And on the Left Side of the Plane

Greetings from 37,000 feet above Kansas. I am enroute to Washington DC for the Fall Annual Meeting of the Counselors of Real Estate. I will be speaking tomorrow on a panel of alleged “experts” (I am highly suspect as to my own expertise, but lets just keep this a secret, ok?) on real estate issues related to military base conversion throughout the country. Impressed? I thought not. But I enjoy my work greatly, and am thankful for this opportunity. I am honored to be a part of this meeting.

Now that I have lulled you to the point of near sleep, let me share what being at this altitude tends to do for me. I find plane trips more than about 90 minutes have the effect of helping me to refocus on what is really important. Also, I find that I will often slow down my spinning mind long enough to measure where my life is headed, what I am thankful for, and how God’s care and majesty affect all these things. Am I making sense? Have you ever felt this way? Perhaps I just need to lock myself in a closet to achieve the same thing, but in the closet I would just spend my time trying to figure a way out, or perhaps a more efficient way to arrange the closet shelves and hangers.

Looking out the window from this high up tends to make one take stock. Its dark now over eastern Indiana, thousands of lives down there moving forward. How many know they are being watched over by a caring God who longs to come close?

So. Taking stock. What matters, what is important? I am greatly thankful that God has granted our family the grace and resources to be able to place my parents in a wonderful assisted living facility. I spoke with Dad just before I stepped on the plane, and he seems quite content, commenting, “This is just a new adventure for us”. Thank you, Lord.

I am thankful for perhaps the most caring, selfless, and patient woman in the world in my wife Nancy. How did we ever meet, 18 years ago – she from Toronto and me from LA? I thought I might never marry, I was 29 years old with no romance prospects. And then, God provided. Amazing.

And then, three years later, our quite-couple life was changed. I am daily amazed by my daughters Kelly (14) and Heather (11). I could not wish for two more different, unique, beautiful, fun, funny, interesting, and remarkable young ladies. They are little girls no more, but I am deeply, profoundly thankful for each day spent as a part of their lives. And we all daily receive, for this season of our lives, the blessing of sharing our home with Jill Williams, a Master’s of Divinity student at Fuller seminary. Jill adds hope, wisdom, beauty, and a deeply caring soul to our home. Yes, its true, I live with four women. Pray for me.

Beyond all this, I am thankful that my life makes Ultimate Sense; that there is a purpose and a direction to all this. I am not a random collection of molecules, assembled for a brief time to live out my small bit in nature. I am not the end result of Darwin’s theories. I am loved beyond my pathetic little comprehension, understood far greater than I am capable of understanding, and all this time down here is but a practice round for a Hereafter that is beyond my scope of reality. How I wish I had a better way of expressing this to those who find things of faith unimportant, or irrelevant, or meaningless. It is the ultimate relevance; the essence of complete meaning. Relationship with God and service to Him is the reason we are here. The peace that is afforded by Christ is, while not always foremost in my mind, the thing that keeps my life wired together.

Amazing love, how can it be, that Thou, my God, should die for me...