Anticipate hardship. That’s what Pastor Nate told us Sunday, preaching from 2 Timothy 4. If you want to keep your head in stressful times, if you want to walk in faithful obedience, anticipate hardship. It’s bound to come. And if you didn’t believe before this year that hardship likes to lurk around the corner, waiting to take you by surprise, you probably do now. It’s 2020 after all. One giant, surprising hardship after another.
I shouldn’t have been taken aback, then, when I encountered trouble at the airport ticket counter in Birmingham. “That’ll be $200 dollars,” I heard the agent say. She was behind a screen. And wearing a mask. I asked her to repeat herself. I know I didn’t hear her say what I thought I heard say. “$200,” she repeated.
I used a credit from a COVID-canceled trip to book this flight a few weeks ago. I paid my $75 change fee and American owed me money. Not much, but enough for a cheap snack at the airport, and by cheap snack I mean a bottle of water or a pack of gum. Nothing is cheap at the airport.
American even sent me my new itinerary. And now they want more? Of course they do. On further investigation, my trip was never “processed,” which makes perfect sense because airlines always hold seats for sold out flights hoping we’ll show up to pay. The $200 was the difference in the price of the ticket between the time I booked it and the price today.
“Do you take American Express?” I asked. I wasn’t going home at that point.
If I’m flying, I begin to relax once I get through security, and not until then. Not after work the day before. Not when laying my head down to sleep the night before departure. Not on the drive out of town. When I get through security, then things are out my hands. Then I can relax. Not today, though, not today. I had to be about the business of recouping my $200. I was angry.
Jesus warned us not to worry about tomorrow because each day has enough trouble of its own (Matthew 6). You’ve sure got that right, Jesus, and I’m still smarting about that episode this morning. Nonetheless, I can’t help but think Jesus might say the same thing about the past. Willie Nelson sure did, crooning, “And I know just what I’d change if went back in time somehow, But there’s nothing I can do about it now.” In other words, we have no more control over the past than we do the future. We only have the moment we’re in.
Jesus’ remarks in Matthew are about the stresses of the everyday but the New Testament is also chock full of references to a brighter future that we can look forward to with great anticipation. To take Paul out of context, “But one thing I do: Forgetting what is behind and reaching forward to what is ahead, I pursue as my goal…” (Philippians 3:13-14). So I got past it by reaching forward, anticipating my destination. I’m forgetting the past. I’m living in the present. Now my thoughts are in Maine and so I’ll let the thing about the $200 go. At least until the enemy rears his head. And I get my credit card bill.
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