Phil 4:6
Be anxious for nothing, but in everything by prayer and supplication with thanksgiving let your requests be made known to God.
We will encounter trials and tests of our faith in our life journey. Do we bring our anxieties to God in the first instance and ask for deliverance ?
At times, God delivered us. And at other times, God granted us peace to deal with the situation.
My 2 younger children aged 14 and 13 were supposed to join a church delegation on an overseas mission. They were already issued boarding passes and had boarded the plane but were later offloaded from the plane because they would need a waiver of exclusion ground to travel unaccompanied by a parent to the Philippines.
We told them not to be disappointed but to bring everything to God in prayer first.
We had 3 hurdles to clear altogether :
- We hoped the airline would not void their air tickets and treat as no-show for the promotional tickets they had purchased. That was unlikely because the terms and condition specified on such promotional tickets put the onus on us to check and comply.
- We had to expedite the application for this waiver at the Philippines embassy which normally required at least 3 days in advance for such application according to their website. To compound our anxiety, that very day was a holiday for the Philippines embassy staff, so we had to wait till the next day to apply for the waiver.
- Even if we clear the first 2 hurdles, would there be available seats the next day since we were informed few seats were available ?
We prayed knowing that if God so willed, He could still grant our prayer request to overcome these hurdles despite the really slim odds. It was a great lesson for my children to learn to trust God in every situation.
Because the airline had issued the boarding passes and my children had boarded the plane, the airline was also apologetic for the mistake which should not happen in the first place. Otherwise my children would be denied entry into Philippines at the Philippines airport which would be more problematic. So the airline was willing to allow my children to re-book on later flights. We had cleared the first hurdle. When we showed up the next day at the Philippines embassy, we learned they could expedite our waiver application and issued in 2 hours. Hallelujah ! Another hurdle cleared. And we could also get seats on the flight the following day and we cleared all hurdles.
Hallelujah ! All thanks and praise to God our Father and Jesus our Lord for granting our prayer ! My children were able to join the mission after all.
