Cliff Anderson, a student pilot, had an experience that he is not anxious to repeat. It happened during a routine training flight when he was compelled to make a forced landing at about nine o'clock one night.
"I was too far away from a landing field to glide in without power," he said, "and I was too low to use my parachute. If it had been daylight, it would have been much simpler, but the visibility was very poor. It was like being on the inside of an ink bottle, looking out.
"Gliding down at ninety miles per hour, I did not have the slightest idea what was under me. I could see the ground and that was all.
"Somehow, I made a nice three-point landing, and got out of the plane to look around. A farmer came running up to tell me that I had missed his house by only a few feet. He also pointed out a windmill which I had cleared by about three feet. But the thing I was looking at was the power line I had landed parallel to, only twenty feet away. Directly in front of the plane was a fence and another power line.
"It was a nice little cornfield, but I would never have attempted a landing there in daylight, because it just couldn't be done. It wasn't humanly possible. We had to move the plane over into another field the next morning for the take-off, because the cornfield was much too small.
"I have been asked how I did it, and there is only one answer. The Lord did it for me. I wish more people could realize that we are not self-sufficient. We must all put our lives into the hands of Jesus Christ that we may be saved."
Note the concluding words of this young pilot: "We must put our lives into the hands of the Lord Jesus Christ, that we may be saved." This is a faithful testimony, and when, by faith, we come in all our need to the Lord Jesus, trusting Him as the only Savior, we can safely leave our ALL, both for time and for eternity, to Him. He died that we might live. "This is a faithful saying, and worthy of all acceptation, that Christ Jesus came into the world to save sinners." 1 Timothy 1:15.
Have you taken the sinner's place, and trusted the sinner's Savior? As the flyer reminded us, "We must put our lives into the hands of the Lord Jesus Christ that we may be saved."