I had a ticket in my pocket to board a commercial flight, but my pastor approached me and said, “Listen, son, I can save you some money.” I asked, “How’s that?” He explained, “I flew my small plane up here, and I can take you back in it. You can save your ticket.”
Honestly, it didn’t sound like the best idea to me. I replied, “Chief, thank you so much, but I’ve got this ticket, and I’ll just make my way home with this other lawyer here.” But he insisted, “No, no, no—you’ve got to do it! You’ve got to do it!”
Against my better judgment, I finally agreed.
We headed to the airport, and there it was—a small, sleek plane. I looked at it and thought, Well, at least it’s shiny. He did a quick check around the aircraft, and we climbed in. He sat in the left front seat, I was in the right front, and the other lawyer sat right behind me.
The engine started up just fine, and we taxied out to the runway. As we prepared for takeoff, I turned to him and asked, “Should we pray?” He said, “That’s a good idea. We normally don’t, but…” I cut in, “This time, we’re gonna.”
And let me tell you, I prayed for a solid ten minutes. I prayed like I’d never prayed before.
We lined up on the runway, and the plane lifted off smoothly. It was a gentle climb, and everything felt perfect. Not a worry in the world. We flew for about three or four minutes, and then something happened that I’ll never forget.
The pilot turned to me and said, “We’re about to go into the clouds, and I can’t fly in clouds—they make me pass out.”
I stared at him in disbelief. “Clouds make you do what?”
It had been cloudy all day, and sure enough, we flew straight into the clouds. Visibility dropped to zero. Then, he looked at me, his eyes rolled back in his head, and—the pilot started mumbling, and then he passed out. I grabbed him, shook him, and shouted, “Wake up so I can kill you!” But he was out cold.
Now we’re in the clouds, flying blind with no pilot. My friend in the backseat said, “We’re dead, aren’t we?” I replied, “There’s a very good chance of that, yes.”
He asked, “What are we gonna do?”
I said, “I don’t know, but there’s a radio right here.” I handed him the microphone and said, “Start asking for help.”
He grabbed the mic and started saying, “Hello? Hello?” We didn’t know any proper radio etiquette—all we could say was “hello.”
Someone responded, “Hello? Hello? Don’t you guys know proper radio etiquette?”
I grabbed the mic and said, “We don’t know anything! We’re in a plane with a passed-out pilot, and we don’t know how to fly this thing!”
The voice on the other end said, “I’m a pilot flying out of Anchorage on my way to Tokyo. Are you telling me there’s no one in that plane who can fly it?”
I said, “That’s correct.”
By this point, I was sweating bullets. The voice said, “The first thing I’m going to do is start circling so I don’t lose you. If I fly out of range, you won’t have me anymore.”
Then he added, “I’m going to get Anchorage Emergency on the line. They’re the ones who can help you and try to save your life.”
After about five minutes, Anchorage Emergency came on and said, “We understand you have a passed-out pilot and no one who knows how to fly the plane.”
We said, “That’s right.”
They replied, “The first thing we need to do is find you.”
Then the man from Anchorage said something I’ll never forget: “My job is to get you home safe. That’s my job. But here’s the deal—if you want me to get you home safe, you have to promise me you’ll obey my voice. You can’t see me, and I can’t see you. If you don’t obey my voice, you’re going to die.”
When you’re in the clouds and can’t see anything, you have no idea how disoriented you become. It’s terrifying.
Finally, he said, “Okay, I’ve found you. Now listen carefully: you’re four minutes away from a mountain. If you don’t follow my voice, you’re going to crash into that mountain and die.”
I didn’t argue. I didn’t say, “Do I have to follow your voice? Is that reasonable?” No—I understood that without his voice, I had nothing.
And you know what? Without God’s voice, we have nothing. Nothing.
The man from Anchorage got us turned around and said, “I’m freezing all the air traffic in the area. It’s going to take about an hour and a half to get you to Anchorage, and there’s a lot of bad weather between you and the airport. You’re in for a very rough ride.”
Then he said, “I want you to listen to me. Don’t look at the storm outside. Don’t pay attention to the storm. Just listen to my voice. If you start watching the storm, you will die. But if you listen to me, I’ll take you through it.”
Because they cleared all the air traffic, several pilots—nighttime freighters in 747s—started talking to us. They said, “We’re praying for you, man. You’re gonna make it. But listen to the voice. That’s the key. Trust the voice.”
You see, our heads are full of voices. Everyone in this world wants to talk to you, and everyone wants to be the controlling voice. But God says, “I want you to be a living sacrifice. I want you to put yourself on the altar and let My voice guide your way.”
Finally, we made it through the worst of the weather, but there was still more to go. The voice came back and said, “I’m going to line you up. I’m going to bring you right down the runway. At the foot of the runway are some lights in the shape of a cross. Don’t forget this: the cross is the way home.”
He guided us down, and we still couldn’t see anything. All he kept saying was, “Stay with me. Hear my voice and follow me.”
Finally, just a couple hundred feet off the ground, we saw the cross. I “landed” the plane—well, I tried to land it seven times before it finally came to a stop.
The moment we stopped, the pilot woke up.
The voice on the radio said, “Thanks for listening. I watch people crash and burn all the time because they won’t follow my voice. They don’t understand that I’m the one who can see them, even when they can’t see me. But they listen to the voices in their heads, and they kill themselves. They self-destruct. Thanks for listening to the voice.”
They put us in a motel room for the night. Around 4 a.m., I heard a knock at the door. I opened it, and a man was standing there. He said, “Hello, David. I’m the voice. I’m the one who got you home.”
I said, “You’re the one?”
He replied, “I am.”
Do you understand that one day, you’re going to stand before God and say, “You were the voice that brought me home”? But if you’re not on that altar as a living sacrifice, you’re listening to the wrong voices.
Our heads are full of voices, and we wonder why kids crash and burn. We wonder why marriages fall apart. But the Lord says, “I’m the one who has the voice. Listen to Me.”
Culled by Streaming Naija
0 Comments