To follow A Daily Thought click>>>
The Validity of Jesus' Testimony
12When Jesus spoke again to the people, he said, "I am the light of the world. Whoever follows me will never walk in darkness, but will have the light of life."13The Pharisees challenged him, "Here you are, appearing as your own witness; your testimony is not valid."14Jesus answered, "Even if I testify on my own behalf, my testimony is valid, for I know where I came from and where I am going. But you have no idea where I come from or where I am going.15You judge by human standards; I pass judgment on no one.16But if I do judge, my decisions are right, because I am not alone. I stand with the Father, who sent me.17In your own Law it is written that the testimony of two men is valid.
In 1975, Wake Island
in the middle of nowhere in the middle of the Pacific Ocean, had one low power beacon working on a very dark and dangerous night. The danger on that fateful night inroute to Wake Island from Hawaii was in a unanticipated series of packed thunderstorms my crew and I flew into in our Air Force C-130 far from our destination. For two hours we dodged the lightening
as we picked our way through little openings in the fierce storm. As the navigator, I just tried to
make sure we stayed on a path headed generally west because we did not have the fuel to
turn back to Hawaii. We were committed to finding the tiny two-legged little island about two miles long and a 300 yards wide..
As we broke out of the storm the navigation beacon on Wake Island was not yet available and I knew we were well off course. With navigation off the North Star and a star in the west, I soon found we were 70 miles off course. After making corrections for the pilot to fly, I felt comfortable we were headed accurately to a safe arrival at Wake Island. I told the pilot we would receive the beacon in about 45 minutes and we would be on a heading of about 268 degrees. I was confident, but the pilot was elated when the beacon came up and about as I predicted. The pilot trusted me, but still most elated to have the confirmation of what the stars had accurately told me in determining the aircraft position. In reality, the stars told me more information than the beacon told the pilot. The difference was, the pilot could control and tune in the beacon but had no concept of what I did to determine our position over the ocean. For me I had the most accurate information based on the stars God put in the sky for my navigation.
As we broke out of the storm the navigation beacon on Wake Island was not yet available and I knew we were well off course. With navigation off the North Star and a star in the west, I soon found we were 70 miles off course. After making corrections for the pilot to fly, I felt comfortable we were headed accurately to a safe arrival at Wake Island. I told the pilot we would receive the beacon in about 45 minutes and we would be on a heading of about 268 degrees. I was confident, but the pilot was elated when the beacon came up and about as I predicted. The pilot trusted me, but still most elated to have the confirmation of what the stars had accurately told me in determining the aircraft position. In reality, the stars told me more information than the beacon told the pilot. The difference was, the pilot could control and tune in the beacon but had no concept of what I did to determine our position over the ocean. For me I had the most accurate information based on the stars God put in the sky for my navigation.
In the
picture above recently seen on Facebook, I thought about how a lighthouse is a
beacon to boats and ships just as the electronic beacon was to the pilot, and
the stars were a beacon to me on that fateful night.
We all
navigate from storm to storm in our lives and we need help in our storms that
is secure to help guide us to safe landings, successful dockings, and accurately finding our destinations.
Many people use their self confidence to guide themselves from storm to
storm in life and just like the beacon at Wake Island self-confidence is
fleeting and is not always there to
safely guide us. But, for me, I was
always accurate and most secure with my navigation using God’s stars. They were always there in the right place, shining for
me to depend on, and never ever leading me to anything but successful destinations.
This is the same with the teachings and the life of Jesus.
Jesus came too as The Beacon, The Beacon to save us from ourselves and our inbuilt sometimes fleeting self-confidence. We depend far
too much on ourselves and lead a bumpy life because of it. God and Jesus does not always push our bumps
out of our way, does not always remove us from our circumstances, and life is bumpy even with
Jesus as our Lighthouse, our beacon, and our stars. But, just as the Lighthouse showed the ship
officers the bumps in the water and the smoother water to navigate around them, just as my
radar showed me where the most volatile dangerous storm clouds were, Jesus and
His teachings show us the way through our often stormy lives. The storms can push us around and rough us up, but when we keep our focus on the Light of Life, we know better waters and smoother flying is ahead. We just have to trust God, Trust the Light of Jesus; and
accept the Guidance, the nudging, the inward feelings presented by the Spirit of Jesus, the Holy Spirit to guide our lives; in this, navigating our storms is still a task we must do, but the vision we gain with our Beacon helps us over the bumps, guides us through, and sometimes at our lowest of lows will carry us through..
Trust God, Trust Jesus, Trust the Holy Spirit,
Trust changes your life.
Trust God, Trust Jesus, Trust the Holy Spirit,
Trust changes your life.
Thanks be to God.
© lonnie coggins
Please Join
'A Daily Thought Group' on Facebook. It
is designed to be an uncluttered library of only ‘A Daily Thought’
postings.
Thanks and God Bless.
==============================
Sharing these messages
You are welcome to share these messages. You can send the links to your friends, copy and insert the link on FB or you can print the message and share it with your friends.
You can print the message including this sharing message only for your friends and for non-profit. You will have to copy and paste the message to a word processing document. After you copy and paste add the following at the end of the message:
© Lonnie Coggins
ldcoggins@gmail.com
If you desire to use any of these messages in a For-Profit manner you must contact me (email) for permission. Typically, I will most likely give permission.
Please email me if you find any broken links in this message.
It was a dark night, storms everywhere, and for most people trying to find an very tiny island in the middle of the Pacific, it would have been a scary time. But, a calmness reigned in my life even when I did not realize its source. This is a true story that I now easily give God the Glory for my calmness. The Holy Spirit is with believers, even when we do not realize it. Click the link for a story about a dark and stormy night. Share on your fb page as you desire.
http://lonnieadailythought.blogspot.com/2013/12/the-joy-of-beacon-in-night.html
lonnie
Publication 000
