Dream of In Flight Total Engine Failure

Sometimes what God does while we slept is more important than what we did while we were awake…

Here is a dream that John Pilcher, an Australian passenger flight pilot, had on the 12th of December 2008. You may notice the similarities of this dream with the actual double engine failure event departing from New York and ditching in the Hudson River a few weeks ago.

On the 12/12/2008, I had a dream that I was flying at night from New York across what directionally seemed like the Pacific Ocean. I was temporarily out of my seat as Captain just chatting with the senior First Officer when my attention was drawn to the right engine which was showing some vibrations. As I continued to monitor the situation I spoke to the cruise First Officer as to whether he had noticed this before, and he indicated that he had not. However he may have overlooked it as he was feeling quite unwell and needed to rest. As we exchanged seats to my disbelief I saw both engines now at idle power and the aircraft loosing altitude. I checked the fuel tanks and noticed they were empty and immediately asked the cruise First Officer’s as to why he hadn’t noticed any fuel leak or monitored the fuel situation whilst I was away from the flight deck. There was no reply but just stunned silence as how this could be and what to do.

Every person who flies a passenger flight cares only about himself. They go about their businesses, visit families, friends, have their own schedules, their own plans and goals. The travelers of a passenger aircraft do not have a common purpose, they do not talk to each other, they do not have unity about anything at all. They idly sit there and wait until the plane lands so that they can go about their own ways again. They basically use the aircraft for their own good. They have no desire to even get to know the person who sits next to them in those long journeys.

Very similar to the churches that we are very much aware of. This kind of churches are departing New York, a place where everything that one can possibly imagine, can be consumed for one’s own self. And God is taking them over the Pacific. No lights, no shows, no happenings, somewhere between heaven and waters, no land, nothing solid to hold on to, just dark and silent.

And before any of us had realized, not only the pastors have been burning out but also the fuel has been leaking since long ago but we have been busy, flying. The church didn’t bother to question how we fly but that we fly. The church has put all of its energy, effort, resources (both people and finances) to raise itself up in the sky by giving every importance to programs, projects, social and ‘mercy’ mission work etc, without checking whether this is what would make it to fly! The church has been blind, unable to notice the real power source, the fuel, to leak out of its tank. And now flies empty, with stunned silence it is dangerously dropping down.

I gave the emergency call to the Cabin Manger and then also a May Day call and the shock of preparing myself for the intensity of preparing the aircraft and occupants for a very likely ditching was enough to wake me up.

One must be really deaf not to hear the wake up call all over the world in the churches. There are warnings and trumpet sounds to get ready, to be prepared. But what do we do when we are caught up between heaven and earth? What do we do when we are floating between the spiritual world and the patterns of this world? What do we do when we long for God to reign in our lives but we are totally tied up to Mammon and its rule? What do we do? We go helplessly further crashing down hoping that God will do something, because we have tried every program, we have copied every models of church, we are loosing altitude.

Perhaps now Jesus will have his rightful place that we have been occupying for so long to build his church. “I will build my church, and the gates of Hades will not overcome it.”

I then went back into a semi sleep state and sense the gravity of what I had dreamed that this could be something from God. I next had a sense that I was back in the dream with the aircraft emergency help from another military type aircraft flying at much lower altitude. I had the impression or vision of coordinating the descent of this other aircraft with ours so that eventually we were able to descend like a soft landing onto the back of the other aircraft which could reduce our descent rate so that we could make it to an island airport not far away. There would be some damage to the other aircraft but it was a worthwhile risk that could work, so that at about 20 nm miles to run it could pull away at a steep descent rate and lets us glide in to the runway.

God is also known as “Lord of Hosts”, “Lord of the armies”. There is a military aspect of God that the church has ignored for a long time. Jesus has been preaching about the Kingdom of God being near, at hand, flying so low. He has explained the Kingdom of God to his disciples and the hearers in many different ways, with many different examples. When you land on his kingdom, your rights cease to exist, they no longer apply, it is his government by decree. And you will align yourself to it in order to land safe. If you are proud and disobedient then you actually rebel against the governance of God. The church is right now at the cross roads to make the decision to either enter the Kingdom of God or continue to journey with the empty gas tank. This is a matter of life and death.

Not everyone who says to me Lord, Lord, will enter the Kingdom of heaven, but only he who does the will of my father” (Mt 7:21). Those who do not enter his Kingdom, that means respect, align, obey and submit to God to rule as King, will end in a fatal crash. When you choose the Kingdom, you will not have the freedom to live life as you did before but your life has to align to the rule of Jesus the King, the captain. The churches have failed to bring the people from A to B by ignoring the greater authority and rulership, therefore God is flying his Kingdom aircraft now.

Those churches that have ignored the royal rule of God, father’s will, will land crashed.

I didn’t see the end result of this idea for this emergency situation but sensed it was highly feasible and knew there was an element of trust in seeing such a miracle pulled off, in such a dramatic and embarrassing drama.

John sees in this dream, how our individualism and humanism has brought us to the current economic crisis.

John Pilcher’s revelation

There Is Life Beyond Drugs

Have you been to a church service where the praise songs that are sung for God are all actually not about God but about those who sing it, in which God is just their servant who takes care of their needs and their troubles, who makes life even easier and more comfortable than they truly deserve? The testimonies are not about what God does to advance his Kingdom but about how God helped them to enjoy life even better! If you look deeper into such an attitude you will quickly see that the people are the kings and the real King himself is their servant!

The Lord is my servant I shall not want.

He makes me to sit down again and again in the church pews,

to warm up the chairs…

You dress up nice and go to church on a Sunday morning, sit somewhere in the back and wait for the program to start. Sometimes it takes a while for the soul, spirit and emotions to join in the flow. But then comes this cool song that just has the right melody and rhythm, that kindles your emotions. You like it, you stand up, close your eyes and mumble the song quietly. By the end of the song you feel so close to God, you even dare to lift up your hands as you sing. Then comes the next song, eyes still closed, you feel your heart flow with love, awe and honor, at the same time you feel so small, unworthy and undeserving. But somewhere in between, you have reached God’s presence and you feel God impart in you that what you’ve been longing for. Right then the intimate time alone with God during the congregational fellowship ends because it is now time to hear the sermon.

Being made to be prepared for 45 minutes to come into the presence of God, you sit there listening to the sermon. Sometimes you wonder that the pastor has his head somewhere hidden in the clouds that he doesn’t know anymore the realities of life. And yet you try to listen because at some point he is going to give a clue on how to live a victorious life in Jesus. You write down those points, happy that the sermon is over, think about the chicken and the potatoes in the oven, greet your fellow Christians, thank the pastor for the good sermon and head towards a restaurant or your dining table. Physically, spiritually, emotionally your tank is full and you are ready for the week to begin.

It is now Monday. You are still on high from the Sunday-drug. You now know for sure that God  knows you , he knows your struggles, he loves you still, he is faithful and he will not let you down. Now you want to show your loyalty to him after all that experience yesterday. You try to digest some of its practicality in real life. You are scared about what your co-workers would think of you if you share them your incredible experience yesterday. So you take time to pray and think about it. You ask God to open doors to speak to your co-workers. You tell God that he will please somehow save them sometime soon, that your friends will somehow find Jesus. If you are daring you may even ask Jesus to give you courage to tell them about him.

Tuesday: You gather all your courage during lunch break and hesitantly open up a topic that  might hopefully lead at the end to talk about God. Usually you sense a bit later than your friends, how this is all gonna end. You find yourself right smack in the middle of a spiritual battle field, you are attacked, you hurt, but you don’t give up that easily. You try again, because this is exactly what the pastor had preached two days ago. You go home, ask your wife and children to pray with you, for you, for your friends.

Wednesday: You are back at the office and you see this smirk that tries to hide on your co-workers faces. You hear some nudging comments thrown on your way. But you are a Christian, you bear all the insults, you behave good, you keep some distance but you are ready to help when they need you. Within you is turmoil. You don’t understand why these people ignore God, why they think they don’t need God to save them while they can save themselves. You know their life is a mess and you have the remedy, but they don’t see the need for it. Somehow you are discouraged and disappointed. You start to doubt the sermon from last Sunday, the emotional meter is dropping too. And the effects of the Sunday-drug fades.

Thursday: You remember Jesus and how he was rejected by his own people. And how he sacrificed himself for man kind. You remember his sufferings, you even identify with him. So you are in a way sad and yet rejoice in your sufferings for Jesus.

Friday: No signs of fruit yet, you are in pain, the co-workers have rejected you and the work-week is coming to an end. You feel guilty, you doubt your faith, you think God is mad at you and you need to earn his love. Tired and longing for the Sunday-drug you enter the weekend.

Saturday: Deprived of hope and confidence, you help with family chores, take an afternoon walk, watch a family movie, eat a healthy meal and go to bed, longing for the Sunday-drug.

Sunday:  You dress up nice and go to church on a Sunday morning, sit somewhere in the back and wait for the program to start. Sometimes it takes a while for the soul, spirit and emotions to join in the flow. But then comes this cool song that just has the right melody and rhythm, that kindles your emotions. You like it…

Deep down, your conscience tells you this can’t be all it. But you don’t know the way out. You need the weekly dose of drug that stretches you away from God and pulls you back again like an elastic band. Your forefathers were conditioned like this before and now you. You wonder if there is a way to get out of this addiction. Somehow through someone, it is whispered to you that there is an alternative. You secretly go there to find it out. You sit there, listen and get this fresh breath of air, something new, something different, something that turns you on. You go back home and the routine sets in. You realize that without the Sunday-drug, you can’t make it through the week.

You know you fear to admit: “Hi, my name is Christian, and I am an addict.”

Would you like to share with us your story, how you found life beyond Sunday-drugs?

Who Runs The Show?

It was highly interesting to listen to Wolf tell about his last meeting with a group of Christian business people. It really engages one to think. Here is part of what he said among other things:

A journalist, who studied Journalism 20 years ago had argued there that free journalism, talking out your mind, is still possible. 20 years ago, when you had worked as a Journalist, he said, you were given a topic, you did the research and you came up with a story from what you had found out. End of story.

Today, especially in larger newspapers and magazines, a journalist is given a topic, BUT also the very sources he should use, the expected outcome and a frame work of what he should cover and what he shouldn’t. In other words, that’s not freedom any more, but ham-stringed journalism, that serves another purpose than telling the truth.

News is not really news: its what is sold to us under the disguise of news. From 300,000 newsworthy items every day, maybe 3,000 make it to the newswire, and 300 of these items – 1 thousandth of what actually happened – are picked by our local newspaper editors, spiced up with local interest stories, and packaged and sold to us as “newspaper”.

The 90 second sound bites that we see or hear in the news is, of course, not the full story. It is the carefully crafted and massaged message that “journalists” make up to sell us the feeling that we have been informed. Take for example TIME weekly magazine. Their columns and essays are very much bound to never upset the best and biggest customers they have: those who pay the sinfully costly full page ads.The idea is to sell the persons who buy a copy of the magazine for € 4,40 the feeling of being informed, while at the same time protecting the interests of the brands advertising their goods in their pages. Would TIME magazine ever bring out the sad story of the deeply insecure and megalomaniac folks who are addicted to status symbols like ridiculously costly watches? No, because companies advertising such luxury goods would not place any more ads in a paper that debunk their plot: sell grossly over-prized watches to grossly insecure folks who believe the lie that a brand watch adds to their value.

This ties in with a similar phenomenon in our work. When we tell stories in the West about what God is doing in other parts of the world, we usually experience people explode with frustration asking, ‘Why are we not told about this, why do the churches not cover such stories, why do the Christian magazines not publish these things? Why are we informed only with what endorses the Status Quo, or are we intentionally kept in the dark? Why are we not hearing about the millions of Muslims coming to Christ in house churches in Muslim countries, but are forever bombarded with church sponsored “mercy” work, old fashioned evangelism and the ever present social upgrading activities? Is it possible that even the Christian press is not free, but enslaved to those who benefit from the churchy Status Quo, or worse, that the Christian press is also ham-stringed by playing nice to those that place the 4-color ads in their magazines?

Then much of what we have in Christian journalism would not be Christian at all, but a farce, a show that is not run by the desire for truth, but political and economic calculation.

And that would not be good, would it?