We have had some traveling woes. Nothing major, but some professional minors. Our hotel “right next to the airport” was 45 minutes away, decreasing our potential 6 hours of sleep to 4. The hotel had bedbugs. We think. Getting our tickets in Delhi took a long time, so we had to run to the plane during final boarding. Then we sat on the runway for over an hour. Then we flew to Kathmandu but didn’t land there, re-routed to Lucknow, fueled up there, sat for another hour, then finally landed in Kathmandu, missing our connecting flight to Simra by well over an hour. We were so late to Kathmandu that we missed our contact with our plane tickets to Simra. After a few hours we finally had tickets and flew to Simra. Getting off the plane and seeing Albert was such a relief and joy. We drove about 90 minutes to the border and waited for immigration. Traffick was thick and eventually came to a standstill. Our driver said in 15 years he had never seen traffic so bad. We had to abandon the cars and make it to the immigration office by foot. The officer eventually showed up and demanded a bribe for coming out so late. We obliged and crossed the border. Then we went to immigration in India and then came to the building where we are staying. The shower and good night of sleep was amazing and refreshing.
I’ve been pondering 1 Cor. 10:31 today, which says that we should do everything to the glory of God. Everything. Even eating and drinking. What about traveling? How do we bring God glory when we have to run to catch our flight only to have it sit on the runway for over an hour and are tired and we miss our next flight and the baby on the plane won’t stop crying… How do we travel like this to the glory of God? Perhaps it is by having extra grace. Being patient. Smiling at Mr. Grumpy Pants. Being gracious and understanding. Showing love. I think and hope those things have been more evident in our team than the opposite. It has been humbling and a reminder that we are not in control.
We need to work out these logistics for sure, but we acknowledge that more than order or control, we need God and His Spirit.
One thought on “Traveling to the Glory of God”
Yeah – we had the same experience w our hotel in Delhi: It was supposed to be “in the airport”, and it was a half hour drive to a slum. We went to our room and took a “shower” with a bucket of water that they had in the bathroom. After being there a half hour, we felt unsafe, so we asked them to take us back to the airport. They charged us full price for the room. We spent the rest of the night at the airport waiting for our next 7am flight under machine gun guard, which all of the sudden was quite welcome. I’m with you in Spirit!