On November 12, 1894, Lawrence Hargrave looked toward the Pacific Ocean past Stanwell Park Beach in New South Wales, Australia, and gauged the weather.

A handsome, slightly built man in his mid-forties, Hargrave had spent much of the past few years researching how birds flew and tinkering with inventions. Among other things, he invented the box kite, designed a series of curved aerofoils, and created a rotary engine so far ahead of its time that ten years passed before anyone did anything with it. He never patented any of his inventions, arguing that science worked best when everyone shared.

On this day, Hargrave linked four of his huge box kites together and sat on a specially designed seat — and became the first man to fly! His kites lifted him sixteen feet off the ground, but a length of piano wire kept him tethered to earth.

From that humble beginning, humanity has developed planes and rocket ships. And yet — regardless of where we fly, we must always return to where we came from. As today’s verse reminds us: everything in the world belongs to God.

No matter how far we go, we are never out of His sight or out of His care.