Why Evangelicals Need Lent

Apollo 13 astronaut Jim Lovell used to tell a story about a mission he flew in his F2H Banshee off the coast of Japan in 1950. He had missed the rendezvous point when his instruments mistakenly picked up a signal leading him away from his aircraft carrier. Lovell felt hopelessly lost as he flew circles in the dark over the stormy Sea of Japan. As he tried to use his map light, suddenly all of the electronics in the cockpit shorted out and everything went black. A bad omen he thought, until he began looking down at the water below. With the absence of light in the cockpit his eyes began to adjust to the dark, making it possible to see the faint trail of phosphorescent algae which had been churned up by the propellers of the carrier. He began to follow the trail which lighted the way home to the carrier where he landed safely. Were it not for the failed light and the resulting darkness, Lovell might have been forced to ditch his plane. The darkness saved him.