First Class...

I don’t know if you all do this or not but I spend a lot of life realizing I just had a moment that I ought to learn something from. As many as I recognize, I am certain I miss twice as many but I’m grateful for the ones I have sense enough to embrace. I am fascinated with God’s extraordinariness in the ordinariness of my life. I have found that if I just open my eyes and realize that this is all His, He’s in every part of it, that I do see Him in really unlikely places, so many places and ways I had missed for so long. I find myself right now saying, hmmmm God you just used that to teach me something didn’t ya??!!

Had one of those moments today on the airplane. We were all seated and they had done their familiar speech about exit rows and lights and seatbelts and oxygen masks and how important it is for that tray table and seat to be in their upright position. (Someday I really would love someone to explain to me how that three inches your seat is able to recline is in some way going to help my safety should our plane start to nosedive but anyway…whew that was random.)

Anyway…then came this moment where they drew the curtain between first class and the peon’s who sit in the other ¾ of the plane. They serve them first, they get really souped up meals, you know you’ve seen it. Never really thought about that until today when they drew the curtain and said that all familiar statement about reserving the bathroom in the front of the plane for our first class passengers. Then God and I had a moment and I thought about how grateful I am that there are no first class seats when it comes to gathering around God’s throne. As I walk through my day there isn’t anyone who merits in anyway, financially or otherwise, more of God’s attention than I get the blessing of having. There is no curtain which is able to be drawn between a precious few and the rest of us who feel as though some days we are just “scraping by” to walk this thing out. I don’t spend my good days in first class and my all about me not so good days at the back of the plane so to speak.

God thinks I’m first class. Hard to fathom, difficult to believe, a feeling of unworthiness like I’ve never known when I think about it, but yet somehow somewhere in my knower I know that’s the way He feels about this broken, marred, prideful, selfish…Daughter!!

You know how I know because I look at my life and I watch Him every single day pampering me with the best this time on earth has to offer. Does it always look like a great meal, a cushy pillow and blanket, nope. Matter of fact sometimes it looks like a stern but loving hand disciplining my disobedient heart. Sometimes it looks like a love that goes beyond my human reasoning and allows me to go into an oven to be refined where it is HOT and it grieves His heart to watch and yet He allows it because at the moment it’s the best this life has to offer for me. But then there are those other times when it’s better than any pampering this world has to offer. Like when I drive out the road and the day has been frustrating and I see the sky painted in every shade of pink, orange, and red and something in the moment feels almost like it’s too sacred to be a part of as if God is making His power known all over the sky. Or the moments when someone you love as much as you know how to reminds you how much of a difference you’ve made in their world and for the moment God allows you to be reminded that this life does indeed mean something and yours matters not just to you but others, and you feel a part of the bigger picture. Those moments when a child chooses to love you with their pure simplistic untainted accepting arms and heart. Pampered, those moments are nothing short of pampered.

See I don’t really have much desire to sit in first class on this airplane (I mean really…if we nosedive they hit first have they not thought about this philosophy J) Don’t in any way need first class treatment on this airplane.

First class treatment from a Father who adores you…hmmm don’t deserve that for sure, but I will soak it up with a grateful heart that when it comes to the cross of Calvary we all have first class seats and when it comes to the love of the Father we all get first class treatment. Live grateful!