Many years ago I was flying to Florida on business. As we were on final approach to the Orlando airport, I noticed the pilot was doing something a bit out of the norm. Growing up on an airport and a father that owned his own single engine airplane I was afforded a privilege most kids would never have. On weekend’s we would go flying over the plains of Colorado and as a young teen I could fly a plane before I legally could drive.
Thus my amateur pilot skills told me that our approach to the Orlando runway was a bit amiss – our attitude was off. As the pilot pitched and rolled the plane I was seeing ground on one side of the plane and then ground on the other side. I looked around and the rest of the passengers were clueless that we were in trouble. As we where about 500 feet off of the tarmac I clutched to my seat thinking “I am going to be in a plane wreck!” At the last minute the pilot corrected the planes “Attitude” and it landed with all wheels squarely on the ground. The right “attitude” saved my life and the lives of everyone else.
Airplane pilots often use "attitude" to describe their horizontal relationship with the runway then they land. If their attitude isn’t aligned properly, the plane will make contact with the ground at the wrong angle and it will cause them to crash. Today, I reflect on that incident thinking “how many people are oblivious to their attitudes and are about to crash land into the ground. Just like the passengers that had little to no knowledge of what was going on, people float through life never grabbing control of their attitudes.
I like what Dr. Dale Robbins says: “In essence, your attitude is your inward disposition toward other things, such as people or circumstances. As in with an airplane, attitude is applied whenever you must deal with something other than yourself. According to God’s word, when you become a Christian, a part of your new creation is the development of new attitudes — your attitude should become like that of Jesus.”
"Your attitude should be the same as that of Christ Jesus:" (Philippians 2:5).
"You were taught, with regard to your former way of life, to put off the old self, which is being corrupted by its deceitful desires; to be made new in the attitude of your minds." (Ephesians 4:22 NIV)
Right attitudes save lives, what attitude do you carry today?
