About a month ago, I started reading a biography about the Wright Brothers. If you’ve talked to me at all since then, you’ve probably heard me mention it.
The story of these incredible men is so much more than just airplanes and engines however. Its a story of two brothers who set out to do the impossible, equipped with nothing but high school educations, small bank accounts, and hearts of immense bravery and determination.
As I’ve been reading their story, one description about them has especially stood out to me.
During one of their first demonstrations in Fort Meyer, Virginia a reporter remarked about Wilbur Wright “The impatience of a hundred thousand persons would not accelerate the rhythm of his stride.”
That comment made me think.
Sometimes being a part of the human race feels just like that; a race.
A competition, where we’re all trying to beat each other in just how much we can achieve with our individual 24 hours of the day. It leaves me to wonder though, what are we all racing toward? What are we all striving for? Why are we all competing?
Mark 8:36 says, “For what shall it profit a man, if he shall gain the whole world, but lose his soul?”
Wilbur and Orville Wright worked hard for their dream to invent the first airplane and there were none more deserving. But they didn’t build the Flyer to “beat” anyone or to “prove” that they were the most brilliant engineers or machinists of their time. If that had been their motivation, they would have failed, just like the hundreds of others who were trying to fly in that era of history.
No, the Wright Brothers were successful because they had an insatiable curiosity and an iron will that wouldn’t let them rest. They achieved what they set out to do because it wasn’t about the money, or the fame, or the change to brag. No, it was about a dream. A dream that made Wilbur say when recalling their many years of success and failures during their flying experiments in Kitty Hawk, North Carolina,
“We could hardly wait to get up in the morning.”
The Wright brothers were unwavering in what they believed and had a strength of character that I envy. Truly, the impatience of a hundred thousand persons would not accelerate the rhythm of their stride.
Could people say the same about you?
I’m going to be honest. What people think about my life and my choices affects me greatly. At times, I have made decisions more to please others, than to please God. Unlike Wilbur Wright, I have let the impatience of not even a hundred thousand men, but sometimes just one, accelerate my stride.
But 1 Corinthians 15:58 says, “Therefore, my beloved brothers, be steadfast, immovable, always abounding in the work of the Lord, knowing that in the Lord your labor is not in vain.“
We are called to be steadfast. Not to strive and to stress and to stretch ourselves thin, but to earnestly pursue what the Lord has called us to. To be ambitious, but to be ambitious for God.
Not for, or against other people.
As I read about Wilbur and Orville Wright, I want what they had.
I want their grit and their zeal and their utterly fanatical perseverance.
Men like them are truly the exception.
But I wonder… do they have to be?
