fatal consequences. We think we are flying straight and level, when in reality, we are banked sharply, nose up, about to stall. We are flying — living — according to a false horizon. And there are many of these — they can be grouped under the false horizon of self and have two attributes in common. First, they all tell us the same thing: follow me and I will totally fulfill you (and in the fine print: but you must totally surrender to me), I will lead you on the straight and level path to fulfillment, to a deeper and richer life. Second, all their promises are lies. They do not lead to life; they lead to death. Just like the pilot who is relying on his senses to determine the orientation of his aircraft in the absence of the true Horizon and is in mortal danger of crashing, we are disoriented when we follow the horizon of self.
Fortunately, for the true believer, who nevertheless is struggling with Sin and sins (and that includes all of us), there is another ‘artificial’ horizon: the Holy Spirit. The Spirit continually convicts us, woos us, shows us the way (“this is the way, walk in it!), works through our conscience, and has the power of transformation. The Holy Spirit is our Comforter, Counselor, and Guide, revealing the true Horizon, leading us out of darkness, and into the light of life. He points us toward Jesus and shows us the way forward. As we break out of the darkness, the true Horizon shows us how disoriented we were in the darkness. And if you are like me, in the face of that realization you say “I never knew it was that bad. I was upside down the whole time and never knew it.”
Like Scripture, we should be filled with and walking in the power of the Holy Spirit daily. True believers have committed to life in the Kingdom of God, but none of us live there completely and permanently. That part of us still living in the kingdom of self needs to be rescued — needs to be brought into the light so the Horizon can guide us. In these circumstances, I believe the Holy Spirit acts as our ‘artificial’ horizon. Of course, this is a fallacious example because the Holy Spirit is Jesus and therefore, the True Horizon. But in my own life, when I have not felt close to Jesus, this Person, the Holy Spirit, has often showed up.
And one other thing — to break out of the darkness, the Holy Spirit offers us the gift of repentance, but we need to choose to repent; we don’t just repent of what we have done, we repent of who we are — people whose eyes were on the wrong horizon, at least in part of our life.
Finally, many people never know there is a true Horizon — people who, for many reasons, reject the Kingdom of God (and as I have written in other posts, some of these people believe that they are Christians). They live their lives in the darkness, flying in the night, never seeing the daylight. These are people who are flying in aircraft without any instruments, so to speak. They say “I don’t need instruments. I have all that I need in my self; instruments are for weaklings. Besides, I don’t trust these instruments. They malfunction, they never reveal the truth. I will rely on my self, my intuition, my experience.” Or something like that. Sadly, as they fly like this they crash, often many times in their lives. In our western culture since the Enlightenment, especially since the beginning of the 20th century, despair, hopelessness, and darkness of every kind have grown exponentially while faith (real faith) in Jesus has declined significantly. Many don’t know the true Horizon. Their lives are disoriented in the darkness; they have no idea what is wrong. Whatever life is for them, they never have enough, and their hearts tell them they will never be enough. And worst of all, they have no ‘artificial’ horizon to take them out of the darkness into the light of day where the horizon is always visible for those who are looking. Or do they?
Yes, they do have an ‘artificial’ horizon. They have you. You can be that ‘artificial” horizon to them — you can be Jesus in the life of a family member or neighbor. You can be the ‘artificial” horizon to your town, even your country. You can be the person who tells them that there is a true Horizon, shows them how to reach the Horizon, or walks alongside of them with your eyes on the Horizon, while leading them toward the light. We don’t have to even know the people who are living in a great darkness to be an ‘artificial’ horizon. Prayer parts the storm clouds or the darkness of night. As we pray the Kingdom of God over them (the world), light breaks in, leading them to repentance and belief. And where there is light, there is always a Horizon.
I believe that Jesus is the only real, level, reliable Horizon. I have lived in darkness, following my own horizon — the horizon of self and pride — and I know that life. And I have lived with Jesus as my Horizon, although I have needed an ‘artificial horizon’ many times. There is no comparison! Life is not perfect now. But freedom, peace, joy, and power over the darkness that I have with the true Horizon in sight is incomparably greater than I knew in that other life of self-reliance when I ‘flew’ according to my own horizon.
We have been given a lot. For me — a comfortable life, family, friends, health, a great wife, and much more. For you, the list might be different, but you still have been given many blessings. How do we live in this life, with so much, and keep focused on Jesus; doing His will for His purposes and not for our value, self-esteem, and sense of acceptance? How do we live committed to Jesus but where family, work, hobbies, and our other ‘good’ passions compete every day for our hearts? How do we live in a consumer, secular, and materialistic world and not be influenced by these pillars of ungodliness? How do we stay focused on God’s eternal purpose and our ultimate function — to release the Kingdom of God into the kingdom of the world by loving God with all of our heart, soul, mind, and strength; and loving our neighbors as myself”? There are are no simple answers, but here is a start:
don’t let good things take the place of the best thing in our hearts,
invite Jesus to be involved in every part of our lives,
guard against excess,
strive for generosity,
repent daily,
walk in humility, and
pray continuously.
But none of these are possible if we can’t see the true Horizon. When we take our eyes off of Jesus, all of us will reset to our default horizon — ‘self’. Which really means ‘flying blind and upside down’.
The world will be offended by this post. In this age of religious pluralism and intolerant tolerance, the goodness of an idea is measured by how least offensive it is to someone or some group. To tell the world that the only true Horizon is Jesus and that real life now and for eternity can only be lived in the light of this Horizon sounds exclusive and arrogant and therefore (they say) cannot be right. Some would say that this is the root of intolerance, releases evil into the world, and therefore, must be censored. The opposite is true. The only path to true love, healing, and wholeness — for myself, for others, and for the world — is to focus on the only meaningful Horizon outside of ourselves. Every other horizon depends on human effort. And I agree with Paddy O’Flynn — pilots relying on their own senses and intuition will ultimately crash, even if I am using his words metaphorically.