There is a saying among Navy Seals, “Under pressure you don’t rise to the occasion, you sink to the level of your training.” In other words, our basic training is what we will fall back on in an emergency. If our training was not sufficient enough, the false hopes of survival based on those false hopes won’t work.

That understanding kept me alive thirty years ago when I lost all my electronic equipment while flying over southern Oregon under instrument conditions. When my instruments failed, my basic training came back to me to fly the airplane with just “needle, ball, and airspeed.”

The term “needle, ball, and airspeed” refers to those instruments not powered by an electric current. At the moment of my instrument failure, my previous training allowed me to continue flying in the clouds with just the basic instruments. The basic instrument training I received early on in my training gave me a better chance of survival. My only other option was to succumb to the panic of the moment.

The failure of my instruments also affected my radio. I was alone in the clouds. I had to rely on the old ways of flying taught since the days of biplanes. To survive the instrument failure, I had to keep flying the airplane after my electronics failed if I wanted to survive. 

After half an hour of very intense emotions, I saw a hole appear in the clouds. That small hole allowed me to descend under the clouds and follow Interstate 5 south to the Medford, Oregon airport and safely land. That experience took place ten years before the Lord led Jan and me to pastor our church in Medford. Only God can see our future. He will make a way for us to survive.

Knowing how to fly with just the basic instruments is the same principle used by the Navy Seals. In a world filled with so many aids to our faith, we should never allow them to supplant our basic faith in the Lord. If we are living in an expression of faith that is dependent on the aids to our faith to stay aloft, when a spiritual life and death situation arises and those aids are no longer working, we will have nothing to fall back on to complete our journey.

A basic childlike faith is the most powerful faith because it is based solely on Jesus, not on any supporting aid to our faith. When life strips away our supporting systems, we can still go on because Jesus alone is able to navigate us to a safe landing, especially when our spiritual safety and survival are in question.