I did some research into the Fresnel lens used in lighthouses for a sermon I am writing and it led me down a rabbit hole about these kinds of lenses. I remembered that my husband, when he was a Navy pilot landing on aircraft carriers, used a directional system called the Fresnel Lens Optical Landing System (OLS). The light system is designed to provide a “glide slope” for aviators approaching an aircraft carrier. The lights are projected through the Fresnel lenses in three different colors, telling the aviator when the aircraft is at the desired altitude in the approach at any distance from the ship.

If the aviator sees a red light (at the bottom), it means that the aircraft is dangerously low, and the subsequent flashing red light activated by the landing signal officer (LSO) would indicate a wave-off requiring the pilot to go around for another attempt. Yellow lights means you are approaching the carrier too high and will miss attaching your plane’s tailhook on one of the four arresting wires on the deck. Green lights mean you are in just the right glide slope for a safe landing. As the pilot approaches the carrier, the LSO instructs him to “call the ball” and the pilot has to report what color light he or she sees on “the ball” (actually a nickname for calling this blob of light a meatball) on approach.

This, by the way, is why Navy pilots can’t be colorblind. 

If God, who acts as our Landing Signal Officer, commanded you to “call the ball” in regard to the quality of your discipleship, what color light would you see? God already knows. As David boldly asserted in Psalm 139, God knows when we sit and rise, he knows our thoughts from far away, and he has us hemmed in from behind and before, with his mighty hand upon us.

Psalm 139 (New Revised Standard Version)

¹ O Lord, you have searched me and known me.
² You know when I sit down and when I rise up;
    you discern my thoughts from far away.
³ You search out my path and my lying down
    and are acquainted with all my ways.
⁴ Even before a word is on my tongue,
    O Lord, you know it completely.
⁵ You hem me in, behind and before,
    and lay your hand upon me.
⁶ Such knowledge is too wonderful for me;
    it is so high that I cannot attain it.

⁷ Where can I go from your spirit?
    Or where can I flee from your presence?
⁸ If I ascend to heaven, you are there;
    if I make my bed in Sheol, you are there.
⁹ If I take the wings of the morning
    and settle at the farthest limits of the sea,
¹⁰ even there your hand shall lead me,
    and your right hand shall hold me fast.
¹¹ If I say, “Surely the darkness shall cover me,
    and night wraps itself around me,”
¹² even the darkness is not dark to you;
    the night is as bright as the day,
    for darkness is as light to you.

¹³ For it was you who formed my inward parts;
    you knit me together in my mother’s womb.
¹⁴ I praise you, for I am fearfully and wonderfully made.
    Wonderful are your works;
that I know very well.
¹⁵     My frame was not hidden from you,
when I was being made in secret,
    intricately woven in the depths of the earth.
¹⁶ Your eyes beheld my unformed substance.
In your book were written
    all the days that were formed for me,
    when none of them as yet existed.
¹⁷ How weighty to me are your thoughts, O God!
    How vast is the sum of them!
¹⁸ I try to count them—they are more than the sand;
    I come to the end—I am still with you.

²³ Search me, O God, and know my heart;
    test me and know my thoughts.
²⁴ See if there is any wicked  way in me,
    and lead me in the way everlasting.

Spend some time today thinking about your life and what you would see if God told you to “Call the ball.” The discipline of self examination is not just for Lent, you know! Would you see red, yellow, or green lights? Let’s face it … none of us is getting any younger. As you are descending onto the safety of God’s ship, how are you approaching? Are you too high, living a life of selfishness and luxury, focused on your own needs while neglecting the world’s needs? Are you too low, living a life of sin and separation from God, following the whims of the secular world in pursuit of pleasure, wealth, and greed? Or are you in the green zone of serving, giving, studying God’s work, and doing his will?

The good news is, as you call the ball, it’s never too late to adjust your altitude … and maybe your attitude.

My Frame Was Not Hidden by Michelle Robertson