My God Fights For Me

Standing along the flight line at the 2024 Tampa Bay Airfest, we had an up-close-and-personal vantage point for all of the demonstrations flown. Our hearts raced at the aerobatic stunts performed by world-champion flyers. Nostalgia and patriotism was roused by the fly-overs of historic aircraft in tandem with their modern counterparts. Goofy grins spread across our faces as the A-10 Warthog took to the skies. The perfectly blue skies, occasional rainbow cutting through the contrails, carefully choreographed dances of machinery, skill, and musical backdrop, all melded together for a day of wonder and much-needed rest.

Then, the last act of the airshow began. The pinnacle team. The U.S. Air Force Thunderbirds; a team of 120+ members of our military working together to create the show of force and flight capability embodied in 6 of our nation’s F-16 Fighting Falcon aircraft. It is impossible to relate to you the sheer awe inspired by the speed, precision, and maneuverability of these craft as they shrieked overhead.

So fast were their passes that, had the announcer not told us the direction of their approach, we would never have seen them coming. Just as rapidly, they vanished out of sight. Only the sound of their power foretold their presence. We experienced a marvelling awe because all of that capability, all of that surprise and stealth, all of that bone-shaking power and ear-splitting noise…was friendly. It was on our side. We were safe even so close to it.

Even as we marvelled, we began to imagine. What if it wasn’t ours? What if all of that unannounced, suddenly appearing, sheer power and might arrived with us in it’s sights? Unspeakable, horrible, surety of impending destruction.

The more I have pondered this, the more one thought keeps replaying itself in my mind: If this is what the height of man-made power looks like, how much more awe-inspiring, more devastatingly immense, is the power of God arrayed in all of its glory?

Do you have a small inkling of what that power may be like? How bright? How loud? How all-encompassing of all of your senses? Can you imagine?

Now… here’s where it absolutely blows my mind…

We who stood as enemies of the very God who created us, cowering in rebellious fear of His might, are now invited, through the work of Jesus Christ’s obedience to death, burial, and resurrection, to become partakers in the very might that had every right and capability to destroy us. The One who possesses all that authority in His person - not in His equipment, or financial holdings, or machinery, but IN HIS PERSON – has invited us to be His children. To call Him “Abba”, “Father.”  We are not invited to merely stand on the flight line of His show and observe how awesome He is, but we are called up close to Himself, among the ones protected and provided for by all His capacity.

I’m not sure that I can fully grasp the kind of love that holds such power and chooses to exercise it with such mercy and grace toward people who were His enemies. But I am grateful that it is true.
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I am also not sure that I can fully grasp that the spiritual forces of wickedness, Satan and his minions, choose open warfare against such incredible power, knowing that through Jesus, their destruction has already been made certain. But, again, I am so grateful that we, as the children of the Almighty God, can wield that knowledge with confidence. The terror the enemy of our souls seeks to inflict need only be exposed to the glory and might of our Father, and it dissipates into nothing. We can stand in the thick of the noise and conflict, ready to marvel with joy as the Father’s authority is exercised on our behalf, and our enemies in the spiritual realm are made to flee.