Fasten Your Seat Belts
The debates over human sexuality and marital constructs are increasingly and ubiquitously being played out (and have been for some time) over the airwaves and tv screens, on book and magazine covers, in newspaper articles, on billboards, social media platforms, protest placards, and even in classroom curricula.
The debate has even increasingly made its way into product and company advertising.
One such example was from a KLM Airlines ad campagn from 2017. The banner read, "It doesn't matter who you click with," and was accompanied by a series of rainbow seat belt pairings.
But the ad was met with some pretty tough push back as confused viewers noted that two of the three "pairings" would not prove to be realistic or operational.
Once commentor observes:
While more than a few observers pointed at the ad's obvious demonstration of biological realities (eg, which parts fit with which parts), there was a sadder, far more serious, far more important truth being unintentionally revealed by the ad.
The purpose of a seatbelt is to keep the individual safe, secure, and free from harm. Without complimentary latching parts, however, a seatbelt is at once useless and counterproductive to achieving that objective. Ironically, KLM Royal Dutch Airlines' own operational policies forbid pilots to even depart the gate until all passengers are properly restrained by functional belts.
Should a passenger attempt to tie two "female" ends or two "male" ends together as a substitute, they would be reprimanded and, depending on their stubbornness, denied the opportunity to fly.
He goes on to ask:
Are the executives, pilots, and flight attendants at KLM bigots for their intolerant belief that one type of seatbelt arrangement is superior in functionality and safety? Are they discriminators for requiring customers to abide by their narrow-minded view of the "appropriate way" to fasten a belt? Or are they merely expressing a self-evident truth that all of us know, even if we want, for whatever reason, to deny?
God's design was intentional, and His moral guidelines for sexuality were given to us not to deprive us, but to defend us.
"Then the Lord God said, 'It is not good that the man should be alone; I will make him a helper fit for him.' ... Therefore a man shall leave his father and his mother and hold fast to his wife, and they shall become one flesh" (Genesis 2:18, 24, ESV).
"Let marriage be held in honor among all, and let the marriage bed be undefiled, for God will judge the sexually immoral and adulterous" (Hebrews 13:4, ESV).
Sun v Shade
... Did you know that shade doesn’t make temperatures cooler. In fact, air temperature is actually the same in the sun or shade. It’s solar radiation hitting our bodies which makes it feel hotter. On average, solar radiation makes the air feel 10 -15 degrees warmer than it actually is.
This is why official air temperature is always measured in the shade. If the thermometer were placed in the sun, the solar radiation would heat up the thermometer and the resulting temperature would be measuring the warmed up thermometer and not the air around the thermometer. -- ABC News
In the heat of the day, we run to shade for shelter -- some measure of relief from the searing radiation that makes our bodies sweat and our skin burn.
However, the exact reverse is true when we are cold and shivering. We long to step out from the shade, in the hopes of capturing any measure of warmth from the sun's rays to warm our bodies and alleviate the chill.
Scripture is repleat with references to the metaphorical, protective wings of the Lord, spread over us to shield and protect. Often times, as we duck under for cover, we find instant relief from whatever drama, trial, or tragedy has befallen us.
Yet sometimes, we step under the shelter of the Lord's wings and we find no immediate relief. We find the cold and cruelty of our circumstances "feel" no different, no warmer there.
The Lord's protection is no instant panacea, defined quite literally as "a solution or remedy for all difficulties or diseases." As often as not, the Lord's "protection" will take us through the cold hard trial, rather than around it.
Corrie ten Boom, a WWII concentration camp survivor, in her acclaimed book, The Hiding Place, described the pain of standing for hours, at attention before her Nazi captors, in the freezing cold of the pre-dawn hours, or huddled on the wooden bunks, sharing blankets and body heat against the crippling chill of the winter nights in captivity. Why was there no relief from her cold, hard trials? Where, in those moments, were the wings of God's protection?
They were spread wide over her, just as He promised!
Speaking of their times gathered around a small, smuggled bible, she would write,
Like waifs clustered around a blazing fire, we gathered about it, holding out our hearts to its warmth and light. The blacker the night around us grew, the brighter and truer and more beautiful burned the Word of God.
Who shall separate us from the love of Christ? Shall tribulation, or distress, or persecution, or famine, or nakedness, or peril, or sword? ... Nay, in all these things we are more than conquerors through him that loved us.
I would look about us as Betsie read, watching the light leap from face to face. More than conquerors ... It was not a wish. It was a fact.
We knew it, we experienced it minute by minute--poor, hated, hungry. We are more than conquerors. Not 'we shall be.' We are!
Life in Ravensbruck took place on two separate levels, mutually impossible. One, the observable, external life, grew every day more horrible. The other, the life we lived with God, grew daily better, truth upon truth, glory upon glory."
Indeed, in the cruelest of firey trials or chilling challenges, His wings are spread over us. Though we often find no immediate relief for our circumstances, we can (and DO!) find relief for our souls!
"For the LORD God is a sun and shield; the LORD bestows favor and honor; no good thing does he withhold from those whose walk is blameless" (Psalm 84:11, NIV).
"Have mercy on me, O God, have mercy on me, for in you my soul takes refuge. I will take refuge in the shadow of your wings until the disaster has passed. I cry out to God Most High, to God, who fulfills [his purpose] for me" (Psalm 57:1, ESV).
“Keep me as the apple of the eye, hide me under the SHADOW of thy wings” (Psalm 17:8, NIV)
I'm On Your Six!
I like courtroom drama. One of the shows I used to watch regularly is JAG (which stands for Judge Advocate General). This show was about a Navy lawyer who used to be a fighter pilot. During the course of the show's run, Harm (the Navy lawyer) went back to flying Navy fighter jets. One of the things that they would always say to each other while flying was "I got your six." This referred to the 6 o'clock position of the fighter which was directly behind him. The pilot could not see behind him, and was therefore dependent on someone else to keep his "6" clear.
The same is true in the Christian life. There are positions in life that we cannot see...we might call them blind spots. We need brothers and sisters to "watch our six" so that we might be safe and free from failure. ("Brethren, if a man be overtaken in a fault, ye which are spiritual, restore such an one in the spirit of meekness..." Galatians 6:1).
But even more significanly, God's promise to us is that He's always "got our 6." On the cross He took care of sin and death, and we can trust Him for that. So no matter what you might face today...no matter how big and tough and scary the enemy is...you can know that God's "got your six!"
"No one will be able to stand against you all the days of your life. As I was with Moses, so I will be with you; I will never leave you nor forsake you" (Joshua 1:5).