20-Bow the Knee

If you could go back in time and change the outcome of just one event, what event would you change? I'm Jim Pulling, and this is my view from the middle man. I certainly hope that some of you aren't thinking geez. I like to go back and change the outcome of the twenty twenty fourth Super Bowl and make it so the forty nine ers won. What a waste that would be. I would hope it would be something significant, like warning the FBI and law enforcement about the terrorists boarding the planes on September eleventh, two thousand and one. Or maybe go back and warn the people of Honolulu about the Japanese attack that was coming on December seventh, nineteen forty one. Or maybe warn NASA not to launch the Space Shuttle Challenger on the morning of January twenty eighth, nineteen eighty six. Or maybe go grab nineteen year old Nicholas Cruz out of class at Marjorie Stoneman Douglas High School in Parkland floor before he could go shoot up the school, killing seventeen people on February fourteenth, twenty eighteen. Or maybe I'd prevent a good friend of mine from being on the road on July fifth, twenty twenty three, when she and her daughter were killed, her husband and future son in law seriously injured when a car crossed the center line and plowed directly into them. Or maybe keep an old high school buddy of mine from being on the road on February nineteenth, twenty twenty four, so he wouldn't have been killed in a traffic accident, Or any one of several dozen tragic events that happened and altered all of our lives. I'd want to change all of them, but how would that affect our current reality? Now? I'm a longtime fan of the Star Trek television franchise, and so is my wife and son. But the one thing my wife hates about some of the storylines is the time space continuum stuff. When they start into that, she moans and groans, rolls her eyes and leaves the room. But think about this, what if it really were possible to go back in time? Some say they know it hasn't happened because otherwise our current circumstances would be altered. But what if there were worse tragedies that happened than nine to eleven or Pearl Harbor or the Parkland shootings and someone has already gone back in time and fixed them. We don't see the ramifications of any of those disasters because they were undone and essentially never happened, at least in our reality. Science fiction writer Harlan Ellison wrote an episode of the original Star Trek series called The City on the Edge of Forever, where Kirk Spock and doctor McCoy travel back in time to nineteen thirties Earth. But coy had been accidentally injected with some weird drug that made him go nuts, and he wound up going through this time portal thing and changing something in the past that caused everything in the present to vanish. As the story goes, he prevented this one woman from being killed in a traffic accident instead of dying. The woman went on to convince the President of the United States to delay the US entry into World War II to pursue a peaceful alternative, but the delay gave Hitler time he needed to finish building an atomic bomb, so he wound up conquering the world. This all caused the current reality to change and everything vanished, So preventing a horrible thing from happening caused worse things to happen. Instead that were one hundred times worse than the original thing. But of course, our star Trek heroes figured out how to set things right again, and life in the twenty third century continued as they went on to explore the Final Frontier. So if I were to go back and warn the FBI about hijackers at Boston Logan Airport on nine to eleven, and the twin Towers were never destroyed, the nearly three thousand people were never killed, the plane never crashed into the Pentagon. United Airlines Flight ninety three was never hijacked and ultimately crashed near Shanksville, Pennsylvania, and airport security and procedures for traveling anywhere wouldn't have changed dramatically. What ramifications would that have had to our current timeline? Positive or maybe even extremely negative? Now, just like most of you, I was put in the middle of a lot of different things in my life, some positive, some very negative. I've talked about a good number of them during this podcast series. That's why I called it my View from the Middle. But what if the freighter some adventure realized the weather was too bad to attempt to navigate under the Sunshine Skyway Bridge across Tampa Bay on the morning of May ninth, nineteen eighty and the southbound span of the bridge was never knocked down and thirty five people were not killed as a result. What would that have meant for the future of that bridge? As a result of the disaster, a new, improved suspension bridge was built in nineteen eighty seven and the remaining span of the old Skyway demolished. But if the bridge hadn't been knocked down and the new one hadn't been built, then since it wouldn't have been necessary. What would have happened if the Shuttle Challenger hadn't exploded seventy three seconds into its flight in January of nineteen eighty six, and the first teacher in space, Krista mcculliffe, was allowed to fulfill her role during that mission. What would that have meant for the the future? Lots of things changed after that disaster, but what if they hadn't because the changes wouldn't have been necessary? Is your brain starting to hurt yet? Mine is a good friend of mine and her daughter were killed in twenty twenty three in a tragic car wreck. This shook me up beyond belief. I had people in my life die before, but never simply ripped from my life like this. Their tragedy was the tragedy of many, many people in our local community, and it forced changes that none of us saw coming before the accident. But what if I went back in time and prevented it from happening and none of those changes had happened. Here's what I believe. God has a plan for all of us. We may not understand some of it or all of it. We may shake our heads and wonder why He would allow such horrible disasters to happen. Oh, and somehow I doubt time travel is going to be an option. Sometimes were asked to rely on faith when things like this happen. There's a song we sometimes sing in church with the lyric if you don't understand the purpose of His plan, in the presence of the King, bow the knee. In another episode of this podcast series, I talk about the God things that put me in positions that made my life and my career what it was, and the fact that I didn't understand what was happening while they were happening, but eventually they became clear. I've talked before about the road that God sends us down complete with his guard rails to nudge you back on course when you veer off. I look back and realize how blessed I was that God let me down the road that he did with the guard rails in place, and put me in the middle of so many different situations, good and bad. In some cases, the purpose of his plan is made clear relatively soon, other cases not so much. I'm hoping some of those cases will come clearer when I get to those pearly gates. We can all use some clarity on the nine to eleven disaster, the Shuttle Challenger accident, the Parkland School shootings, and I could use some reasoning behind the death of my friends in twenty twenty three in twenty twenty four. But until then, or until someone develops time travel, the best we can do is simply bow the knee. I'm Jim pulling, and that's my view from the Middle. In the next episode. It's a phrase that will echo on our minds, probably forever. It signaled the end of a space mission and seven astronauts Roger Goett throttle up next on My View from the Middle,