God of a Second Chance

I love travel.

Love new places.

Love new people.

Love new things.

And I especially love black history travel.

All this and more was packed into a recent trip I took to Missouri. It was a weeklong assignment on Missouri’s forgotten black history. I couldn’t wait to get going. We – myself, and several other journalists - were to start in Kansas City and travel across the state seeing sights and hearing history before wrapping things up in St. Louis.

That meant fine hotels.

That meant fine food.

That meant hospitality untold – Plus I was getting paid to write about it.

I was more than excited and ready to go. Well, things didn’t go as planned. There were some snafus.

First, we had snow and ice in Kentucky so I couldn’t fly out when I needed to. (That’s another Monday Morning Inspiration I’ll share later.) Then I ended up waking the next day at 3 a.m. to make a 6 a.m. flight. I got into Kansas City, and forgot to exchange my boots for sneakers before joining the others on the tour. ( I suffered greatly for this mistake.) Then, I was hustled onto a 15-passenger van with 12 adults on it. We drove for hours on end, and everybody was miserable.

Miserable, I tell you.

People complained.

Folks got sick.

And we all wished we were anywhere else but on a van driving through Missouri at the dead of night. For me, it became a 19-hour day and I was one of the chief complainers. I balked. I belittled. I brought accusations. And, I pretty much blasted the tour guide every chance I got for putting things together so poorly.

It was horrible.

But, things calmed down about dinnertime. We went to this quaint, really expensive place for dinner and everyone began to relax and unwind. Over dinner I heard a couple talking. They were Jehovah’s Witnesses, and very bold in their faith.

Later that night, we reached the hotel.

Tired, feet swollen and just irritated, I prayed.

In particular I prayed about the Jehovah Witness couple. I asked God why he gave them a chance to witness and not me. His answer was simple.

“You’ve been witnessing all day,” I heard in my spirit.

And I was crushed.

I’d complained.

I’d belittled.

I’d grumbled.

I’d gossiped.

And that had been my witness all day long.

The Bible says the world will know us by our love. I showed them nothing: I didn’t encourage. I didn’t uplift. I didn’t help. I didn’t even pray.

I was part of the problem – if not the major problem.

Folks, Christians without real witness to who Christ is – how he lives, how he loves, how he saves – are problems. We’re causing the downfall of an already depraved world. If they see no difference in us during crisis and calamity, how will they ever see Christ?

Well, I was thoroughly convicted that night.

I asked God to help me restore my witness and His Image on the following day. At first, I was caught up thinking, “You never get a second chance to make a first impression.” Well, perhaps I couldn’t make a first impression – but I knew I could leave an impression. Arriving on the van, everybody’s attention fell on me.

“You feeling better?”

“Get any rest?”

“How are your feet?”

“You OK?”

“Yes,” I told them, and then I apologized for the day before. I told them things had been bad enough without all my complaining, and that today, I would let my attitude determine the atmosphere. This day, I said, It wouldn’t be the other way around – no matter how bad things got.

At first folks were like, “You didn’t complain that much.”

And, “But you were on your feet all day and you woke at 3 a.m. – you had a right to be grumpy.”
But I didn’t receive any of it. I, again, restated my intentions to let my attitude set the atmosphere. And that’s just what I did.

Things went pretty long and wrong this day as well, but we got through.

This time we laughed at the mistakes. We joked about it. We slept. Or we just talked about other things. And the trip – the van ride in particular – was as enjoyable as possible. The next day, a lady came up to me and said, “I told my husband about you.”

“Huh?” I said.

“I told him how you prayed and let your attitude set the atmosphere on the van,” she said. “He said we should all learn a lesson from you.”

Wow: He is the God of a second chance.

Know that I love you each, L.

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