the flying bernoulli

In college, I studied Chemical Engineering for two years, easily the crummiest two years of my college education, not that I have several years to choose from. Anyway, during this time I completed some extremely difficult coursework and one of the courses was Fluid Mechanics. I remember the professor was a pompous fellow, who took every occasion to brag that he could play guitar ‘just like Hendrix’ and that he drove a “purple sportscar,” i.e. a Mazda Miata. We had a test every week, and if you tried to walk into class even one second after the bell had rung ( yes, we had a bell in college because that building was called the Bell Engineering Building) the teach would take an entire letter grade off your final grade at the end of the semester. Yeah, it was that bad.

It was during this course that I spent about 6 weeks learning how to manipulate ONE equation: the Bernoulli equation. This equation was humongous, filling up an entire whiteboard. Sometimes when writing it out, I would have to rotate my paper landscape in order for it to fit… not really, but it was big.

We spent each week discussing one portion of the equation until we could put it all together and use it to solve problems. The teach (wish I could remember his name) informed us of all the important uses that could come from the Bernoulli, including the one I remember the most: He said that this equation could explain why airplanes are able to fly.

Something Pastor Rob said the other day in a sermon spurred my mind to remember this equation. But I was thinking today about how so often we find ourselves wanting to explain the world around us in terms we can understand. It is human nature. Equations and formulas are statements the try to explain the occurrences we experience in the world around us. Often we want to explain the world around us in terms that we can not only understand, but also manipulate, just like an equation. Even this is not a bad thing in some regards. But I guess where we run into difficulty is when we try to explain God, or God’s will, in terms that we can both understand and manipulate. God can’t be limited to formulas.

I wonder what would have happened if, once learning of that equation, I were to book a flight. And supposed before I boarded the airplane, I made up my mind that I would not board and would not let others board, in the interest of safety, until I could tangibly prove and explain that the plane would indeed fly, and would indeed fly safely.

And suppose before I boarded the airplane, destined to take me from Arkansas to somewhere like Hawaii, I demanded of the pilot to know the exact dimensions of the plane, the speed at which he planned on flying, the altitude, how much force the jet engines would exert, how much the plane weighed, how many bugs would hit the windshield during take off, the drag force exerted by the wings, etc… And then suppose I pulled out my trusty TI-83 and my squared graph paper notebook, holding everyone else in line behind me in the jetway, and plugged and chugged every possible number into the Bernoulli equation. The reality is I would probably either be trampled on the jet way, or escorted out of the airport by security before I could even finish writing down the equation.

Just as ridiculous as this example is the way I sometimes treat God and his will. If I don’t understand it, if it seems improbable, if it seems amazing, if I think there could be a possible chance of failure, sometimes I cop out. Sometimes we say to God, “Explain yourself first, then I’ll have faith,” or, “tell me again the plan and how you’re going to do this in my life, then we can get started.” Or, “God I want to do something about the brokenness in our world, so please explain to me how I can do something about it, and then I’ll do it.”

The life of faith seems to be something we believe more than something we understand. Biblical faith seems to be more about trust than about knowledge. The bible didn’t say that faith is the evidence of things we can see or understand. It said “faith is the substance of things hoped for, the evidence of things not seen.”

It would seem as though God is saying to me, “You’re not going to understand it, just do it.” The reality is that many things are beyond my understanding. They are undeniable, but simultaneously inexplicable. The fact that a vehicle weighing numerous tons (airplane) can soar in the air is to most of us inexplicable-but it’s also undeniable because many of us have not only seen planes fly, we’ve also been in a plane while it was flying us from one place to the other. God is beyond my understanding. I can’t explain him, but I can’t deny him either. I’ve seen what he has done in my own life, in my own heart, in my own circumstances… and I’ve seen what he does in the lives of those who trust him.