Notes from meeting

In meeting this morning, I gave an illustration based upon an heretofore unmentioned detail of the story found in the previous post. For the reader's edification, I offer it here as well.

While at the Atlanta airport and in the wheelchair and feeling nothing short of miserable, it occured to me mighty quick that I needed to think about something else. You know how when you think about how you're feeling nausous and uncomfortable and surrounded by hundreds of people who do not want to see you get sick, and that's all you can think about, it doesn't help any. Yeah. But I was too zoned out to ponder any complex economic theses or anything else and the only thing I could think of was a hymn. I couldn't even remember any of the verses, just the chorus. So I sat there, going over it again and again, and it really helped.

(I imagine that any passersby who happened to glance upon this pathetic man curled up in a wheelchair, covered with a blanket, sometimes obviously shivering, with his head in his hand and his lips moving in some inaudible, one-sided conversation, that they hoped they wouldn't have to sit next to that on the plane.)

The chorus was, "Oh, how I love Jesus, Oh, how I love Jesus, Oh, how I love Jesus, because He first loved me." I went over it too many times to remember. It didn't make me feel better, but it helped me make it home.

And the point of the story is this:

• We are all in an "airport."
• We are all waiting for our turn to fly home. Some get to fly soon, but others have to wait in the airport for a long time.
• We have an "illness." We know its nothing more than our love for Jesus, but that doesn't make us any less strange in the eyes of the other travelers.
• Sometimes, we get tired of waiting in the airport. We don't want to be there. We're tired of all the people around us. We just want to go home.

So it is at times like this, when we're tired of the airport, when we're tired of waiting, and when we're tired of the other travelers who just don't "get it", what an effective remedy it is to just close your eyes and sing, "Oh, how I love Jesus...Oh, how I love Jesus." It might not make you feel better, but it will help you make it home.