When people around the world hear the term "L.A.," many scenarios immediately come to mind. What comes to the forefront of your thoughts? How about Hollywood, riots, "O.J.," mudslides, hillside fires, smog, earthquakes, televised car chases, Beverly Hills and massive traffic jams? It may come as a shock to you, but most of us who live in the environs of Los Angeles are not sliding into the ocean via a mudslide or wearing gas masks to protect us from the smog.

Life here can actually be pretty good and very ordinary. My family lives in the town of Monrovia in a tiny enclave called "Mayflower Village." It's the kind of place where not everyone looks alike, but everyone truly gets along. The residents don't necessarily have a lot of money, but everyone knows each other's kids, waters one another's lawns when the neighbors are away, takes great pride in "keeping up" his or her property's appearance, and all come out of their homes when the flag passes by and literally march together down the street on the Fourth of July. Our town's main street is often used in Hollywood films to capture the essence of "small town U.S.A." Our neighborhood is probably a lot like yours.

Over the years, my wife and I have seen a lot of life pass by through the frame of our front window. Yes, those Fourth of July neighborhood parades I mentioned, our three girls growing up under the shade of our maple trees, friends and family coming and going, summer swimming pool splashes, first bike rides, the occasional stray pet that ultimately became ours, the falling of autumn leaves, the postman coming up the driveway with the surprise package. You know all those kinds of "neat" lifetime adventures that come to us a little bit each day just outside our windows. Yes, life can be pretty good, even here in "L.A." But one more snapshot of life occurred just outside my window, which expanded my horizons. No, I didn't ask for it, but as the old saying goes, "life is what's happening that you haven't planned for." It was big news to us that night, even though it didn't make any headlines and never will. It's a snapshot I would like to share with you. Look out my window with me for a moment.

"What's that?"

I'm sure that at one time or another, all of us have been startled by an unexpected sound in the middle of the night. Normally, you hope it's just the cat knocking over an item on a table or the natural give and take of the house "squeaking" in the night. But no cats this night!

A loud speaker blaring outside our home awakened my wife and me from a deep sleep at 3:15 a.m. Susan, my wife, peeked out the blinds of our bedroom to get a sense of what was happening. She excitedly stated, "There's a police car right in front of our place!" We both got up out of bed and moved slowly but surely through the darkness towards our living room window. Susan whispered, "There's someone in the car right by our driveway."

Suddenly a police officer's authoritative voice, magnified by his vehicle's microphone, punctuated the still summer's night air with, "Person in the car, get out now." Even before his voice faded away, three more squad cars pulled up. Their lights bathed the darkened car in front of them. The voice boomed again, and my wife said, "Get down! Who knows what's going to happen?" Nothing happened, but it seemed as if time had come to a grinding halt. Slowly, the officers got out with drawn guns and waited. Finally the darkened car's door opened, and a tall young man got out.

Immediately, the officer's voice began to gently but authoritatively command the man to come to the side "with your hands up, step to the right, now back up, now kneel down, now lay down, now hands behind your back." As suddenly as we had been stirred out of a deep sleep, the scary part of this episode was over. The police gathered around the young man, handcuffed him, led him to the car, and gave him the traditional "duck the head down and into the car routine." Then they methodically searched every part of his car. I was quite impressed with the conduct and quiet demeanor of the police under the pressure of another graveyard-shift incident.

No "Rodney King incident" here. You can turn off your video cameras.

Nonetheless, a very real and different kind of picture, just outside my window, had been crystallized in my mind forever. A new and different snapshot of life other than the kids playing and the maple leaves falling and the morning light dancing across the window was now lodged in the scrapbook of my mind. Like Dorothy said to her dog in the film classic The Wizard of Oz, "Toto, I don't think we are in Kansas anymore." Our little protected part of "village life" in L.A. had been changed that night by someone making a wrong turn in life and ending up on our block just outside our window. We all tend to think that "things like this" happen elsewhere, but the fact of the matter is they can happen anywhere at anytime. In a sense, "elsewhere" had been brought to my home right where our morning newspaper would land in a couple of hours.

Everybody's son

The next morning, my wife and I reviewed the event of the night before. We deliberated over what the young man had possibly done. Was he a car thief? Was he doing drugs?

Was he perhaps despondent and possibly seeking to gain some kind of attention? Was he a good kid that had simply done something dumb? If that were the case, once those guns were aimed right on him, he must have been "scared spit-less." My wife and I mused on how quickly one's life decisions can alter the scorecard. Susan mentioned to me that he was in a sense "everybody's son." I replied, "That's an interesting thought. Somebody's son? That makes it personal." Susan corrected my notion of her comment. "No," she said, "He is everybody's son. That could have been one of our children out there." A woman's sensitivity claimed the moment and the young man for her own even though we have never met him and most likely never will.

There he sits, alone in the darkened car, perhaps musing in his mind, "What have I done now? If only I had listened to Mom and Dad! The guys didn't say this was going to happen. What's that policeman doing now, and what's that in his hand?"

The Bible is full of stories of "everybody's sons and daughters." It's full of people that had every opportunity laid before them, only to self-destruct by some wrong turn in life that led them down that proverbial darkened road.

Cain, Canaan, Joseph's brethren, Lot's wife, Absalom, Ananias and Sapphira-each has a story. Each made choices and decisions which not only altered his or her life, but also impacted many family members and friends around them.

People are not alone in their "wrong-headedness." There's no private reserve for doing something dumb. World News and Prophecy often speaks of nations and peoples, past and present, that have taken wrong turns. These wrong turns have at times destroyed other nations around them and stymied what "might have been" in human history. Tragic decisions made by kings, presidents, premiers and generals have taken much of humanity along for the ride, often against their will.

In a figurative and greater sense, God is looking through His window at this neighborhood called earth. He sees everything that is going on. It troubles Him. It always has. Unlike my wife and I, God doesn't sleep. He sees everything going on. He doesn't miss a thing. In fact, He knows what the outcome of all this will be.

Long ago, when the Tower of Babel was being thrust skyward, God took note of everything going on before Him. Genesis 11:5-6 tells us, "But the LORD came down to see the city and the tower which the sons of men had built. And the LORD said, 'Indeed the people are one and they all have one language, and this is what they begin to do; now nothing that they propose to do will be withheld from them." God saw everything as it played out right before Him.

Later on, God clearly stated how He had seen the crime the ancient Egyptians perpetrated against His people of promise. Exodus 3:7 bears out this thought when stating, "And the LORD said, I have surely seen the oppression of My people who are in Egypt, and have heard their cry because of their taskmasters, for I know their sorrows." God has seen and heard it all. I cannot imagine what it must be like for Him. Here my wife and I capture but one upsetting glimpse of a life possibly gone wrong for the moment through the window of our home, whereas God witnesses every plight of His children made in His image for 6,000 years of human history. God is a realist, not an idealist. He knows His government must be restored to this earth, and soon.

Another long night

Long ago, there was another long night for another lost young man who eventually had the spotlight turned on him as he was caught right in the act. He also was "everybody's son." He also never envisioned where and how he would end up that night. It was always supposed to happen to somebody else. Christ tried to warn him, but it was to no avail.

In Luke 22:31, Christ told Peter, "Satan has asked for you, that he may sift you as wheat." Further down in verse 33, Peter let Christ know, 'Lord, I am ready to go with You, both to prison and to death." Christ let him know what would transpire that very night in verse 34, "I tell you, Peter, the rooster shall not crow this day before you deny three times that you know Me." Christ was already "at the window" watching the whole scene unfold.

In the verses that follow in Luke 22:55-60, we find Peter denying Christ, denying he knew his fellow disciples and denying his heritage and background as a Galilean. All three denials were Peter's attempt to flee from the reality of his association with the good things Christ had brought into His life from that initial encounter by the Sea of Galilee. No, there were no sirens or search lights at the scene of this crime, but there were two powerful reminders of what he had just done to himself.

Luke tells us in verse 60 that the rooster crowed then and there as Peter's life came to a grinding halt. And then verse 61 brings the story home by telling us that Peter's attention was arrested by the gaze of Christ, Himself, as He turned and looked at Peter in the courtyard. No spotlight could have been brighter or more revealing of its intended subject. Peter's life had come to a standstill. It says he went out and wept bitterly.

What a night!

Never say, "Never"

We have all heard the famous maxim, "Never say, 'Never.'" It floats around in our common jargon of collective human wisdom. But we all do. Occasionally it comes home to roost. When it does, grab it and learn from it. I've come to learn more than ever that just outside my window, terrible things can happen. Beyond that, I've had instilled in me that "everybody's son" is but a bad moment away from possible disaster due to reckless or despondent actions on his part. In fact, let's take it a step further. But for God's grace in our lives, "everybody's son" is actually everybody, meaning you and me. We have all been curbside outside God's window. Perhaps we just forget that sometimes.

The difference between God and us is that He sees beyond the window and the moment and reveals the future to us. The pages of World News and Prophecy are dedicated not only to showing you what's going on in your global neighborhood, but also what God has in store for humanity. What makes God, God, is that He is not trapped by the moment at the window like you and I, but also has the ability and the desire to open incredibly wide doors of opportunity. That's the biggest headline and future news event we can share with you.

Perhaps the words of the prophet in Jeremiah 29:11-14 best capture the spirit of "This is the Way" by reminding us and revealing to those who yet need to know: "For I know the thoughts that I think toward you, says the LORD, thoughts of peace and not of evil, to give you a future and a hope. Then you will call upon Me and go and pray to Me, and I will listen to you. And you will seek Me and find Me, with all your heart. I will be found by you, says the LORD, and I will bring you back from your captivity."

Oh, to have a fresh start! To be "given a future" when you've messed up, big time! Peter did. The young man by my driveway can. The nations of the world can, and so can you. Take another look just outside your window. A new day is coming.