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Previous Challenge Entry (Level 3 - Advanced)
Topic: Reading (01/25/07)
Decode the following:

METAR KHOU 221853Z 17009KT 2SM-TSRA SCT004 BKN009 OVC015 21/20 A3004 RMK TSB12 SLP170 T02060196.

Basically it’s a routine weather report for pilots. Or try reading this?

RWY 17R-35L-H12901x200 (asph-conc-grvd) S-100, D-200, Dt-400 HIRL
RWY 17R: MALSR. VASI9(V4L)-GA3.0 TCH 55’ RGT tfc.

It’s an example of runway data found in an airport/facility directory.

After my flight instructor explains all the numbers and letters, things slowly begin to make sense. I learn how to decipher the date, time, and weather conditions, as well as runway characteristics, which are all necessary and useful information for pilots. But learning this business is as challenging as learning a foreign language! “And why is it so confusing?” the instructor asks the class rhetorically. “Because it’s aviation!” the class responds and laughs in unison. It seems the world can complicate and confuse anything, even routine aviation weather reports.

But oh, how I love the sweet simplicity of the gospel of Jesus Christ! God speaks to us in such gloriously straightforward truth. God the Father has a Son, the Lord Jesus Christ. Jesus was conceived by the Holy Spirit, born of a virgin, and was put to death on a cross to atone for our sins. And on the third day He rose again and ascended into heaven where He sits at God’s mighty right hand. Jesus will come again to judge the living and the dead, and the resurrection of the body and eternal life with God awaits the believer.

The song Creed, written by the late singer/songwriter Rich Mullins, has this refrain: “And I believe what I believe is what makes me what I am. I did not make it, no it is making me. It is the very truth of God and not the invention of any man.”

The message of the cross is so plain and easy to read that it’s considered foolishness to the world because the natural and carnal mind is “corrupted from the simplicity that is in Christ.” (2 Corinthians 11:3) But when the veil is taken away in Christ (2 Corinthians 3:14), then everything makes perfect sense.

(verses from NKJ)
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Member Comments
Member
Date
Jan Ackerson
02/03/07
Great object lesson--contrasting the complicated aviation language with the simplicity of the gospel. I wonder if this might be good for some sort of aviation newsletter? It's definitely worth of being published somewhere, and that seems like a natural audience for such a piece.