Energy

Air travelers heading east for the holiday season had another thing to be thankful for ... the jet stream. According to CNN meteorologist Sara Tonks, the jet stream, the air current about five miles above the earth’s surface, is stronger than usual. She attributes the difference to a burst of cold air, which has increased the difference in temperature between the colder United States and the warmer Atlantic Ocean. “This increase in the temperature gradient is amplifying the speed of the jet stream, which is driven by temperature differences.”

The jet stream has always been a boon to travelers heading west-to-east, but its recent trend has allowed planes to travel at speeds approaching the speed of sound, estimated at about 761 mph.

It's important to note that these planes don’t actually break the sound barrier, because of the differences between airspeed (the speed of something traveling through air, which itself is also moving) and groundspeed (the speed of an object relative to a fixed point on the ground).

Still, these recent flights have resulted in several impressive flight times. For example, an American Airlines flight from JFK in New York to Heathrow in London touched down almost an hour early.

In 2019, a Virgin Atlantic plane from Los Angeles to London achieved a speed of 801 mph while flying over the state of Pennsylvania. Afterward, Virgin founder Richard Branson described it as flying “faster than any other commercial non-supersonic plane in history.”

Possible Preaching Angle:

Like a runner or cyclist with the wind at their back, the Spirit of God can refresh us, give us energy, and multiply the efficacy of our work so that through him we can accomplish so much more than we could on our own.

Actor Charlie Hunnam has recently begun a transition to writing. About to turn 40, he had reached a place in life for some evaluation. Hunnam knew he would be out of work for a while due to COVID-19. And in his heart, there were stories that he had been carrying around. He shares, "They had been sort of given to me like gifts. And I wasn't honoring the gifts."

As he started the process of honoring these gifts, Hunnam found new energy. He started to get up around 4:00 am daily to go on a short hike. He would be back home, showered, and ate breakfast by 6:00 am. Then he would sit down to write until 7:00 pm. That's 13 hours! He explains the sensation this way:

I just started to get this really “now” feeling of life. Like there's nothing else in the world that would be better for me than what I'm doing right now. And the result of it was more positive than anything I've ever done in my career. ... And I've worked really, really hard to cultivate this gift and be proud of the work that I'm able to do now. But part of me feels like it's an uphill struggle.

But when I write, I feel as though I'm honoring the innate gifts that God gave me. I feel like I really can do this [stuff] at a high level. And that's a feeling that I've never had in my life before, in any regards. I feel like we all have one or two innate talents, and a task of life is to identify those and then do that as much as you possibly can. Because that's where the joy and the presence is going to come from. That's where the grace is going to come from.

The Bookseller magazine runs a competition to find the book with the oddest title of the year. Competition rules stipulate that the work had to be of serious intent and non-fiction. One year, the winner was “Highlights in the History of Concrete.” Runners up included “The Illustrated History of Metal Lunchboxes,” and “The Development of Brain and Behavior in the Chicken.” Special mention was given to “Soviet Bus Stops,” and “Butchering Livestock at Home.”

Possible Preaching Angle:

It is amazing what interests people enough to spend the time and energy to write a book! Why should people be passionate about metal lunchboxes? As Christians, we should be passionate about what God has done for us. Are we passionate enough to pass it on to others? The Apostle Peter says, “Always be prepared to give an answer to everyone who asks you to give the reason for the hope that you have. But do this with gentleness and respect” (1 Pet. 3:15)

Author Lillian Guild tells an amusing story of an occasion when she and her husband were driving along and happened to notice a late-model Cadillac with its hood up, parked at the side of the road. Its driver appeared somewhat perplexed and agitated.

Mrs. Guild and her husband pulled over to see if they could offer assistance. The stranded driver somewhat sheepishly explained that he had known when he left home that he was rather low on fuel, but he had been in a great hurry to get to an important business meeting so he had not taken time to fill up his tank. The Cadillac needed nothing more than refueling. The Guilds happened to have a spare gallon of fuel with them, so they emptied it into the thirsty Cadillac, and told the other driver of a service station a few miles down the road. Thanking them profusely, he sped off.

Twelve miles or so later, they saw the same car, hood up, stranded at the side of the road. The same driver, even more agitated, was pathetically grateful when they pulled over again. You guessed it: he was in such a hurry for his business meeting that he had decided to skip the service station and press on in the dim hope that the gallon he had received would take him to his destination.

Possible Preaching Angle:

It is hard to believe anyone would be so stupid, until we remember that that is exactly how many of us go about the business of Christian living. We are so busy pressing on to the next item on the agenda that we choose not to pause for fuel.

The last thing a police officer trying to chase down a suspect in a high-speed pursuit needs to see is a warning that their patrol car is running low on gas—or on battery juice. But that’s how it went down one night in Fremont, California. The police officer pursuing a suspect while driving the department’s Tesla Model S patrol car noticed it was running out of battery power.

The pursuit of a “felony vehicle” started in Fremont and reached peak speeds of about 120 miles per hour on the highway. The officer driving the Tesla radioed in to dispatch that he might not be able to continue the chase he was leading. Officer Jesse Hartman said, “I am down to six miles of battery on the Tesla so I may lose it here in a sec.”

However, shortly after Hartman called, the person the police were chasing began driving on the shoulder of the highway as traffic was thickening. This prompted police to call off the chase at that moment for safety. The vehicle being chased was found a short time later after it crashed into bushes, but the driver had fled the scene and was not found. Officer Hartman eventually found a charger in San Jose to juice up his car.

A police department spokesperson said, “We have no written policy regarding charging, but the general guideline is that it should at least be half full at the beginning of the shift.” Apparently, the Tesla had not been recharged after the previous shift before Hartman took it out, so the battery level was lower than it should have been. A spokesperson couldn’t provide details on why it wasn’t charged.

Possible Preaching Angles:

Endurance; Holy Spirit; Power; Spiritual Warfare: Christians may also be running on empty unless they connect daily to the power of the Spirit. Only then will they have endurance in the struggle against temptation and the ability to do God’s will.