What Are You Looking At?
Published on October 27th, 2009.
“Therefore we must pay much closer attention to what we have heard, lest we drift away from it” Hebrews 2:1
Paying attention is difficult.
One thing that diverted the attention of two pilots last Wednesday was a laptop.
CNN, Report: Stray Jet Pilots were on Laptops,
The pilots of the commercial jetliner that last week overshot its destination by about 150 miles have said they were using their laptops and lost track of time and location, federal safety officials said Monday.
Company policy prohibits the use of personal computers on the flight deck, the National Transportation Safety Board said in a report.
The Airbus A320 was flying at 37,000 feet over the Denver, Colorado, area at 5:56 p.m. Wednesday when it last made radio contact, the safety board said.
Flight 188, which was carrying 144 passengers, two pilots and three flight attendants, departed San Diego, California, en route to Minneapolis-Saint Paul International Airport when it flew past the Minnesota airport by 150 miles.
Pilot Timothy B. Cheney, 53, was hired in 1985 and has more than 20,000 hours flight time; First Officer Richard I. Cole, 54, was hired in 1997 and has about 11,000 hours of flight time, the report said.
Neither pilot reported having had an accident, incident or violation, neither had any ongoing medical conditions and neither said he was tired, it said.
These were qualified men. These were seasoned veterans. They were smart and healthy and alert. But, in their own words, “there was a distraction” in the cockpit. They were paying attention to the wrong thing. To look away is to drift away.
This occasion of drifting was expensive for both themselves, their company and countless others. Thankfully it didn’t cost any lives. Were it not for multiple layers of technology and eventually the initiative of the flight attendant, it could have.
Today’s headline provides an excellent picture of the distracting power of a thousand things in life – some of them good things and some of them bad things, but all of them less important than the ultimate thing, Jesus Christ.
That’s why, time and again, the Scriptures call us to be alert, to be sober minded. And what for? The author of Hebrews commands our attention and tells us what’s at stake; “Therefore we must pay much closer attention to what we have heard, lest we drift away from it” (2:1).
We are given this command because our attention is easily diverted from that which is central to that which is peripheral.
Thankfully, the pilot was not alone. Even when his co-pilot failed at his job, the flight attendant alerted him to his wayward course. Likewise, in the Christian life, we are all accountable for and to one another. The author of Hebrews exhorts his readers, “Take care, brothers, lest there be in any of you an evil, unbelieving heart, leading you to fall away from the living God” (3:12).
When the flight attendant asked for an arrival time, the pilots identified their location relative to their destination and corrected their course. They didn’t change their destination to match their direction. They didn’t deny the obvious. They made it home safely. They also made it home humbly. According to the report, “Police who met the wayward jet said the pilots were ‘cooperative, apologetic and appreciative.’”
When the author of Hebrews writes for us to pay much closer attention to what we have heard, he is referring to something very specific. What is that? The good news of the gospel of Jesus Christ. These pilots were to pay attention to their destination and those instruments which were their means to a safe arrival. We must set our attention and our affections on the revelation of God in Jesus Christ – who is the radiance of God’s glory, and who is seated at the right hand of the Majesty on high. We must lay aside every weight, and sin which clings so closely, and let us run with endurance the race that is set before us, looking to Jesus, the founder and perfecter of our faith, who for the joy that was set before him endured the cross, despising the shame, and is seated at the right hand of the throne of God (12:1,2).
Paying attention is difficult. But paying attention to Jesus is what we were made for and it is the calling of every Christian person.
What are you looking at?
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2 Comments
Trent Hunter on October 27th, 2009
I agree. Laptops, in particular, are a distraction in many ways. My heart directs my attention to a thousand different things, even good things, that take my attention off greater responsibilities and my higher joys.
Drew on October 27th, 2009
It makes you wonder what they were doing on their laptops. And it makes me want to look out the window from now on to see if we’re flying over our destination.
Isn’t it interesting that it’s really never hard to pay attention to what we love? Where your heart is, there your attention will be also.