Sabbath Blessings Chapter 3: A spiritual upgrade

Written on 2 March, Singapore

Interestingly enough, my travel to New Zealand has been rather eventful. As you read in the previous update, I missed my bus from Christchurch because of a flight delay. Coming home yesterday was even more dramatic. 

I tried checking in at Christchurch only to be told that my Jetstar flight to Auckland was canceled. I was supposed to have received an email the previous day, but I didn’t. I was just told to come back the next day without any other information. Stunned, I left the counter to consider my options. I would have to travel back to Christchurch city to get accommodation, come to the airport again the next day, which meant spending a few hundred more dollars! And what about all my connecting flights? (I had already spent more than NZ$200 to travel by bus for 5 hours to spend the night at a motel in Christchurch to fly home!)

Confused, I went to another counter to ask for information. This time, the lady was more helpful. She said there was a replacement Jetstar flight the next day but I was not on the passenger list! I had disappeared from the Jetstar system. I was bewildered.

To cut a long story short, after a lot of investigation, she found out that Quantas had put me on a different flight the next day out of Christchurch. She advised me to talk to the Quantas duty manager because there was nothing else she could do for me.

It was an improvement that I had been found in the system, but I still had to delay my travel for a day. Returning to Singapore a day late meant I would miss a class that I had just paid for.

Many thoughts raced through my mind. We often say that life is a journey, and we ought to enjoy the process. That has almost become a cliché. Yesterday morning, in the midst of all that chaos, I realized that it takes a lot of maturity to fully enjoy the journey! To be at a place of peace and rest even when the journey is sometimes so unpredictable and uncertain means there must be a deep trust in God’s sovereignty and goodness. At that point, I decided I would rest in Him and be at peace.

Thankfully, the Quantas duty manager was very helpful and sympathetic.

When she found out my final destination was Singapore she decided to check if Singapore Airlines had a flight out and seats for some of us on that very day! When I heard that, I was elated. I started praying and declaring prophetically that there would be seats for me and the other affected passengers on the day’s SQ flight. I declared that I would arrive in Singapore as scheduled and not have to miss my class. I prayed and prayed – and the breakthrough came. Three of us got seats on SQ! The flight cancelation turned out for good – instead of flying to Auckland, Melbourne, then Singapore, God re-routed me on a direct flight, and on the more expensive Singapore Airlines at that!

So 9 hours, 2 wonderful inflight meals and 4 movies later, I reached Singapore 3 hours earlier compared to my original itinerary.

I know that through this, He is speaking to me. In the natural, He took me through the process of getting a flight upgrade but I knew the same applied to a “spiritual upgrade”. When I was first buying air tickets, I didn’t choose SQ because it was a lot more expensive. But He made it possible for me to fly on SQ after all through some nerve-wrecking circumstances. It made me think –

Are we living below His Kingdom expectations for us – at a lower level of love, anointing, authority and abundance? Are we on a spiritual budget flight, wasting time on endless connections, when He really wants us to fly direct, and in style on SQ, because He has already paid the ultimate price to get us there? (Remember, I did not have to spend any money to get upgraded to a far better level of service!)

And when God comes to “upgrade” us to a higher level of life in the Kingdom, will we pass the process test? Before we get the upgrade, we might have to go through times of testing. Will we manifest peace and rest in Him at all times?

May we live at the highest level of love and power because He has made it possible.