Can Flying Helicopters Be The Lord's Work?

Heli-logging was first introduced in British Columbia.

Photo by Phillip Capper - Flickr: Logging the Town Belt, Wellington 18 April 2005, CC BY 2.0, https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=15358577

Continued from last week...

A young friend of mine who had recently graduated from Bible school came to visit. When I asked what he enjoyed most about his Bible school experience, he said: “Going into the local town to do street evangelism.”

Wow. It’s rare to find a young man who enjoys street evangelism! 

But when I him asked what profession he wanted to pursue, I received an unexpected reply.

Cocking his head, he looked up at the ceiling and uttered: “Forgive me, Lord.”

Then he turned to me, looked me straight in the eye, and declared: “I want to fly helicopters.”

(Forgive me, Lord?)

His dream was to fly helicopters in logging operations, lifting cut trees from the forest floor, bypassing the need for building roads, and keeping things looking nice.

Yet, this young man obviously felt guilty. Heli-logging was clearly not on his shortlist of “the Lord’s work” occupations.

I asked if he had heard of the First Commission. He was unfamiliar with this term, so we talked about Genesis 1:26-28, where it is written: Then God said, “Let Us make man in Our likeness and image, and let them rule…over all the earth...”

I pointed out how heli-logging fulfills the role God had in mind for human beings. I shared how we can love God and love people by lifting logs from forest floors with helicopters, bringing them to trucks to be hauled to mills, where they can be shaped into lumber for building homes, and other useful things people need.

For the first time in his life, this young man saw how he could fulfill his God-given role as an Earth-Tender, ruling over trees through heli-logging. In this work, he could love God and love people! 

Can flying helicopters be the Lord's work? 

You tell me. 

The lights went on for this young man that day. He looked at me, with face aglow, and declared: "I never thought of that before!" 

We discussed how he could also evangelize loggers.

If the chief end of man is to glorify God, and enjoy Him forever, as the Westminster Catechism says, then the chief role and function of man is to govern well over Planet Earth and all it contains. The two go hand in glove! It's the First Commission. 

Let’s restore it to our schools, homes and churches, before we lose yet another generation to Platonic Dualism.