It has been said many times that our attitude will determine our altitude. And that we will set the course for how high we will fly and how far we will go by the attitude we take.
In flying an airplane, the attitude is the position of the aircraft in relationship to the horizon. A godly attitude, however, is our position in relationship to the power of God and His Word.
Our personal attitude comes from our most dominant inner strengths. And therefore, our actions are largely governed by those inner natural tendencies creating our attitudes toward people or information that will bring a response without even thinking.
A bad attitude comes from dwelling on the wrong information or responding from bad input. A good attitude can be created by dwelling on the kind of things that produce right responses.
The thought of soaring with birds has been of interest to mankind for all of history. Because Dennis shares that interest, a number of years ago he decided to take flying lessons. At the time, we lived in Southern California and Dennis flew out of the Torrance Airport. The practice zone for private lessons was over the ocean—away from any population.
He was in the process of learning full-power stalls—a maneuver that teaches how to recover when the airplane begins to sink and stop flying.
A stall has nothing to do with the engine stopping; it’s when there is not enough airflow over the wing of the airplane to create the lift needed for the weight of the aircraft. To recover from a stall the yoke is pushed forward enough to point the airplane slightly forward and down to create airflow over the wing.
At first, the idea of pushing the yoke forward and aiming the airplane down bothered Dennis. He wanted the plane to go up, so he hesitated to push and aim down too much. The next time he entered a full-power stall the plane turned down as one wing stopped flying first and dropped.
Dennis was determined to push, and he did. He pushed forward until the attitude of the airplane was pointed so forward that all he could see was the ocean. Things began to fly around inside the little cockpit of the plane because he was aiming down. Fortunately, the instructor took control and recovered the airplane. He patiently continued working with Dennis until he finally learned the lesson—and the importance of attitude and power working together.
As in flying, we can have full power yet if we are pointed in a nose down attitude we will not fly for long—we are heading for the ground. We can also have a nose up attitude, a high hope, but without generating sufficient power we will not continue to climb—we will stall and begin to drop fast.
We must develop an attitude that will truly cause us to increase. We must see ourselves in light of the promises of God’s Word for our future.
