"Controlling Versus Controlled"

“For God has not given us a spirit of timidity, but of power and love and discipline. “  II Timothy 1:7, NAS

 

“Controlling Versus Controlled”

A Lesson from Our History as the District of Innovation

 

Did you know the Miami Valley was the Silicon Valley back in the early 1900s?  Kettering, Patterson, and the Wright Brothers were just some of the more famous personalities.     

 

If God first revealed God’s Self as Creator, maybe we can feel a little more freedom in our experimentation for the Kingdom.   What lessons, therefore, from their days of innovation can we apply in our own as we seek to maximize our service to Christ and His mission?

 

The mind set the Wright Brothers had to overcome was enormous.  It represented a major paradigm shift in their day:  sustained, heavier than air flight.  Imagine getting your mind around that for the first time?  Flying in a vehicle that was heavier than the air around it went against all conventional wisdom.

 

Key to their success was not in the development of a more powerful engine, however, but in the mastery of control.

 

The three critical parameters in flight dynamics are the angles of a plane’s rotation around its main center of mass are known as pitch, roll, and yaw.

 

Pitch...the up and down orientation of the nose as it faces into the wind.

Roll...the side to side tilting or balance.

Yaw...the left to right orientation of it the plane’s overall position in the air.

 

The Wright Brothers figured out a way to control all three of them.  That actually was one of their main inventions, not the development of a more powerful engine, but what became known as “three axis control.” What helped them most in their discovery was their work with bicycles.  Learning to ride a bike is an art of balance as much as it is a factor of how much hoof we have in our pedal.

 

I need to hear that.  God has given us a spirit though that covers both and, in fact, adds a third: “power, love, AND self-control.”

 

The Spirit wants to give us success in all three.

 

As you recover from knocking it out of the ballpark for Christ this Easter, it is just as important to replenish our ministry strategy and the posture of our soul as it is our strength.

 

Thriving in Christ with you,

 

Chris