wasting time in the waiting line

i'm in the airport a couple of weeks ago and much to every dallas-bound american airlines passenger's chagrin, the flight was delayed. you'd think that people just found out hitler was their pilot the way they react when they hear the news of a delay. i think if people would learn to read they wouldn't care so much. the telephone game started. i heard that the flight changed gates. mass exodus from gate a18 over to a14. then, the flight was cancelled. mass hysteria. then the airline was supposedly going to offer lunch vouchers to lull the rising mob into rest and digest mode. that was my favorite rumor. i continued to read during the confusion. i figured trying to understand was a lost cause and would result in further confusion and frustration...like every time i play golf. so i mostly ignored the debacle except to summon an occasional chuckle. you wouldn't believe the mob's mad dash to return to the original gate (where i was stationed the whole time). not a clue as to why the dash was warranted. any outside spectator would have been sure the beatles reconvened right there at gate a18. all four of them. i heard one woman yell at her husband: "you better hold your position in line!!!" my well-meaning wife strongly encouraged me to get in line. i wasn't going to stand in a line i wasn't sure i believed in. she had heard that the line was to re-arrange your travel plans because the flight was cancelled. i still didn't believe in the line, but i do believe in the wrath of a woman. i joined the line. the man in front of me looked as confused as i did. i asked him why we were in line. he didn't know why. i told him my wife made me. "smart move," he said. once someone (from american airlines) finally showed up, she told us to sit down and that we would begin boarding shortly.

a couple times this past year, i've been fortunate to teach the college students on sundays at our church. they had been going through the psalms. one sunday i got to teach on psalm 46. it's crazy how alive and active the bible is. it still speaks to us today. right now. this particular psalm talks about how nations are in an uproar and kingdoms are falling (i.e. war), but through all of this, God is with us and we're not afraid. though our government may practice a foreign policy largely based on fear, we don't have to buy into it because God is our refuge and He "makes wars cease to the ends of the earth; He breaks the bow and shatters the spear, He burns the shields with fire." i believe that if we don't let orange alerts inform our beliefs and don't waste time in the waiting line of fear, even when everyone else is paralyzed by it, God will use us to bring about peace.