Wednesday, March 24th

I’m tapping this blog into my laptop as I sit waiting in a terminal at O’Hare International Airport.

I’m on standby for a flight home.

I’ve been traveling on business all week, and I’m learning patience in what I thought would be a simple check-in, flight and landing. However, I’ve been on standby now for two flights to Los Angeles, both of which were full. People got on, the planes pushed back, and they took off without me.

So I wait. I wait to go home.

Spiritual transformation occurs while we wait – while we wait to go home. Only instead of the crowded waiting area of a terminal, we wait in life to board a flight that will carry us to eternity.

The transformation can occur in many ways. Forced to wait, as Lazarus in his tomb, we learn godly patience, starting to see God’s plan in kairos time as opposed to our chronos time. We discover godly compassion, becoming aware of the needs of others and then slowing down to attend to them. We get peeks at godly wisdom, lingering in prayer, Scripture reading and worship, providing sufficient time to hear God speak to us instead of jabbering on about our needs and disappointments.

The important thing for me is that while I wait, I don’t do so alone. I wait and become transformed alongside others – my family, the members of my congregation at Ascension Lutheran, the people in my weekly small group Bible study and the countless fellow believers I’ve come to know during my years in ministry. How cool is that.

In the process of waiting, I’ve been called out of the tomb. And through the love and help of the Christian community that surrounds me, I’ve come face-to-face with Jesus.

Prayer: Lord thank you for surrounding me with people who model your love, compassion, generosity and grace. I lift them up to you today (think of at least one or two people you especially want to lift up in prayer today) in gratitude for all they have done and for all that you have done for me through them. Amen.

Ed Klodt