Before you do that…

My Belief

Being a First Officer (copilot) for a major airline is an important job. You must be just as proficient as the Captain in the event that something were to happen and he became incapacitated. In the last year alone I remember a time where a heavy jet liner coming back from Europe to the USA was landed by the First Officer alone. The Captain had a major heart attack and did not make it. Even as important as the First Officers job is, there is usually only one thing on his mind…… becoming the Captain.

I learned a lot of valuable lesson when I became a Captain. Training is a fast paced experience where the airline assumes you have gained the knowledge and experience to take command of a an aircraft. While I was in training I thought up a phrase that I would keep in head at all time. I continue to this day to utilize this phrase in all my decision making. The phrase is “before you do that…” Everything has a prerequisite before you do it. I will give you a few examples: Before you can turn the switches required to power up and aircraft you have to check the quality of the power available, before passengers board an aircraft the emergency oxygen has to be sufficient, before the main cabin door can be closed all fueling must be completed as a precaution against fire, and before each sequence of events happens the appropriate checklist must be run. In the event of any kind of inflight emergency even the most novice of pilots knows before any action can be taken they must ensure they have control of the aircraft first. This list can go on forever and applies to anything and everything.

This principle even applies to my walk as a believer in Jesus Christ. I believe we all get this principle wrong when it comes to the decisions we make in our lives.  We make decisions about buying cars, buying homes, taking jobs, marrying people, etc… without first accomplishing the prerequisite. As Christians, the prerequisite for everything we do in life is to first saturate that thing in prayer. Most of the time in my past I have done this in reverse. I go for it first and then I pray about it. I buy the house and then I pray, “oh God please let this work and please let me afford this”. If I am to live a Godly life and the life that the Lord wants for me I must first pray diligently before the throne of grace and then choose my path. God will honor this and guide my footsteps in everything I do.

Scripture

James 4:13-17

¹³ Now listen, you who say, “Today or tomorrow we will go to this or that city, spend a year there, carry on business and make money.” ¹⁴ Why, you do not even know what will happen tomorrow. What is your life? You are a mist that appears for a little while and then vanishes. ¹⁵ Instead, you ought to say, “If it is the Lord’s will, we will live and do this or that.” ¹⁶ As it is, you boast in your arrogant schemes. All such boasting is evil. ¹⁷ If anyone, then, knows the good they ought to do and doesn’t do it, it is sin for them.

Application for life

Based on the Bible, prayer is our number one tool in this life. Billy Graham was recently asked by a reporter what he would have done differently in his life and he said, “I would have prayed more”. In recent years I have made it a discipline of my life  to seek God before I set out on anything. I will pray in the name of the Lord Jesus for my will to be conformed to God’s will. That he would use me in any decisions I make in this life.