Pastor's Corner

Surprise! Things do not always happen the way you plan. This truth came home to me once again Wednesday morning (30 April). I was blissfully ignorant of my surroundings, enjoying the pleasant dream world of sleep, when the phone rang. “Oh no.” I thought. “I must have slept in.” I glanced at the clock as I hurried across the room for the telephone. It was 5:26 AM. I guess I had not slept in too late today. There was still time to get up and enjoy the day.

But things quickly became a bit more complicated as I spoke to the person on the other end of the line. She was an old friend of ours from Korea. We were going to have company soon—if I could get to the airport and pick up this other friend of mine. The caller was serving as a link between the traveler and potential rest in Chicago. But which airport would he be coming to? “The domestic terminal,” replied the caller. “But we have two airports that receive domestic flights. . .” In the end, we discovered that the other person would be arriving in a couple of hours. There was some kind of problem with his ticket. He might be able to continue his flight to Korea today, or he might have to stay in Chicago one night.

Wow! That would be wonderful. We might have the opportunity to see an old friend that we had not seen for nearly five years. We had worked closely together in Korea when I was the Academic Dean of SDA Language Institute. The man who followed me in that post had resigned suddenly, due to medical complications.

And now my old friend, Pastor Hong, was serving as the new Academic Dean. Now I was wide awake. This was a rare opportunity. And he was practically at my door step. Maybe he could stay with us for the night (as long as he didn’t mind cold water—our water heater was needing a replacement part).

But he was using a Korean cellular phone. There was some kind of trouble, so he could not use his phone to make calls in the US. He could, however, receive calls from the US. Well that was no problem. We still had one of those great phone cards that would bring our international calls to a few cents a minute (rather than the few dollars per minute that we would have to pay since we have no international calling plan at the moment). I found the dial-up information and placed the call. Actually, I tried to place the call. But the phone card did not work. A message said that it had expired.

To make a long story short, I was able to buy another cheap phone card on the internet, and place a call to this old friend. But by that time, he was already on his plane. I would have to wait until he arrived in Chicago to confirm anything.

Life is often like this. Not every detail can be planned long in advance. Sometimes, we have to make sudden adjustments. Sometimes we face difficulties. Sometimes there are barriers to our immediate goals. But if something is truly important, we will push past the difficulties to do what needs to be done. In the end, my friend had to fly to Seoul, Korea by 1:00 PM. We could only have about one hour with him at O’Hare Airport. But it was well worth the effort. Our lives have become knit together. Though we live far apart and have limited contact, we share common goals, interests, and ministries.

And then I realized this is often how it is between God and us. There are so many barriers that try to keep us from spending special time with Him. Though we do not need telephones or airplanes to contact Him, too often, our contact is limited. I need to be willing to put energy into keeping these appointments with the Creator of the Universe. He has time for me. Do I have time for Him?

By Pastor Glenn