On the road again
Airports, not churches, are places where I have experienced God’s nearness most.
My conversion happened at a time when I got to travel a fair bit. It seemed like I was forever in between places, spending my first year of college in England, my second in America, and my final year back in England. At each of those countries, I seized every opportunity to travel.
I remember one trip in particular. Easyjet had a crazy promotion – return tickets to Geneva from London for just 24 pounds. A few friends and I rushed to the computer lab to book tickets just before the midnight deadline, only to find that it had been extended. Then, to maximize my train fare to London’s Stanstead Airport, I decided to surf around for another cheap flight out on the same day that I returned from Geneva. I booked myself a flight to Berlin scheduled to depart a few hours after my flight from Geneva would touch down in London. Then after a few days in Berlin, I took a train to Prague. My friends thought I was mad.
But I suppose there was method in the madness. I think my missions call was birthed in airport terminals, waiting lounges and boarding areas. Slowly, airports began to represent this earthly life for me. We are all in transit, we are all aliens and strangers, on our way to our final destination in Heaven. As I sat in waiting lounges, often alone, I would think to myself, “How absurd it would be, if the passengers began to think that the airport was their final destination. What if they started to buy lots of stuff and set up home in the transit lounges, living there permanently instead of going to their intended destination? What if they got angry if someone came along and reminded them that they were mistaken?”
It was a ridiculous idea, but often, silly examples work better in illustrating spiritual truth, as G K Chesterton said once. As these silly thoughts replayed themselves in my mind in my early days as a Christian, the Holy Spirit was working in my heart. I began to long for eternity, my true destination. I told myself that I must never set up home in the transit lounge, thereby foregoing my final destination. Many Scriptures came alive in those lonely hours of waiting for flights to places where no one knew who I was.
"Enter by the narrow gate, for wide is the gate and broad is the way that leads to destruction, and there are many who go in by it. Because narrow is the gate and difficult is the way which leads to life, and there are few who find it." [Matthew 7:13-14]
“Not that I have already attained, or am already perfected; but I press on, that I may lay hold of that for which Christ Jesus has also laid hold of me. Brethren, I do not count myself to have apprehended; but one thing I do, forgetting those things which are behind and reaching forward to those things which are ahead. I press toward the goal for the prize of the upward call of God in Christ Jesus…
My flight to Dili for my third year of missionary service is in less than 48 hours. As usual, there are mixed emotions, especially as I sense my mother’s melancholia growing. And so I take refuge in my memory of airports, and all I’ve learnt in them, as I contemplate going to Changi once again.
I think also of Jesus, who “steadfastly set His face to go to Jerusalem” [Luke 9:51], and know that He will be near as I walk down the chilly departure hall, yet again.
My conversion happened at a time when I got to travel a fair bit. It seemed like I was forever in between places, spending my first year of college in England, my second in America, and my final year back in England. At each of those countries, I seized every opportunity to travel.
I remember one trip in particular. Easyjet had a crazy promotion – return tickets to Geneva from London for just 24 pounds. A few friends and I rushed to the computer lab to book tickets just before the midnight deadline, only to find that it had been extended. Then, to maximize my train fare to London’s Stanstead Airport, I decided to surf around for another cheap flight out on the same day that I returned from Geneva. I booked myself a flight to Berlin scheduled to depart a few hours after my flight from Geneva would touch down in London. Then after a few days in Berlin, I took a train to Prague. My friends thought I was mad.
But I suppose there was method in the madness. I think my missions call was birthed in airport terminals, waiting lounges and boarding areas. Slowly, airports began to represent this earthly life for me. We are all in transit, we are all aliens and strangers, on our way to our final destination in Heaven. As I sat in waiting lounges, often alone, I would think to myself, “How absurd it would be, if the passengers began to think that the airport was their final destination. What if they started to buy lots of stuff and set up home in the transit lounges, living there permanently instead of going to their intended destination? What if they got angry if someone came along and reminded them that they were mistaken?”
It was a ridiculous idea, but often, silly examples work better in illustrating spiritual truth, as G K Chesterton said once. As these silly thoughts replayed themselves in my mind in my early days as a Christian, the Holy Spirit was working in my heart. I began to long for eternity, my true destination. I told myself that I must never set up home in the transit lounge, thereby foregoing my final destination. Many Scriptures came alive in those lonely hours of waiting for flights to places where no one knew who I was.
"Enter by the narrow gate, for wide is the gate and broad is the way that leads to destruction, and there are many who go in by it. Because narrow is the gate and difficult is the way which leads to life, and there are few who find it." [Matthew 7:13-14]
“Not that I have already attained, or am already perfected; but I press on, that I may lay hold of that for which Christ Jesus has also laid hold of me. Brethren, I do not count myself to have apprehended; but one thing I do, forgetting those things which are behind and reaching forward to those things which are ahead. I press toward the goal for the prize of the upward call of God in Christ Jesus…
For our citizenship is in heaven, from which we also eagerly wait for the Saviour, the Lord Jesus Christ…” [Philippians 3:12, 13, 20)
My flight to Dili for my third year of missionary service is in less than 48 hours. As usual, there are mixed emotions, especially as I sense my mother’s melancholia growing. And so I take refuge in my memory of airports, and all I’ve learnt in them, as I contemplate going to Changi once again.
I think also of Jesus, who “steadfastly set His face to go to Jerusalem” [Luke 9:51], and know that He will be near as I walk down the chilly departure hall, yet again.
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