Testing to learn

I was talking with a friend one time about the many months he spent living with the NASA X-38 vehicle in a hangar at Edwards Air Force Base. He made the almost-offhand comment, “Well, we were out there testing to learn, not learning so we could test.”

X-38’s mission was to provide a means of rapid crew return from the International Space Station (ISS). Like any new development, it needed lots of preliminary and detailed design, followed by fabrication of several prototypes. Then it was out to Edwards for lots of ground tests, taxi tests, captive carry tests, parafoil design and test. And re-design, and re-test. New technologies, lots of learning by doing, lots of learning through failure

Unfortunately, the general mindset in military and NASA work, particularly among contracting types, is that a Test is pass/fail. (“Parafoil tore up again during a drop test? Hmm, looks like a fail from here.”) It was a constant business to teach people, “No, this is how we’re learning.”

In school and too-often in church, we seem to learn a bunch of stuff so we can pass a test of some sort. Innumerable sermons exhort believers with the idea that there's a God-reckoning coming, using verses like 1 Peter 1:7 and James 1:3. The idea of a “test” being only a demonstration of existing ability or capability seems to get lost. The idea of testing as part of learning, even more lost.

But the words the Bible uses about testing and proving* mostly aren’t pass/fail. They mean things like approved, tried out, examined, experienced, proven, trustworthy. (Notably, the context of both verses above is much more demonstration than pass/fail.)

God has standards, all right, and he’s always calling us toward His perfection. (After all, he made us in His image, and he's still re-making us in His image.) But life isn’t pass/fail; it’s process and progress.

Those “tests” you see in the Bible? Mostly testing to learn. Testing to demonstrate to you and me where and how we’re doing in your walk with him. Next time you feel tested, remember, it's just another step toward God. And...relax a little. He isn't going to drop you if you "fail." :)



* Greek Dokimos, dokimazo, dokimazo, dokimion are common ones.
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Alex Hunter, moon rovers, and you

Almost 20 years ago, I met an old Boeing engineer named Alex Hunter. He was a mechanical engineer and designer; in aerospace work, those are the guys who figure out what materials to make something out of, how thick, how many screws, rivet placements, and on and on. Every engineer has his favorite toys to use in design; Alex just loved rivets because they simultaneously attach AND align two pieces of metal with great accuracy.

We were working on a project together and the conversation trailed back to the glory days of the Apollo program. (I’m a NASA brat.) Alex was one of the guys – I think the lead guy – assigned to the mechanical design of the lunar rovers. That’s a bigger deal than you might think at first glance; the rovers had to be designed and flown in less than 17 months, extremely light, and foldable in several dimensions to meet the space and weight limitations of the lunar lander.

After a year of frantic 14-hour days and multiple redesigns, Boeing had a rover that met NASA’s requirements. And Alex wanted to sign his work. He, and the two other guys who had poured heart, soul and lives into these things.

NASA doesn’t brag about this, but they are over-the-top control freaks on some things that are pure PR, not technical issues. They issued strict instructions about access to the six rovers, with an absolute “NO!!” regarding any non-spec markings.

So Alex and his friends slipped into the storage area one night with El Marko permanent markers, and signed all six rovers up inside the frames where NASA wouldn’t easily find the forbidden markings.

Some nights, when I look up at the tropical moon overhead, I think about the three rovers that are still up there. They launched from here, just across the Florida peninsula from me. I think of Alex, and I’m sad because I miss him. But I smile, because his little story in the grand epic of the space race is a picture of what we all want: to create, to sign our creation, and delight in it. Be it a fiery and awesome spectacle or a silent wonder, we love to see our creations fulfill their intended glory. They ride the heavens of our dreams.

I suppose we’re this way because we’re crafted in the image of God, the arch-Creator, the arch-signer, the arch-delighter. We’re signed by him.

Wonderful as it is to birth a new system, or product, or book, it’s sweeter still to show people the glory God placed in them, and autographed, for his own delight. “...for your own good pleasure,” as the ancient liturgical prayer puts it. And that stuff is the stuff we were designed for, in messy but beautiful fellowship (koinonia) together.
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I wanna be more like my dog

Usually, we put our dog Max in a kennel when we leave the house. He’s a 9-pound, 3-year-old little boy dog, and sometimes feels the need to water things...

We noticed a few months ago that when it came time to kennel Max, we didn’t have to go find him very often. Instead of being burrowed up under a blanket somewhere, he’d be there in the kennel, curled up catlike, looking at us. We hadn’t called him, or put water in the dish, or brought the chew bone; it was a little eerie. Sometimes we were still figuring out “Are we going somewhere or not?” and he’d trot on over there.

Somewhere along the way, by listening to our words, tones and movement patterns, he figured out that this meant it was den time. And he chose anticipatory obedience to our intentions and desires.

Perhaps I should add, he’s been spanked only about a dozen times ever, so it isn’t like we trained him fearfully. I definitely should add that he loves us, loves to snuggle up beside us. And he really isn’t obedience-trained in any way. It’s all voluntary on his part.

I started walking with Jesus about 20 years ago. At first, I listened to other men’s teachings. (Still do.) Then, I started to read the words of the Bible by my self, and with others. (Still do.) Then I started watching what it was that Jesus actually did (and is doing around me today), and the people and situations in which he did those things. I learned that God’s/Jesus’s actions and context teach me more than the words on the paper...and that we can and do worry some Greek word to death and miss the “what he did” message completely.

Max started off without any language as such. He didn’t have a bible we’d written. All he had was the sound of our voices and movements, and the sight of our body language. He learned the language that we didn’t even know we were speaking. And he chose to join with us in our comings and goings, because he loves us.

I want to:

Look more closely for movements of God around me...

Listen to his words, their tone; I want to sense his mood, not mine...

I want to experience his promise that “My sheep know my voice...” (John 10)

...so that I can sense the movement of his Spirit without him ever needing to call me or give me instructions on where to go, what to say. And MOVE in that Spirit, every day, all the time.

In other words, I want to be like Max when I grow up. :)
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