Our Instrument Panel

That is not how you came to know Christ. —Ephesians 4:20

Airline pilots have to learn how to read their instruments—and to trust those instruments. When they get into a storm or “white-out conditions,” they can get disoriented; their sense of direction gets turned around and can easily cause them to make decisions that would endanger lives. In those situations, they must make a conscious choice to believe the instruments rather than their instincts or their feelings.

For believers, the Word of God is our instrument panel. There will be points in our lives when, in the midst of “white-out conditions,” our feelings will betray us and contradict His Word—insisting God doesn’t care or that He’s made a mistake. At that point, we dare not rely on our feelings but must choose to trust that what the Instrument tells us is true.

We are born as people ruled by our emotions and feelings. But “that is not how you came to know Christ” (Eph. 4:20). Part of being transformed into a new creation means that our feelings no longer get full, unquestioned access to our internal “driver’s seat.”