One thing I did during my recent travels was spend a lot of time flying in airplanes. Flying across the North American continent and then hanging a sharp right up into Alaska takes awhile. Traveling across the Atlantic Ocean, Western Europe and into the middle of Eastern Europe seems to take an eternity. Bottom line, I’ve had a lot of “hang time” up in the air!
If you’ve ever flown, you know that there is not a lot that you can do on an airplane except sit. The hours get long as you fly into the night hour after hour. The airlines know this and so try to break it up with snacks and soft drinks, and if it is a long flight they even serve a meal. I ate several airline meals over the last two weeks and believe it or not, I enjoyed them all. After all, when you don’t have anything else to do a meal – even boxed airline meals – can be an enjoyable experience.
I pondered this a lot during my recent travels. I pondered how I so often dove-tailed meals in with other things. Meals were just an interlude between important events. I thought of the many far-better-than-airline-meals that I had rushed through without enjoying the wonderful food and more importantly enjoying the wonderful company of family and friends.
I think I’ve discovered something about myself (and probably a lot of others). I’ve got too much to do. I’ve allowed the busyness of life to rob me of the really important. In contrast, you never read of Jesus rushing around trying to solve every problem and take care of every emergency. But you can read of how he was often found enjoying good meals with friends and followers. Yes, like a thermometer can detect a fever, I believe the enjoyment level of our meals could be a sign of the health of our soul.
I don’t know about you, but I’ve decided to slow down and smell the gravy! If I can enjoy airline food, how much more should I be enjoying the wonderful privilege of breaking bread with dearly loved family and friends? Why don’t you join me, we’re argue about who picks up the check later. See you at IHOP!
_dlk
Quotation of the day…
- The tragedy is that we are missing out on so much of life. It’s like working in an ice cream factory and never eating anything beside vanilla ice cream. It’s like living in the valley beside beautiful and majestic mountains and never going to the top of those mountains to experience the breath-taking view and splendor. You can get by living in the valley and just eating vanilla ice cream, but is “getting by” enough? Making no waves means that you never get to experience the joy of the ocean.
The ONE THING 