Ron Hutchcraft Ministries - Everything But a Captain - #3854

Thursday, October 18, 2001

It had been one of those nightmare days, trying to get a flight out of Chicago's O'Hare Airport. Some thunderstorms sent flight schedules into chaos for about 24 hours. Two hundred flights were cancelled that day, many more were significantly delayed, and thousands of people were scrambling to find a way to get to where they needed to go...including me. Finally, I gave up on trying to get out that day and I reserved one of the last seats available the next morning for the city where I was supposed to be speaking. So, 7:00 A. M. the next morning my partner and I were in our seats on a full flight. The engine was running - it seemed like we were ready to go. Until the cockpit came on and made this announcement - "Uh, folks, we've encountered one problem this morning - we can't find a captain for this flight." Oh, great! No captain - we're not going anywhere. Well, thankfully, a captain came. We got there!

I'm Ron Hutchcraft and I want to have A WORD WITH YOU today about "Everything But a Captain."

So the engine's running, the plane is full, the passengers are ready - but there was no one to take us there. There are a lot of flights like that - or, more accurately, a lot of lives like that. Maybe yours.

You've got basically a good life - things are running well, you've got plenty to do, you've got plenty of people in your life. But for all that, it doesn't seem like you're really going anywhere. Apparently, a lot of people feel like that. A recent USA Today survey asked Americans what one question they would ask a Supreme Being if they were guaranteed an answer. The second largest group - 17% - said they would ask about life after death. But by far the largest group - 34% - wanted to ask, "What is the purpose of my life?" In other words, "What's it all for? What's the point? Where does all this go?"

That's not a new question. King Solomon was struggling with it in our word for today from the Word of God in the book of Ecclesiastes. After accumulating the greatest fortune of his time, building the most impressive structures of his time, trying every pleasure he wanted, and having the best of everything, he concludes in Ecclesiastes 1:14 . "I have seen all the things that are under the sun; all of them are meaningless, a chasing after the wind."

A little later he starts to uncover what's been missing in all his good times - he says, "God has set eternity in the hearts of men" (Ecclesiastes 3:11 ). We've all got this hole inside us that can only be filled with something that lasts forever...which nothing on earth does. In the conclusion of his book, Solomon says, "Remember your Creator in the days of your youth before the days of trouble come" (Ecclesiastes 12:1 ). In other words, get a relationship with your Creator as soon as you can. He's what you've been missing all these years.

All these years our life has been a flight that doesn't go anywhere because we're missing our Captain - the God we were made by and made for. We've been trying to be our own captain, running a life that our Creator was supposed to run. So we're alienated from the only One who knows why we're here, the only One who can make it all make sense.

Which is why Jesus Christ came - to die to remove the sin-wall that is keeping us from the God we were made for. And until you open up your life to the Man who died for you, your life will be a flight without a Captain. But once you give yourself to Jesus, you belong to the One who can give each new day eternal meaning.