I am writing this article from the island of Oahu. I am staying on the west side of the island in the town of Waianae (about 30 miles west of Honolulu). Jill and I come here once a year to see our son, daughter- in-law and grandson (who just turned one, by the way).

To get to Oahu is not an easy or quick thing. To begin with, it is right at 4,000 miles, in the Pacific Ocean, a five hour time difference and seven hour flight. You basically have to plan at least half a day to get there or return back home.

I let my son book the flights for us. He travels a lot and is pretty knowledgeable of airline flights. He found us flights from Tulsa to Dallas and Dallas to Honolulu and the reverse going home. We booked about six months in advance, so we got amazing rates. He even picked the seats for us. When I was a kid, we used to fight over who got to sit next to the window. As number three of four kids, I usually lost that battle and ended up in the middle of the back seat. As we grew up (and out) I ended up in the front seat between mom and dad, so I never got the window seat or to see much more that the back of the front seat or the dash of the car.

When I was in high school, I had friends that drove and had cars. When there was a group of us as we would move to the car we would yell, “Shotgun!” because the first one to call it, got to sit in the front seat passenger side.

I say all of this because I love to look out the window and see the scenery! I love looking at the trees in bloom in the spring. The fall leaves are nothing short of gorgeous. I love looking at the farm land as the crops are being planted, grow to maturity and are harvested with the big machinery. I like looking at the old houses, barns and abandoned farms. I think the new homes are quite stunning. Dad was a powerline construction worker, so I even like looking at the powerline to see if it is a major corporation’s transmission line or local REC supplying the countryside.

So, with my affinity for seeing nature, man’s construction abilities and God’s creation, you can imagine my disappointment when we get our boarding passes and find out we had aisle and middle row seats! Well, that won’t be so bad. I can sit in the middle and look outside from a distance (kind of like being in the middle of the back seat, again). Nope, this was an early flight, and it seemed everyone sitting by a window wanted to sleep…with the covering over the window pulled down! (Did I mention this was a seven hour fight from Dallas to Honolulu?)

So for the next seven hours I got to sit in the middle of the row, with a reading light on, reading a couple of books. Not quite what I was expecting. However, about 30 minutes before landing, the prairie dogs came out of their holes, opened their window coverings and discovered the beauty of the ocean and God’s creation of the Islands below them. It is always breathtaking.

Now, not to think I am whining, all was not a total loss. I did get one book read that I needed to finish… last week, half-way through another one, a sermon started for the Sunday I get home and had a great conversation with the kid next to me (military, transferring from a base in Texas to Pearl Harbor). The trip was not a total loss. After all, half of the trip was just ocean, anyway.

My point is…I like the window seat. I want to see where we are, where we have been, and where we are going. The trip just seems more exciting this way.

A couple of weeks ago I preached a sermon on the Rapture. The getting caught up in the air with Jesus, can you just imagine it? I think I will have a window seat on that trip. And if I die before the rapture, Scripture says that to be absent in the body is to be present with the Lord (2 Cor. 5:8). Again, what a window seat that will be! Whether it is on the way to be with Jesus in the air or in heaven with Jesus, what a window seat that will be!

Now, I have to figure out what to do on the flight home, because I just saw that the seats were aisle and middle again. I do have that one book to finish and a small novel I started last month… Waitin’ for the Window Seat Bro. Tim