How you see things

Bad company corrupts good character (1 Corinthians 15:33).

I love to fly. I love being in an airliner when it starts dashing down the runway, then noses up and climbs into the sky. But my favorite aircraft aren’t the big jets; I like flying in smaller planes at a lower altitude. I like being able to see the towns we fly over, see cars and trucks moving along the highway.

I also like going to the top of tall buildings. I love the thrill of an express elevator pushing my feet into the floor as it rapidly ascends. I like walking around the observation deck, looking out over the city and all the people who give it life.

And I like going over bridges. My favorite one is the Mackinac Bridge, a five-mile long span that connects Upper and Lower Michigan. The bridge has steel grating for its decking, so that wind can pass through without creating too much sway. That grating also allows you to look down and see the water far below.

But I don’t like climbing ladders. I don’t like standing on a piece of furniture. I don’t like climbing on the roof, even if it is only on a single-story house.

Strange, isn’t it? I have no fear of flying, standing on the top of tall buildings, or crossing long bridges, yet I get nervous when only five feet up in the air. I think it has to do with the nearness of the ground. When I’m way up high, my brain can’t really comprehend the distances involved; I feel safe because the ground is too far away to really think about. But when I’m on a ladder, I know how far I might fall, and how much an unexpected landing would hurt; the ground is close, and it looks painfully hard.

Maybe this is why we don’t fear God’s eternal punishment as we should. Death seems far off in the future, while other problems are much closer and more frightening. And so a teen might worry more about fitting in with the gang than about making God angry; fear of being rejected by other kids today is much stronger than fear of God’s rejection some time in the future. And yet falling from the top of a skyscraper will result in death; falling from a ladder can be survived. It is certainly more dangerous to make God angry than to stand up for what’s right when others are pressuring you to do something wrong.