Being a Pastor is fun. Sometimes it can be a little stress ful and there are some times it is hard ( funerals), but ove r a l l I love it. It has some perks, too. One of them is a flexible schedule. For instance, Tuesday morning I got a phone call from a friend asking me if I wanted to go flying Wednesday morning. We had a visitor a couple weeks ago who has an airplane and wanted my friend to go but he couldn’t. So, would I want to go? Well, does a camel drink water? You bet!!

So at 7 a.m. I met David and we went to the airport. He did the preflight check and in about 30 minutes we were ready to go. The plane taxied out of the hangar to the end of the runway. Final flight check made. Hang on, and here we go! In a matter of 30 seconds the plane leaves the ground, and we are flying through the air.

Flying has been a love of mine since I was a child. My first in the air experience was riding in a helicopter.

I flew commercially a few times but when I was living in Kansas City I had the joy of flying in a Red Baron Pizza bi-wing, open cockpit plane. Since then I have been hooked. I love the initial thrust of the engines pushing you back in the seat at take off, and the lunge forward at landing as the engines hit reverse. But the best part of flying has to be the part of gliding through the air on a seemingly pillow of air.

Today’s flight was a short trip from Sallisaw up to Cookson, touring over Lake Tenkiller and then around Gore. I saw the lake from a completely different perspective. The houses around the lake look beautiful on the ground but even more beautiful from the air. David flew over my house in Gore and then around the church. In the flight path of these places I saw the ball field next to the church, the hardware store and other local businesses. It all takes on a different per-spective 2,000 feet up in the air.

I looked down and saw cars driving on the highways, fishermen on the lake, other people working outdoors in various areas and communities that were just waking up to a new day. I looked out the window and saw the horizon and an endless sky. The air was so clean and clear. Visibility was ten miles (I looked it up before we left). As I looked I saw trees, birds, cows and horses, houses, rivers and roads. I saw all this and wondered if any of them saw me. Did anyone know we were up in the sky innocently flying around? I could look down on a seemingly 3-dimensional world. On the ground I can see linear (front, back, left, right and up). In the sky I can see up and down, left and right and front and back.

As I was looking around, I almost caught myself looking for angels and God. I felt like I was in the Heavens with the Heavenly Hosts. For a few moments I had left the world I live in. The world of busyness, violence, demands, hate, and evil. It was just so peaceful…quiet and less complicated. Made me think…

Is this what God sees when He looks down? Does it seem innocent to Him as it did to me? (I know the answer is no) But for those minutes up in the air I knew I was outside of my environment and somewhere special. Quite truefully, I could have stayed up there much longer.

But I had to come back to reality. After all, I had an article to write!

Being up in the clouds (so to speak) reminded me that Jesus said He was leaving to go to His Father “to prepare a place for us…” Paul tells us that when Jesus comes back the sky will split, graves will open, and we who remain will be caught up with Him “in the air.” Flying around in the sky made me a little homesick for Heaven someday.

This week is the Passion Week of Christ. Friday is Good Friday and the day of the crucifixion and burial of Jesus. It is also the beginning of His fulfillment as our Savior. Soon He would ascend to the Father and begin preparing a day we will be with Him for eternity.

Happy Easter Bro. Tim