Tag Archives: water

Six Hours Late

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What kind of business people are frequently late?

What kind of business people never let you know that they’re running late?

What kind of business people are absolutely unforgiving if you’re late?

What kind of business people never apologize for being late?

What kind of business people claim that they are “on time” if they are under 6 hours late?

Airlines, that’s who!  I’m not sure why we put up with it, but we do.  Honestly, their behavior is outrageous.

Today I am at Milan Malpensa Airport.  I was here on time for my flight, but the plane is 6 hours late.  No apology, no explanation, besides “technical problem” was given.  I was lucky enough to find one of the 3 plugs in this part of the airport.  Thus the ability to write a bit as I wait.

I have to say that I am glad not to be stuck on the plane for 6 hours.  A friend was on her plane for 5 ½ hours before the start of a transatlantic flight.  So add 7 or 8 hours to that 5 ½.  The airline can maintain a good “on time” record if they manage to take off within 6 hours of their scheduled time.  Being stuck in the airport is far better than being stuck on the plane for all that time.

Of course it’s always wise to travel with something to read, but 6 hours in an uncomfortable airline waiting room chair is still too much.  I feel especially sorry for one of my companions.  She’s a young mother with a 2 year old.  She told me that they had left the house at 5:00 this morning, and now our flight (originally scheduled for 12:50) is scheduled for 7:00 this evening.  Her little boy is cute, and a very happy child, but how do you keep a 2 year old entertained for 6 hours in an airport?  I don’t envy her at all!  Every once in a while I see him dash past me with her in pursuit.  She had asked the airline to put her on a flight to somewhere near Budapest, but they refused because it would mean putting her with another airline.

OLYMPUS DIGITAL CAMERAIf you can see a pink Z next to this notice, you might know which airline I was flying!

I had missionaries who were coming to meet me at the airport in Budapest from about an hour away.  They were going to take me to a gypsy Bible study group, but I will have to miss that.  I checked into the possibility of being compensated in some way for missing the meeting.  But that’s not happening.  I guess I’m glad it’s not actually costing me money to miss the meeting.  But I imagine that some of these people might lose money over being late.

OLYMPUS DIGITAL CAMERAYou can pass the time playing silly games with your friends.

Anyway, that’s enough griping for now.  No matter how incompetent or inconsiderate the airline is, God is always good.  Maybe I’ll go see if that young mother could use a hand keeping the boy entertained.

OLYMPUS DIGITAL CAMERAThe young mother and her little boy take a rest.

—The Next Day—

I found the young mother with tears in her eyes.  She said that she had a terrible headache, so I offered to go get her some aspirin.  However, the airport newsstand that sells all sorts of other travel aids doesn’t sell aspirin.  They told me that I would have to exit security and go to the airport pharmacy.  By this point, it was too close to our 7PM takeoff time to do that, so I got her a bottle of water instead.

She refused the water, but told me that she managed to find someone with aspirin.  And she pointed to the signboard for our gate, which now had takeoff time at 7:50.  She was planning on taking a train to her town about 2 hours away.  She wouldn’t get home until about midnight now.  I wanted to talk with my missionary friends to see if there was any way that we could help her, but the really odd thing is that she vanished into the crowd.  I never saw her again.  I looked for her on the bus on the plane, at baggage claim, but she was just not there.  I have no idea what happened to her.

Some people might be discouraged by not having been able to help the young mother, and I felt that way at first.  But there are some people who are very closed and unwilling to accept help.  I suspect that is the case with her.  She told me that she is Hungarian, but her son and his father are Italian.  She said that she is a believer.

But although she may believe, she doesn’t appear to have a personal relationship with Jesus.  She didn’t refer to the boy’s father as her husband.  Also, I think she’s probably not Hungarian, but Romanian.  Many Romanians from Transylvania (Hungarian-speaking Romania) claim to be Hungarian because of the extreme prejudice of the Italians against Romanians.  Northern Romania is about 2 hours by train from Budapest.  I also got the sense that she was running away.  Perhaps the boy’s father is abusive.  Who knows.  One possible explanation for her disappearance could be the father discovering where she was and blocking her from taking his son out of Italy.  And being abused could be a reason for refusing help—abuse victims don’t feel worthy of help.  That tends to keep the cycle repeating on them.

Whatever the reason, she disappeared, and I never saw her again.  Nevertheless, I feel a peace about her.  I did what I could for her, but there is only so much that some people will accept before the burden of kindness becomes more than they can bear.  I think you call that a guilty conscience.  I prayed for her, and will continue to pray for her.  She didn’t allow me to do much of anything for her, but God can do what I can’t—and more.  God is good!

Stop Complicating the Simple Things!

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Day Eleven

We are such silly, irrational creatures sometimes!  We complicate the simplest things.  There’s water, for example.  Ask for a drink of water, and the question comes back: “Still or bubbly?”  How about water from the tap?  Most everyone in the developed world has indoor plumbing, and no city could survive if its tap water was undrinkable.  The water sold in bottles is from a tap, for crying out loud!  And now they’re saying that refilling the plastic bottles will give you breast cancer.  If that were really so, then they wouldn’t sell it in plastic bottles to begin with.  P. T. Barnum would have loved to see the pigeons we’ve got today: “Egress!  This way!”  Suckers!

Matters of faith, like water, are really the simplest concepts that exist.  From the cross, Jesus said, “It is finished!”  Grace, from that moment, is freely given to all mankind—it’s the ultimate “Get Out of Jail Free” card.  But just as the GOJF card does you no good if you don’t pick it up and use it in the game of Monopoly; if you don’t accept the salvation and power of grace, it will do you no good in eternity.

Some people (sincere people) read the Old Testament and realize that they are Commandment-breakers (aren’t we all?) and they add the law to grace, hoping that it will help them to make real and lasting changes in their lives.  Nothing could be farther from the truth!  Adding human effort to God-given perfect grace makes grace of no effect.  Take a look at Galatians 3:16-18:

The promises were spoken to Abraham and to his seed. Scripture does not say “and to seeds,” meaning many people, but “and to your seed,” meaning one person, who is Christ. What I mean is this: The law, introduced 430 years later, does not set aside the covenant previously established by God and thus do away with the promise. For if the inheritance depends on the law, then it no longer depends on the promise; but God in His grace gave it to Abraham through a promise (emphasis mine).

This is that famous chapter that begins: “You foolish Galatians!  Who has bewitched you?”  The Galatian church is the only church that Paul did not give a friendly greeting.  He warmly greeted the Corinthian church, and they had issues of incest and drunkenness during Communion.

Mixing law and grace is the reason why Paul confronted Peter for refusing to continue eating with the gentiles when some prominent Jewish believers arrived (well, that and hypocrisy – Galatians 2:11-13).

Some church leaders worry about people using grace as a license to sin.  Actually just the opposite is true.  The person who genuinely loves God and is filled with the Holy Spirit, following Jesus may sin from time to time, but the desire to continue in a lifestyle of sin melts away.  John explains how this works in the short book of I John.  Will some use grace as a license to sin?  Of course, but those people clearly don’t know God—and they never did or they wouldn’t continue in a lifestyle of sin.  Don’t throw out grace just because some people understand it all wrong.

We’ve got to quit complicating the simple things of God.  You can have grace, in which all your sins—past, present, and future—are forgiven forever by the finished work of Jesus on the cross.  Or you can have the law.  But remember that if you choose the law, you’re saying that you are capable of keeping the whole law.  It’s tantamount to saying to Jesus: “No thanks!  I’ll get myself into heaven.”  (Psst!  Here’s a hint:  you can’t!)

Grace is amazing!  And God is good!

Lessons in Floating

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Last Year – When I was here at the beautiful Adriatic Sea last year, the Holy Spirit told me to go for a swim.  I loved the beach when I was a kid—what kid doesn’t?  But as an adult, I had come to associate the sea with many discomforts: the itchy feeling of salt water dried on the skin, oily sunscreen crusted with sand, fair skin that burns despite the use of sunscreen SPF 45, the sand that gets into places it shouldn’t, and a body that’s white and lumpy and looks better clothed than in a swimsuit—intense body shame.  So it was with all that beach-hating baggage that the Holy Spirit told me to take a swim.

Despite my bags and baggage, I did take a swim.  Leaving my glasses on top of my towel, I walked toward the water.  I saw something washed up on the beach that looked like a dead jellyfish.  I’ve been stung by jellyfish.  It’s like being stung by an electric wasp—definitely an experience I don’t want to ever have again.  But instead of turning back, I just laughed.  If God wants me to swim, then He has a purpose.  “Besides,” I told myself, “it was probably just a plastic bag from somebody’s beach lunch.”

I had decided that my act of obedience meant that I should get completely wet.  So I got about waist-deep, then dove into the waves.  After paddling around for a few minutes, I thought that I was finished.  But the Holy Spirit told me: “Lay back.”  I did, and discovered something wonderful: I float like a cork!  I am so buoyant that I can even float with my head above the water, toes above the water, and bottom down.  But laying back with my ears under the water was incredibly peaceful, and little by little I felt my limbs release their muscular tension.

I took that first swim fully clothed because I didn’t have my swimsuit with me.  I understood that swimming would be something I should do every day while I was here, so I knew I needed to buy a swimsuit.  The only thing I’ve hated more than the beach is buying a swimsuit.  The last one I bought online, and it covered so much of me that it was almost a throwback to the old swimsuits they used in the early 1900’s.  I knew that if I thought too much about it, I would talk myself out of buying one, so I just plunged into a swim shop and bought one.  It’s not bad looking.

A few days after that first swim the wind kicked up, bringing bigger waves.  Thanks to a breakwater, the big waves are tamed into choppy little wavelets before they reach the swimming area by the beach.  During my floating session that day, God (who had never repeated Himself to me before) told me: “Relax!  Relax!  Relax!”  And the little wavelets shook each limb with a different rhythm and out of synch with one another.  It reminded me of a Lamaze exercise in which your coach takes an arm and your teacher takes the opposite leg and they shake them in differing rhythms.  You are supposed to practice releasing the tension in those muscles and all the others in between.  And that memory tickled me so much that I laughed out loud—and a more profound relaxation followed.  God has the greatest sense of humor!

The lesson in physically relaxing taught me to relax when I’m worried about things going wrong.  Without going into detail (which you can read about in my book “Look, Listen, Love,” available from http://www.lulu.com/), I learned that I can relax and let God work out the things that I have no control over.  And when I do really relax and release those worries, God not only works things out, but blesses me in unexpected ways.  And one of those things, you can read about in my blog post: https://europeanfaithmissions.wordpress.com/2012/06/17/god-meets-radical-faith-with-radical-provision/.

This Year – I have returned to the beach, bringing two very dear friends with me.  The three of us have gone to the beach each day, floating and swimming, talking and laughing, praying and praising our Heavenly Father.

A lesson that God has been teaching me recently is to let go of the past—particularly past offenses and betrayals, but also past mistakes or bad choices that I need to forgive myself.  I have been working on it, releasing those people and things to God, forgiving and letting them go.  But every once in a while, the memory of these things comes to mind, robbing me of my focus and trying to rob my peace.  Whenever this happens, I try to release the memory as quickly as possible.

While floating yesterday, the Holy Spirit told me that, just as I had learned to relax my worries into God’s hands, I also need to relax my memories into His hands.  And lying there on the bosom of the sea, I did exactly that.

This morning during my prayer time, once again I found my attention wandering to a painful event.  Immediately, I said, “Let it go!  Let it go!  Let it go!” and I released the memory and returned my focus to God, my Peace.

When it comes to relaxing my grip on those memories, would it be wrong to say that I’m working on it?  I’m grateful that God is a patient Teacher.  God is good!