Psalm 94:19 "When anxiety was great within me, your consolation brought joy to my soul."
Busy. It's the story of my life. It's the life story of probably most of the people reading this. I often find myself so busy I can't prioritize things. I find myself juggling the urgency of the immediate with putting out fires here and there, never with enough hours in the day to do everything I really need to do. Lack of planning? Maybe. Overcommitted? Probably. Stressed beyond words? Definitely.
Somehow over the last few weeks, I made a serious miscalculation of priorities. I never found the time or energy to make my hotel reservations for Wednesday evening near the airport in Dallas. You see, my flight was leaving early Thursday morning, and although I don't live that far from the airport, my colleague I was traveling with lives quite a bit further away. The flight was to leave at 5:45 Thursday morning, so we really needed to have a hotel closer to the airport.
The plan was simple. Get off work at 5:00 PM. Pack for the upcoming trip to Baltimore. Make a quick hotel reservation, eat dinner, and leave by 6:30 Wednesday evening for worship team practice. My friend was going to meet me at church after practice, and off we'd go to the airport hotel. Good plan, right? Sure, in a perfect world, it was. Unfortunately, I miscalculated quite a few things. I got off work around 5:30 PM, leaving plenty of things still to do. I then went to book the hotel. Anytime I've had to get a hotel near the airport, I've always stayed at the Hyatt, right at DFW airport. They always have good travel agent rates, and it's the obvious choice.
"I'm sorry, we're sold out tonight. Do you want me to transfer you to the Four Seasons?" Um. Easy answer on that one. "No, thanks." I hung up the phone and expanded my search. No big deal. I made another call. And another. And another. And another. And another. I thnk you get the idea. Apparently the storm that rumbled through the area earlier in the day caused quite a few cancelled flights. There must have been some big meeting in town, too, because an affordable hotel room was no where to be found. Panic began to sink in. I still needed to pack, and it was quickly becoming apparent that I was running out of time.
Frantic, I gave up on finding a hotel and started to throw things in my suitcase. I may be the travel agent in the family, but my sweet husband Frank came to the rescue to pinch hit for me. He stayed on the phone for another thirty minutes while I tied up the rest of the loose ends in preparation for the trip. It was past time for me to leave for practice, and I still didn't have a hotel.
"Just give up," I told him. I had already decided to have my colleague just stay at our house for the night. We'll just have to get up at 2 AM, that's all. I was so discouraged, and the stress of the week had about taken me over. The white flag was on the pole, and I was raising it up quickly. "Just let me try one more," he said. It took a few minutes, but Frank's persistence paid off. He found a hotel room for us, granted, it was fifteen minutes south of the airport and about $30 more than I wanted to pay, but it was a room, nonetheless.
You know, I love how God works. He always comes through, in spite of me. I'm so glad that He doesn't adopt the phrase "Lack of planning on your part does not constitute an emergency on My part." OK, truth be told, sometimes He probably does. Sometimes we have to learn from our mistakes. But I'm grateful at least this time, He did not enforce that lack of planning comment. If He did, I'd be a goner for sure.
I don't know about you, but when things don't go as I plan, I get discouraged. Maybe in this case I should say, when I don't plan for things appropriately, I get discouraged. Either way, the stress of the situation left me downtrodden and exhausted before I even began my trip. I made it through worship team practice (quite hungry, I might add, since I never even had time to eat that dinner I had planned). We got to the hotel around 10:30 PM. As I sat in bed that night with my mind racing, I tried to evaluate how I could have done things differently. I let my mind wander, and all I could think of us how my God once again saved the day, proving Himself faithful, in spite of my ignorance.
Look at the verse to memorize for the week. Psalm 94:19 "When anxiety was great within me, your consolation brought joy to my soul."
If there's one thing I've learned in recent years, it's to look for God in life's situations. So many times we think God is there for us on Sundays, and that's where He stays. We forget that when things go wrong through the week, He's right there, ready to console us. We just need to turn to Him. And when we do, He turns our anxiety into joy.
I make a habit each night of praying myself to sleep. Granted, sometimes it doesn't take long, considering I can usually fall asleep within minutes, but it gives me the opportunity to just talk to God about everything that happened through the day. It gives me the opportunity to reflect. And it gives me the opportunity to find the joy that only He can provide.
As you memorize the verse with me this week, let's also try to put it into practice. Let's allow God to console our spirit and bring joy into our lives, despite anxious circumstances. Even when there's 'no room in the inn...
---Beth Banfill
www.GodandMe2theMax.com
Recent Comments