On one of my first trips to Moldova, as I searched for my departure gate at Charles de Gaulle, I made eye contact with an elderly man. He was pulling a wheeled carry-on, and over one shoulder was a small, but heavy, backpack.
In his left hand he held what looked like a folded ticket, and in his right he clutched a small bit of white paper. He looked a little nervous, and very, very lost. He was.
I took one step towards him, and he offered to show me his note. It read, in all caps English, “I AM TRAVELING TO SHANGHAI ON CHINA EASTERN AIR LINES. GATE 2.” Apparently the same message was handwritten below in Mandarin, with an added note, his daughter’s telephone number in Oslo. He showed me his cell phone as if he wanted me to dial it.
The problem was that we were nowhere near Gate Two, there was no sign for China Eastern Air Line, and a daughter in Norway couldn’t be much help at this point. I looked at his ticket, and he had plenty of time to make the plane–-if only we could find it.
Back in the main part of the terminal, we discovered a ticket agent who researched the information on his flight, calmed the man down, and showed us where he could catch the shuttle bus. It turned out that he needed “Terminal 2,” not “Gate 2.”
We walked back to the intersection of halls, and I pointed down the long corridor, and wrote, “Shuttle Bus to Terminal Two” alongside his daughter’s note. After three deep bows and several sentences of what seemed to be profuse, passionate gratitude, he disappeared down the long hallway on a moving people-conveyor.
What struck me later was how this man was walking by faith. He had faith in his daughter, faith in ticket agents, and even faith in complete strangers. He left Oslo that morning knowing that he would have to seek assistance to go the next step. He was willing to run that risk to visit his daughter, all on the assumption that when he had to have help, it would be there. His fears, while possibly great, had not kept him in Shanghai.
What a lesson for those of us whose faith is in the God of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob, the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ! Are we willing to leave our security to obey Him? Are we willing to risk in order to reach others?
Are we willing to meet someone new, to minister in a new way, to enter the unknown for the sake of Jesus? Are we willing to leave our Shanghai, knowing that God will guide and guard each step of the one who walks by faith in Him?
“So we are always of good courage.
We know that while we are at home in the body
we are away from the Lord,
for we walk by faith, not by sight.”
2 Corinthians 5:6, 7