The Past and the Present (Travel part one)

I am sitting in an airport waiting to board because I am heading to Kansas City.  My entire flight will cover about 1500 miles, with a six hour start to finish total travel time.

I know this is a common occurrence.  Every day people fly all over the world and arrive thousands of miles later and within a few hours are stepping off into a different city, a different state, and sometimes a different country.  Yes, it is common, but it still baffles me and boggles this mind of mine.

I woke up this morning, got out of my own bed, drank some coffee, spent some time with my family, drove to the airport and six hours later, I have arrived here to visit my children for a few days.  And with their children.
Having said all of that, I will tell you this. 

With the ability to be in a town of 750 persons, and then travel to the airport of a city of 156,000 residents, board a plane with 170 other travelers, and arrive in my destination city of 460,000 people, I am surprised and somewhat embarrassed (with a good dosage of guilt) that we, Christians, aren’t more influential and effective to a lost and dying world.  It seems that there should be more of us, doesn’t it?

Then I think of the apostle Paul, who is not only my hero, but is at times, a thorn in my side.   As to my hero, I am struck and motivated by his passion to preach Christ.  Jesus Christ crucified and alive again.

Someone once asked the Christian singer and composer Rich Mullins (my all time favorite), who his hero was.  They were taken aback when he didn’t say Jesus.  To which Mullins replied, “He’s not my hero.  He is my Savior.”  So no disrespect at all to my Savior Jesus, Paul is my hero.

As to Paul being a thorn in my side, same reason for him being my hero.  His passion was to preach Christ, whenever, wherever, however.  I, (he shamefully says) am not that bold.  I want to be.  But I’m not.  I desire to.  But I don’t.

And I have it easy.  I can be anywhere in the world in a day.  I can come in contact with myriads of people.  I have numerous Bibles, books, songs, and devotionals at my disposal.  I can even send out mass e-mails and post something on Facebook and Twitter.  And yet…. Lame.

Which brings me to Paul.  He traveled by foot, by animal, by ship, and went all over Asia taking days, weeks, and months to get there.  And all the while preaching, teaching, sharing the hope of forgiveness of sins and eternal life through the sacrifice and resurrection of Jesus Christ.

So hated was he in one town for preaching Jesus, they stoned him with rocks and left him for dead.  What did Paul do?  Once he regained consciousness the next morning, he got up and headed back into the city to preach Jesus!

That is so not me.  I would have collected my purple heart and been on
the next donkey home.  But not Paul.  Because he was so grateful to Jesus for saving him, and so dedicated to Jesus for calling him, referring to himself as Christ’s bond-servant, and he knew his purpose in life.  To exalt Jesus.

I can’t help but think that if Paul lived on our time, he would be going everywhere he could; he would be on every social and entertaining media outlet, utilizing every type of resource that would be of value to him.  Why?  Not because he was a techno-new gadget geek, but he was unequivocally a “Jesus freak”.  To him, it was all about Jesus.

His love, his passion, his purpose was Jesus and preaching Jesus and teaching Jesus.  I think he would be admonishing us for our lack of aggression and would be encouraging us to stay true to that which has brought us to this point.  That, being Jesus Christ and the magnificent grace of God.

No doubt, you can see why I bow my head in disappointment as I, time and time again get so caught up in my own life and fail to press on for the upward call.

And if that isn’t enough to have “loser” painted on my forehead, I recall those years when Paul was on house arrest.  You know, being shackled 24/7 to a Roman guard?  And what’s my hero doing? 

He’s writing letters to churches he started, to people he brought to Christ and those he had discipled.  He would receive visitors and good old Paul would be doing the same thing he had always done.  He preached Jesus Christ, crucified and alive again.

There is no doubt in my mind that Paul was also sharing his faith with those guards who were chained to him.  And when one guard was relieved from his assignment and the next one was clamped on, I can almost hear Paul, “Permit me to introduce you to Jesus.”

I’ll bet many a guard, when the orders for the day came down, were going, “please, not him.  Not Paul.  I’ll go fight in the frontlines, but not Paul.  Anything but that.”

Me?  I can’t even make small talk.  Sitting here on a plane for the first two hour leg of my flight, it takes everything in me to acknowledge the guy sitting next to me with small talk, in order to have opportunity to share.  But I am determined.

Me:   So, you live in Denver?

Him:  No, Corvallis
(Silence)

Me:  Are you visiting Denver?

Him: No, going to Dallas.
(Silence)

Me:  Oh, I am going to Kansas City.

He nods his head and looks down.
(Awkward silence)

 

He then grabs a book and begins reading.  The title of the book that he was reading is “The Quiet”.  I think that’s a hint.

So, I look out the window of the plane and see the wonders of God’s creation, listen to a little Rich Mullins and head to my destination hoping to have another go at sharing my Savior Jesus.  Just like my hero Paul.  Just like him.  Kind of.

Stretch (Travel part two)

So, I am going to blog out of order regarding my recent trip to the Midwest, or the Great Plains states as some of them like to be called, distinguishing themselves from the rest of the middle states.

I am here waiting for my return flight from Kansas City to Denver.  I picked up my ticket and got my seating assignment.  It is an aisle seat and a few rows back from the front.  I have arrived well before takeoff and for a while, I am one of the few for this early morning flight. However, at time nears, more and more people are arriving. 

So many, that waiting seats are few, and we begin to hear these announcements.  “Folks we have a full flight this morning and almost all seats will be occupied.  We need some room for carry-on baggage.  If some of you would like to check your bag to ease the space issue it will be appreciated and at no cost (checked bags are $20 for this airline).”

I must have heard this message four or five times.  I only had a backpack that would slip under the seat and not in the compartment above, so it really did not apply to me.  As it got nearer and nearer the time to board, the counter was also calling out passenger’s names to, I assumed, find out if they had arrived and had checked in.

Until I heard my name being called.  They were asking me to come to the counter.  So, up I got, losing my coveted waiting chair and headed to the counter.  After confirming that it was me, the airline person said, “As you know, we have a very full flight with 168 passengers (uh-oh, I can almost hear what’s coming), we were wondering if it would be okay to upgrade your seat to out Stretch seating.  I has a lot more legroom and is quite comfortable.  Would that be fine?”

In my whirling mind, I am replaying this conversation with my own twists. “I know you ordered the grilled cheese, but would you mind if we switched that to our full prime rib dinner with all of the trimmings?” Um, yeah.  Do you really have to ask?

I turn in my regular ticket and the give me the new one.  Stretch seating.  In addition, I get to be one of the first ones to board.  And, suddenly the title Mr. and Sir is being thrown my way.  I find my seat “3C” and I place my backpack under the one in front of me and stretch those legs out.  I can barely touch the seat in front of me.  Now this is living. Or flying.

As the other people board, my I notice a severely distraught woman, eyes puffy from crying, and little drops of water still oozing from both eyes. I am thinking, it must have been a bad breakup.

The man behind her, her husband, kisses her and sits next to me as his teary eyed wife moves past our seating towards the rear of the plane.  As we were getting ready to taxi onto the runway and the doors of the plane are closing, he asks me if I wouldn’t mind switching seats with her as she is terrified or flying.  “She a few rows back and will be the one clutching on tightly to her sweatshirt.”  I am glad it wasn’t a breakup. It was just agonizing fear.

I said sure and asked a flight attendant if it would be all right if I switched with her as she was very frightened.  She replied, “If you want to.”  And off I go to my new seat.  Good-bye stretch seating.  Hello, tighter space.  As his wife sobs uncontrollably and thanks me profusely, I squeeze my backpack and myself into my several rows from the front aisle accommodations.

During the flight, another flight attendant came to me and said, “I heard you gave up your stretch seating for that woman.  That was so kind of you.  We want to offer you free TV for your flight or a complementary drink on us.”

I politely say no to the TV and to the drink.  One, because neither of those options sounded good to me, and two, the woman sitting next to me called me nice and generous man.  How could I profit from my gesture?  While I am grateful for being called nice and for the flight attendant to think me chivalrous, I could not accept any praises whatsoever.  For the following reasons.

First, I had been upgraded to seat 3C with the stretch seating only minutes before I boarded the airline.  Second, I got to spend seven minutes with fully extended legs.  And third, the seat that I had switched with the woman was, in fact, the original seat that I had had in the first place.

“The Lord giveth and the Lord taketh away.  Blessed be the name of the Lord.”