{"id":398,"date":"2021-01-06T08:02:27","date_gmt":"2021-01-06T13:02:27","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/js1cd06kre.onrocket.site\/?p=398"},"modified":"2021-01-06T08:02:27","modified_gmt":"2021-01-06T13:02:27","slug":"four-magic-words","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/glennsreflections.com\/index.php\/2021\/01\/06\/four-magic-words\/","title":{"rendered":"Four Magic Words"},"content":{"rendered":"\n
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Four weeks ago America lost its most famous test pilot.   

Chuck Yeager, who lived to be 97, was the first human being confirmed to have exceeded Mach 1, piloting the Bell X-1 jet faster than the speed of sound in 1947. 

A few years later, when Yeager was testing an F-86 Sabre, he executed a roll \u2013 a standard maneuver to determine an experimental aircraft\u2019s capabilities.

As the jet turned over he felt his aileron lock \u2013 a potentially life-threatening malfunction.

Known for his unparalleled ability to tame unruly planes, Yeager managed to land the F-86.  Three other pilots, however, had already died at the controls of Sabres when their ailerons had mysteriously locked.  A full investigation was launched.

In time it was discovered that a single bolt on the aileron cylinder had been uniformly installed upside-down.

The trail of clues led to a particular assembly plant.  That\u2019s where investigators learned, to their horror, that one older worker had decided he knew better than the instruction manual.

Bolts ought to go heads up, not heads down<\/em>, he believed.  His \u201ccertainty\u201d had cost the lives of three Air Force pilots.

When the good news of Jesus swept across the ancient world, its first listeners found it exceedingly difficult to embrace one of the primary Christian virtues: humility.  No one steeped in Greco-Roman culture \u2013 where heroes were lauded for always knowing what to say and do \u2013 gave humility a second thought. 

The beginning of humility is four magic words \u2013 words that are difficult to believe, let alone say out loud:

I might be wrong. <\/em>

Think how many crucial decisions, tense meetings, and family disagreements might be transformed if everyone involved, as a starting point, embraced those four words. 

The best news of all? 

Humility isn\u2019t just a way to bless others.  In God\u2019s economy, it ends up being a gift we give to ourselves:

\u201cFor God opposes the proud but gives grace to the humble.\u201d (I Peter 5:5)

You think you\u2019re right.  And you may well be.  But it\u2019s also possible that you\u2019re wrong. 

Taking that to heart \u2013 sincerely believing in your own fallibility \u2013 is the only way to fly.
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Four weeks ago America lost its most famous test pilot.    Chuck Yeager, who lived to be 97, was the first human being confirmed to have exceeded Mach 1, piloting the Bell X-1 jet faster than the speed of sound in 1947.  A few years later, when Yeager was testing an F-86 Sabre, he executed a roll \u2013 a standard… Read more »<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":399,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[131],"class_list":["post-398","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-uncategorized","tag-humility"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/glennsreflections.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/398","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/glennsreflections.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/glennsreflections.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/glennsreflections.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/glennsreflections.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=398"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/glennsreflections.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/398\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":400,"href":"https:\/\/glennsreflections.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/398\/revisions\/400"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/glennsreflections.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/399"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/glennsreflections.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=398"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/glennsreflections.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=398"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/glennsreflections.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=398"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}