I was innocently sawing some wood in my driveway next to the garage, when a sound became barely audible but arrested my attention. It wasn’t a Harley Davidson motorcycle. It wasn’t a loud beeping from a large truck in reverse gear. It wasn’t a group of kids gladly enjoying the summer vacation. It was a low, rumble-throated vibration that made me immediately stop what I was doing. I looked skyward and saw the old B-29 warbird called FIFI passing overhead. Its fourWright first R-3350 super-charged engines roaring with over 3,000 horsepower EACH moved the plane effortlessly against the blue sky, and eventually out of sight.
My heart races when I hear that plane, as well as the “Aluminum Overcast” B-17 Flying Fortress, the P-51 Mustang, and the Vaught Corsair “Whistling Death”. Back in World War II, these aircraft all participated in some theater of the conflict to counter threats to our way of life. Back then, they stood for something because WE stood for something.
If you can imagine the pride WE had when these took off into the sky on different missions! And can you imagine how the enemy felt when THEY heard the collective rumbles of hundreds of aircraft above them ready to unleash punishment? At night or on cloudy days, the familiar sounds of the enemy on the ground could still bring fear into the lives of the intended. The aircraft couldn’t be seen under those conditions, but the indications were that they WERE there due to the evidence of the delivery.
II Chronicles 16:9 says: “For the eyes of the Lord run to and fro throughout the whole earth, to shew himself strong in the behalf of them whose heart is perfect toward him. Herein thou hast done foolishly: therefore from henceforth thou shalt have wars.”Can we see God? How can we know He is there? Where’s the evidence?
II Kings 6:11-12 says: “Therefore the heart of the king of Syria was sore troubled for this thing; and he called his servants, and said unto them, will ye not shew me which of us is for the king of Israel?And one of his servants said, None, my lord, O king: but Elisha, the prophet that is in Israel, tells the king of Israel the words that you speak in thy bedchamber.”God of all the angel armies knows all the idle words spoken, and all the enemies who seek to do us harm. He knows WHO to deliver us from and HOW to do it.
If we are on God’s side, He will be fighting for us, even though the enemy can’t see Him. He has the strategy to sometimes frustrate us because we don’t know His ways.
Isaiah 55:8 says: “For my thoughts are not your thoughts, neither are your ways my ways, saith the Lord.”
So we have a God that doesn’t have to re-load His weapons against His enemies, doesn’t have to operate in cloud cover or the dark of night, and doesn’t have to have pin-point Norden bomb sights to deliver precise delivery to the target! The Lord can rumble the hills with a deafening roar as a volcano explodes without restraint. The Lord can deliver hornets to enemies without firing a shot. He can deliver hail, fire, brimstone, and flooding rain. And this same God, can hear us when we silently pray in our closet, preparing to do a spiritual battle with the enemy.
The sounds of man-made equipment can be nostalgic in so many ways because of familiarization with them. But, as believers, we need to spend more time with our God so that familiarity of His ways don’t surprise us.
Lord, help us to look upward to You and realize the silver bird is a temporary solution to a conflict, where You are the source of a permanent one. Help us to embrace the fact that man-made armaments cannot compare to Your celestial answers directed at the enemy. Lord, enable us to harness Your power to deliver Your weaponry of obedience, love, compassion, patience, sincerity, and authenticity. In Jesus’ Name, Amen.”