Dr. Samuel P. Langley was a respected former professor of mathematics and astronomy who became the director of the Smithsonian Institution. He was an accomplished thinker, scientist, and inventor who published several important works on aerodynamic. He also possessed a vision for achieving manned flight.
In 1898, Langley approached the U.S. War Department for funding to design and build and airplane to carry a man aloft. The Department gave him a commission of $50,000 and he went right to work Enlisting the help of Charles Manley, Langley expected his years of work to bear fruit.
On October 8, 1903, Manley climbed into the pilot’s seat of a craft called the Great Aerodrome. The full-sized, motorized device was perched atop a specially built catapult designed to launch the craft into the air. When they attempted the launch, part of the Aerodrome got caught and the biplane was flung into the water fifty yards away. The criticism was brutal.
Langley pressed on, made modifications and eight weeks later, prepared to attempt flight again. This time the cable supports to the wings snapped as the plane was launched. The craft caught again in the launch rail and it plunged into the river upside down. Manley almost died.
Defeated and demoralized, Langley gave up. He abandoned his decades-long pursuit of flight without ever having seen one of his planes piloted to success. Just days later, Orville and Wilber Wright – uneducated, unknown, and unfounded – flew their plane “Flyer I” over the sand dunes of Kitty Hawk, North Carolina.
Langley focused on a moment of disaster, which made him think it was the end. He abandoned his experiments. Two years later he suffered a stroke, and a year later he died. He took his eyes off the goal and began to focus on failure. That decision changed history and his destiny.
What happened in the life of Samuel Langley occurs in the lives of too many people today. They allow failure to get the better of them and it stops them from achieving their destiny. For the Christian, this should never be our story. We are children of the Most High God who lift their vision higher.
The Psalmist wrote in Psalm 121, “ I lift my eyes to the hills, where does my help come from? My help comes from the Lord, the Maker of heaven and earth.” We need to look up! If we focus on failure and frustration, if we fill our field of vision with the molehills of life, we will never see the future that awaits us and we will never know the help of the One who waits to move on our behalf. We are called to be overcomers and that begins with where we fix our eyes.
My grandfather used to say, “What gets your attention gets you.” What has your attention? Is it the media’s prophets of fear and anxiety, the preachers of frustration at the office, and the teachers of distrust that surround us all? Or, is your vision focused on something higher? Are you catching glimpses of God’s presence around you and within you? What are you looking at?
I want to invite and encourage you to join me in training our eyes – physical and spiritual – to look for glimpses of God. The world around us may proclaim doom and gloom, but we have the Good News. The storm may be raging, but our anchor grips and holds the Solid Rock. Today is a perfect time to lift your eyes to where your help comes from. It is the Lord, the Maker of Heaven and Earth. I’m thinking that’s a pretty awesome place to trust.
