Humility

In Guideposts, Ronald Pinkerton describes a near accident he had while hang gliding. He had launched his hang glider and been forcefully lifted 4200 feet into the air. As he was descending, he was suddenly hit by a powerful new blast that sent his hang glider plummeting toward the ground.

“I was falling at an alarming rate, Trapped in an airborne riptide. I was going to crash! Then I saw him – a red-tailed hawk. He was six feet off my right wingtip, fighting the same gust I was….

I looked down to the ground: 300 feet from the ground and still falling. The trees below seemed like menacing pikes.

I looked at the hawk again. Suddenly he banked and flew straight downwind. Downwind! If the right air is anywhere, it’s upwind! The hawk was committing suicide.

Two hundred feet. From nowhere the thought entered my mind: Follow the hawk. It went against everything I knew about flying. But now all my knowledge was useless. I was at the mercy of the wind. I followed the hawk.

One hundred feet. Suddenly the hawk gained altitude. For a split second I seemed to be suspended motionless in space. Then a warm surge of air started pushing the glider upward. I was stunned. Nothing I know as a pilot could explain the phenomenon. But it was true: I was rising.”

On occasion we all have similar “downdrafts” in our lives, reversals of fortunes, humiliating experiences. We want to lift ourselves up, but God’s word, like the red-tailed hawk, tells us to do just the opposite. God’s word tells us to DIVE – to humble ourselves under the hand of God. If we humble ourselves, God will send a thermal wind that will lift us up.

- taken from 750 Engaging Illustrations.