I Left My Passport In Atlanta (PART 3: LESSONS)
People back home tell me that maybe I wasn’t supposed to go.
Maybe.
Or maybe I just forgot my passport and messed the whole thing up.
Maybe this is a lesson in how I can really screw things up.
Maybe this is a lesson in how I need to rely on God more and I wasn’t trusting Him completely with my life.
Or maybe there’s unconfessed sin in my life and so I couldn’t hear from God.
Or maybe I want God to be there just to bail me out of my problems, but I don’t want Him to be in control of my life.
Maybe.
I definitely am glad I am home.
There were things I was going to miss that I am happy I’m not missing now.
I find two things very interesting in all this.
One, I remembered at the very last possible moment. It was either the last possible moment in order to get the passport to me on that flight. Or was the last possible moment in order to not get the passport to me. If I had remembered the day before I could of had it shipped. If I remembered that morning when I was at the airport with Eric, I could have got it on a FedEx flight that would have made it time. I could have gotten it on an earlier Delta flight.
Two, we did everything we could. I believe in that. You do your part and you trust God to do the part that you can’t do. Joanna got the passport on the flight and I was waiting to do my part. There was a place where we had to hand it off to God and we lost control. We couldn’t do anything. That’s where God has to do His part. What was interesting is that it was supposed to go to a flight attendant and it ended up in cargo. Did God do His part?
At the end of it, I know that I’ll probably never know the WHY. I do know the WHAT: I’m home.
I was so mad the first few days. It really took me awhile to get through it. But to be honest, I think I would rather be home. There was a lot of anxiousness in me with leaving.
I do know this and I’ve prayed it before: “I never want to be on a flight or go somewhere that God doesn’t want me to go.”
Maybe He made that obvious.
October 12th, 2005 at 1:40 pm
Wow dude… that was an amazing story… and so YOU. You are the only person I know that has this kind of stuff happen to him.
October 12th, 2005 at 4:42 pm
Very true we will never know the Why’s but God IS good. did you get the money back from the tickets?
October 12th, 2005 at 8:25 pm
Bottom line - You may never know how this situation weaves into the fabric of God’s plan. But at the end of it all, God isn’t surprised. None of this caught Him off guard. None of this made Him think. He already had control and never let go. You are where you are for a reason and that’s the way He planned it since the beginning.
October 13th, 2005 at 4:47 pm
Funny similar story is on the last trip to Namibia, we sent 2 teams back to back. My pastor, Rob Turner, went with the first team. I was on the second team. Well he flew out two days later than the rest of the team, through Atlanta. Unfortunately, his passport went through a wash cycle in a pair of jeans, and Atlanta said it wasn’t a valid form of ID anymore. They let him on the flight but required him to be met by immigration officials in Jo-Burg to be escorted through the airport and eventually on his flight to Namibia. Through some comms w/ the US Embassy by his great secretary here in the states, they met him at the airport in Windhoek Namibia and arranged a temporary admittance. However, he couldn’t leave the country till he could get a new passport.
The US Embassy went through all the ropes to get him a new passport. He’d call every day to find out the status…always “in process”. Two weeks go by and no passport. The team is getting ready to leave, and so should Rob. He doesn’t have a passport and can’t leave. The team leaves on a Monday without him. He continues to contact the Embassy. Unfortunately DHL shipped the passport to Belgium instead of Namibia. After being away from his family for two weeks and being part of a very active ministry, he was emotionaly and physically drained. It was great to have him there with us when we arrived and it was great to be able to lift our pastor up in prayer when things were tough. In the end he was able to leave about three days after the planned date. He ended up having an incredible conversation with someone on one of the flights home about Christianity and ultimately about Christ. Timing was perfect.
I guess for you it is better to be at home with your wife. You could be stuck in Africa without her! Maybe, just maybe, God wants you investing into the gifts he’s given you responsibility over.
October 18th, 2005 at 4:17 pm
I think It is a great example of God being in control. Sometimes we want to conrtrol everything and it takes something like this to show us that we are sometimes at the mercy of happenstance. And joel, I think that is the longest comment I have ever read. Funny thing is…I actually read it all.
October 19th, 2005 at 11:22 pm
it was a very humbling experience to read this story. i wanted to cry. this is what i have become, trying to have everything just right all the time. beating myself up for ever screwing up. then finally saying ,”God, you are the one who is control of my life.” wow.what loving grace God has to let us go through times like these. it keeps us focused on Him. pastor jim has shared the story of how a russian woman responded to a question of if she would like to move to the u.s. she replied that no, if she did she wouldn’t rely on God as much.that’s it right there.