The Gospel Plan

One of the questions of often get about flying has to do with landing an airplane in bad weather. "How do you know where the runway is when you can't see outside?" There are several methods but the most preferred is the ILS, or Instrument Landing System. 

The ILS is made up of two transmitters on the ground and a receiver in the airplane. At the very far end of the runway is an antenna called a Localizer. It sends out an electronic beam so to speak that is aligned with the runway centerline, and fans out about six degrees either side of centerline. The other antenna is called the Glide Slope and is located about a thousand feet down the runway and off to the side. It does exactly the same thing as the localizer except the beam is turned vertical. It's angled such that the slope of the beam is typically three degrees. 

In the airplane there is a receiver that takes these signals and interprets them and displays via "needles" the aircraft's position in relation to the beams. This display is called the Course Deviation Indicator, or CDI. There is a vertical needle that shows your deviation from the center of the localizer and a horizontal needle that shows your deviation from the center of the glide slope. The key to finding the runway and also to not crashing into anything is to keep the two needles perfectly centered. Eventually you'll get low enough and close enough that you can see the runway lights through the fog and land. 

Due to the way the localizer and glide slope are designed, the closer you get to the antennas the more sensitive the needles get. Conversely, the farther you get from them the less sensitive they get. You might be twenty miles out and have both needles perfectly centered on your CDI. You'd think that you've got it nailed and all you have to do is just maintain your current aircraft state and you'll get there. Not so. The sensivity is so low that you might actually be 500 feet off the centerline but you really can't tell from the indications. If you made no corrections the needle would eventually begin to deflect off to one side and you'd miss the runway completely and leave the protected area (area guaranteed to be free from obstacles). So the trick to making it to the runway is to always be making small corrections, both vertically and laterally, as you fly down the ILS. 

I realized that this is exactly what the gospel plan is and how we are to live it. The Gospel is the straight and narrow path that leads to Eternal Life. The Gospel is the the absolute center of the localizer and glide slope. But the truth of life is that none of us are perfect. We will make mistakes. We will deviate from the course. Sometimes deviations are due to our own lack of attention. Other times, the crosswinds of life blow us slightly off course. If we don't correct these deviations we will not make it to the runway safely. Likewise, we need to constantly be repenting of our sins. If we don't take advantage of the atonement of Christ and correct our mistakes we will get further and further off our spiritual course back to Heavenly Father. The biggest point to take away is that it is never just a one time correction, but a constant correction. As we get closer and closer to Christ our deviations will become smaller and smaller, but they are still there. We must always correct to stay centered. Eventually the end of life will come. Either you've mastered the skill of correction and repentance and the "runway" apears directly in front of you, exactly where you were expecting it, or you neglected to master correction and repentance and it is too late, and the "runway" is no where to be found. 

Obviously the runway in his analogy is our end goal, Eternal Life. Lest we think we could make it on our own, without the grace and atonement of Jesus Christ none of this would be possible. There would be no way of us to be able to correct back to the true course because we would have no indications as to where it was. The atonement of Christ gives our aircraft flight controls. Only through him are we even able to make corrections. If we trust his directions and use his grace to make corrections we will eventually land safely in his arms and imherit Eternal Life.