Many years ago when I was in Respiratory Therapy school we were studying the interpretation of pulmonary functions testing (PFT's). This was one of the critical topics for the class and failure to pass this module meant failing the program. One student was struggling to understand the concepts that had been presented in class and could not successfully interpret PFT's. The instructors had spent many hours with him one-on-one and he still just did not understand it. As we approached the deadline for the exam that would make or break his career one of the instructors approached me and said, "Jon, you understand PFT's very well and can interpret them correctly consistently, would you spend some time with Sean and maybe he will be able to understand your perspective better than he is understanding ours." Sean and I spent one entire clinical day just working with and interpreting PFT's and by the time the day was over he was interpreting them successfully every time. This was not an issue of the instructors not knowing what they were talking about (teachers, you know what I'm talking about here!) It was an issue that Sean wasn't able to understand it from their perspective, but seeing it from a different view point made all the difference in the world.
 
When Jesus tells us in Matthew 6:9 that Our Father is in heaven, what is He trying to communicate to us? What is the significance of our father being in heaven rather than here on earth? How does our father being in heaven change the perspective of His interactions with us? How does it change our interactions with Him? What connection is there between this statement and Jesus' statement in John 18:36 that His kingdom "is not of this world"?
 

A number of years ago as I was attempting to understand God's methodology and His timing I came to the realization that from my perspective God is always a day late and a dollar short, but from His perspective He is right on time with just enough. My challenge is to stop seeing it from my perspective and start seeing it from His! These past few weeks as Lisa and I have been preparing for and implementing our move from Texas to Tennessee it has been essential for us to NOT view this move from our perspective but from God's.

50 years ago this evening I was impatiently waiting for the new day to arrive. I had spent several weeks visiting my grandparents in Loma Linda, California and on July 4 we were going to Disneyland! It wasn't actually my grandparents who were taking me (although they went along) it was my uncle Ken and Aunt Ruthie and it was a reward for helping Aunt Ruthie with her daycare (it was called baby sitting back then!) while she took her children, Heidi Ranalla and Adam Turk to swimming lessons. I still don't know what possessed us to think that it was a good idea but on July 4, 1976 we went to Disneyland!

In the movie Star Trek IV: The Voyage Home Chekov and Uhura have beamed into the reactor room on the aircraft carrier Enterprise to harvest radiation from the nuclear reactors. Due to failing power on the Klingon starship Scotty must beam them back one at a time. At 1:14:27 into the movie as the guards on the Enterprise are closing in Chekov makes an effort to contact Scotty to be beamed out of the reactor room making a desperate plea "Scotty, now would be a good time!" How often when things aren't going the way we think they should do we ask God to resolve the issue in the way that we think would be best. Like Chekov we declare "Now would be a good time!" for God to solve our problems.

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