We are gathered here today to remember and celebrate the life of George Royalty; and I want to hone in on a brief chapter of his life – one of the most memorable – which was his pursuit of aviation; a pursuit he undertook with his son. I got to meet George and talk with him a couple of times, such as at the airport cookout and a brief visit to Chris’ house; however, most of what I know comes from the stories I’ve heard Chris tell. But before we go any further, I want to open with an illustration:
“John Gillespie Magee, Jr. was an American born of missionary parents in Shanghai in 1922. His father was an American; his mother originally a British citizen. Magee returned to the States and earned a scholarship at Yale. With England’s very existence [being] threatened by the air power of the Third Reich, Magee, instead of entering Yale, joined hundreds of other American men in crossing over into Canada to join the Canadian Royal Air Force. He entered flight training when he was only 18, and by the next year he was flying combat missions over France and defensive missions against the German Luftwaffe over Britain. On September 3, 1941, Magee tested a new model of the Spitfire V, taking it to an altitude of 30,000 feet. This experience inspired [the poem] ‘High Flight’ . . . which Magee composed on the back of an envelope,”(1) and here’s what he wrote:
Oh, I have slipped the surly bonds of earth,
And danced the skies on laughter-silvered wings;
Sunward I’ve climbed and joined the tumbling mirth,
Of sun-split clouds, and done a hundred things.
You have not dreamed of, wheeled and soared and swung,
High in the sunlit silence, hovering there;
I’ve chased the shouting wind along and flung,
My eager craft through footless halls of air.
Up, up the long delirious burning blue,
I’ve topped the wind-swept heights with easy grace,
Where never lark, or even eagle flew;
And, while with silent, lifting mind I’ve trod,
The high untrespassed sanctity of space,
Put out my hand and touched the face of God.(2)
That journey to flight level 3-0 (three-zero) was obviously a high point in Gillespie’s career – pun intended. You see, aviation can serve as a metaphor for life. Life is full of highs and lows; from passing your private pilot checkride, to not having a plane to fly afterwards; from the mountain top to the valley – like with George. He had just learned to fly a powered parachute, and was then hit with a stroke and hospitalized. It was also a low point for his son Chris and for George’s companion Connie. The Bible speaks to these highs and lows. Listen, as I read a passage from Isaiah 40:27-31.
27 Why do you say . . . O Israel: “My way is hidden from the LORD, and my just claim is passed over by my God?” 28 Have you not known? Have you not heard? The everlasting God, the LORD, the Creator of the ends of the earth, neither faints nor is weary. His understanding is unsearchable. 29 He gives power to the weak, and to those who have no might He increases strength. 30 Even the youths shall faint and be weary, and the young men shall utterly fall, 31 but those who wait on the LORD shall renew their strength; they shall mount up with wings like eagles, they shall run and not be weary, they shall walk and not faint.
Without going into a whole lot of detail, these words were written to a people who had just been taken captive by foreign invaders and carried off to another land. This was a low point for the people of Israel. They felt that God must not have been listening to their prayers; that perhaps He didn’t care; or that maybe He didn’t even exist – and this is how many of us feel during the low points of our life. But God is there. His ways, as the Scripture says, are often beyond understanding. So, how do we know that He’s there? Well, one thing is that He gives us the strength to carry on. God doesn’t promise that we won’t have any trials, but He does promise that He will be with us in the midst of the dark valley; and He can cause us to rise up on eagle’s wings.
We read in Psalm 103, “Bless the LORD, O my soul . . . who redeems your life from destruction, who crowns you with lovingkindness and tender mercies . . . so that your youth is renewed like the eagle’s . . . The LORD is merciful and gracious, slow to anger, and abounding in mercy . . . For as the heavens are high above the earth, so great is His mercy toward those who fear Him; as far as the east is from the west, so far has He removed our transgressions from us” (Psalm 103:2, 4-5, 8, 11-12). God not only helps us in this present life; but for those who fear Him – the Bible says – He has removed their sins from them, so that one day, when they transition from this life to the next, they will mount up with wings like an eagle and soar straight into heaven.
I think George knew something about the fear of the Lord; or rather, what it means to have a deep respect for God. His father was a deacon in church, and he was raised attending church every time the doors were open. As he got older, his life took a different path; but from what I’ve been told, George always sought to enrich the lives of others by helping people in need, and by showing a deep love and concern for others. He retained the values he learned as a child; and thus, he had a fear of the Lord. Ultimately, the fear of the Lord means doing what it takes to make our lives right with God by admitting our sins, and by confessing God’s Son, Jesus, as Savior.
So, we know we that we can soar like an eagle in the next life, but what about now? How do we who are alive, who have suffered the loss of a loved one, or some other tragedy or set-back; how do we go on? In Isaiah 40, we read about “those who wait on the LORD” (v. 31). Does this mean that those who are “patient” will receive God’s help? Well, not quite. “The basic meaning of the verb ‘to wait’ is to wind or twist. From this root comes such [a] noun as ‘spider’s web.’ To ‘wait [on] the Lord,’ therefore, means to let Him become your lifeline, your cord of escape.”(3) Before we can rise up from the low places, we must first lean on our lifeline – and every mountain climber, BASE jumper, skydiver, and powered parachute pilot knows exactly what that means. It means to put our full trust in, and to throw our entire weight, upon that line.
That’s how it is with God. We’ve got to fall on Him as we would fall on the lines of a parachute. The Bible says in Deuteronomy 32, “As an eagle stirs up its nest, hovers over its young, spreading out its wings, taking them up, carrying them on its wings, so the LORD . . . made him ride in the heights of the earth” (vv. 11-12, 13). Search the internet, and you’ll see real-life photos of an eagle carrying her young on her back in flight. This really happens! You see, only when we fall on the Lord, like the eaglet falls on its mother’s back, can He carry us on His wings to fly into the heights and rise above the storm. But what about those times when it seems that we’re not making any progress; that life is moving at a snail’s pace and we just can’t seem to move past our heartache or loss?
The well-known Bible teacher Page Kelley said, “The man of faith may sometimes soar on eagle’s wings or run without wearying, but most of the time he merely walks. And the real test of his faith comes, not when he flies or runs, but when he must plod along.”(4) Life has many highs, but there are also a lot of lows. Every pilot in training has to realize this fact. He spends months flying a few times every week, feeling like he’s on top of the world. But one day, when the training is all done and he passes his checkride – unless he becomes a career pilot – the flying is not as frequent, and he’s faced with the reality of becoming a ground-dweller once again. The excitement wanes and the plodding starts all over again.
I think a lot of pilots fly because it’s an escape from the mundane and the daily grind. It’s therapeutic. But not all of us are pilots; however, all of us do face trials and struggles. Whether you are a grounded pilot, someone who’s lost a job or been through a bad relationship, or even experienced the death of a loved one, you must continue walking if you want to cross the finish line of life – and the Lord can help us do just that if we will “wait on Him” and fall on Him in time of need.
Warren Wiersbe says, “As we wait before Him, God enables us to soar when there is a crisis, to run when the challenges are many, and to walk faithfully in the day-by-day demands of life.”(5) “I can plod,” said William Carey, the father of modern missions. “That is my only genius. I can persevere in any definite pursuit.”(6) Wiersbe continues to say, “The greatest heroes of faith are not always those who seem to be soaring; often it is they who are patiently plodding . . . As we wait on the Lord, He enables us not only to fly higher and run faster, but also to walk longer. Blessed are the plodders, for they eventually arrive at their destination!”(7) And what is that destination?
Earlier, I shared about Magee, the military pilot who wrote the poem “High Flight” after having soared to 30,000 feet during a Spitfire V test flight. “Only three months later, [on] December 11, 1941, Pilot Officer John Gillespie Magee, Jr. was killed when his Spitfire V was flying in virtually zero visibility and collided with an Oxford Trainer over Tangmere, England.”(8) Magee was raised in a missionary family. He also spoke of God in his poem. He probably had a relationship with Jesus Christ; and so, his final flight and, thus, final destination led to heaven.
We read in 1 Thessalonians 4, “But I do not want you to . . . sorrow as others who have no hope. For if we believe that Jesus died and rose again, even so God will bring with Him those who sleep in Jesus . . . For the Lord Himself will descend from heaven with a shout, with the voice of an archangel, and with the trumpet of God. And the dead in Christ will rise first. Then we who are alive and remain shall be caught up together with them in the clouds to meet the Lord in the air. And thus we shall always be with the Lord. Therefore, comfort one another with these words” (vv. 13-14, 16-18).
There’s one more thing to note about waiting on the Lord. Page Kelley said, “To wait [on] the Lord . . . means to respond in faith to the proclamation of His coming. Although His coming still lies in the future, the response of faith makes its benefits immediately available . . . Faith,” he said, “is never merely the means by which victory is achieved; faith is the victory!”(9) Chris . . . Connie . . . friends and family . . . the days ahead will be difficult, but I encourage you to lean on God; to seek His face; and take comfort in knowing that George has finally experienced the wonder of flight as it’s ultimately meant to be!
NOTES
(1) The Airman’s Bible (Nashville, TN: Holman Bible Publishers, 2012), p. 1162.
(2) Ibid., p. 1162.
(3) Page Kelley, “Isaiah,” The Broadman Bible Commentary, vol. 5 (Nashville, TN: Broadman Press, 1971), p. 302.
(4) Ibid., p. 302.
(5) Warren Wiersbe, “The Complete Old Testament in One Volume,” The Wiersbe Bible Commentary (Colorado Springs, CO: David C. Cook, 2007), p. 1185.
(6) Ibid., p. 1185.
(7) Ibid., p. 1185.
(8) The Airman’s Bible, p. 1162.
(9) Kelley, p. 302.
