In Flight

I love to fly. I think it so cool to be able to drive my Jeep to the airport, park at the Parking Spot, ride a little shuttle bus to my terminal, wait a little while with the rest of the people on my flight and the get on a plane. It still amazes me that this huge creation ever gets off the ground.

Today I am on my way to San Diego.

I love looking out the window. It’s boring to sit on an aisle and miss everything we are flying over. I love looking out the window.

Flying from Texas to Southern California is such an intriguing experience to me. You leave Dallas with its flat terrain. Move out over west Texas with its brown colors. You quickly and slowly cross over into the mountains of New Mexico (the mountains start small and spread apart, then they grow and seem to join ach other right before my eyes). You then travel across the desert and after about a 2 hours and 55 minute flight, you see the Pacific Ocean. The Ocean! For a Texas boy who didn’t see the ocean until I was 18, the Ocean is a big deal. It was when I saw it the first time and it still is today.

As I fly, I like to think about all the life that is below the plane.

I look at the highways and wonder what the people in the cars are like. What are they talking about? What do they look like? Where are they going? Are they looking at my plane and thinking the same thing about me?

I look at the cities passing below and imagine what’s happening in the buildings. Most of the cities seem small from so high in the sky. Some seem large. Chicago always seems big to me. New York seems massive.

I wonder what animals are sitting in fields, climbing on rocks. When I fly over the mountains, I think about bears! I’m flying over New Mexico right now. I wonder how many bears are down there?

As I look out my window, I wonder what people are thinking right now … about … what God is doing right now. Do they know? Do they care? I wonder how we get the word out and how we can effectively do what God wants us to do with the people living life below.

I also think about the creative nature of God when I fly. Right now, there is a thin layer of clouds out my window. Each cloud is just thin enough for me to get a sneak peak at the ground below. Trees, dirt, roads and a city are below me right now. I think its El Paso. God made all of that! He formed it. He put it all together. Through His words he spoke it into existence and it’s all in His control. He is not spinning around wondering how to hold it all together … He’s in control. He is so creative! Now the clouds are thick, with a hole exposing the blue earth below.

I also think about my life when I fly. Not because I’m scared or anything, I just think about whether or not I am doing what I’m supposed to be doing and whether or not I am fulfilling my life’s mission. I want to. I mean I really want to finish the job God put me here to do. I think about my travels when I fly. I remember trips. God seems to bring back the big moments in my life. I find myself often thinking about salvation and my family when I fly.

I also wonder a lot about where I’m going. No, not where my plane is going to land, but where my life is going. Is it good???? Is my life making a difference? What is my final stopping point? When we buried my dad last summer, I remember thinking — he stopped. He is no longer doing what he did for 82 years. He stopped. I spent a long time at his grave thinking about him the day we buried him. This is random, but on flights, I think about my dad … I think about him a lot.

As I think about my life and where I am going, it makes reflect on things I don’t understand and questions come that I can’t answer.

So … there you go … thought I needed to write some of this down today as I traveled to San Diego. I’ll land in about an hour and a half. I’ve got a couple of days in meetings. I’ll be back on the plane Wednesday night. I’m sure I’ll have these same thoughts again as I return home.