Last week, I had an opportunity to stop over a local Department of Motor Vehicle (DMV) to renew my old driver license. Based on my previous experience, I would anticipate a crowd of people waiting for service. In fact, this was the case in that day. For the sake of alleviating the problem of waiting, the DMV provides a somewhat effective solution. You need to find a ticket machine first and then get a ticket number, based on the category of service that you need – they could be in the category of either getting a new driver license, or applying learning permits, or returning automobile license plates, etc. After that, you sit down and wait for your number to be called.

I found it is quite interesting to observe this rather noisy environment. Even though it is based on the “first come first serve” principle and there are various service windows, the “line of waiting” is still long. Everyone watched eagerly and closely for his / her ticket number to be called in order to stop by the correct service window. After waiting for a while, suddenly, a person who sat next to me stood up and protested to one of the service windows that his number was skipped. The lady from the service window responded, “It is not possible for the calling system to miss a ticket number”. After digging, they find out that the calling system was manually overwritten by one of the service windows incidentally – a lady who drew up two tickets at the same time but used one ticket number, which is later than the protested person, to be served.

For the person who was skipped unintentionally by the service window, I could see his puzzled face. As I may not be able to read his mind but I was sure: he might have to wait there and never been called if he did not pay attention to his ticket. This interesting experience of “getting a ticket and waiting in line” let me think of two possible scenarios in our journey of faith.

The first one is “Have we told our God to take a ticket and “get in line” waiting for our call?” This may seem to be wild initially and you may say, “What are you talking about, how can God take a ticket from me?” Let me give you my personal experience. I asked my self a question: “Have I ever forgotten my quiet time with God or missed my daily Bible reading because of my busy schedule and then ‘skipped it’ conveniently?” The answer is “yes”.  In these cases, it is like that I told God to wait for me but forgot to keep my promise.  As a result, God could wait there indefinitely because I skipped Him.

Corrie Ten Boom once said, “Don’t pray when you feel like it. Have an appointment with the Lord and keep it. A man is powerful on his knees.” The attitude of keeping an appointment with God faithfully applies not only to prayers but also to every aspect of cultivating our relationship with Him. We need to set our priority right and we CANNOT treat God like the genie in the Aladdin lamp – to show up whenever I want him to and to disappear whenever I don’t need him. In this world, there are always so many things set to occupy our focus and consume our time. Obliviously, we are falling into the evil one’s scheme. The result is he pulls us away from God. Someone used to say, “BUSY is Being Under Satan’s Yoke”. It seems to bear some truth in it. 🙂

In the first scenario, we are assuming that God is the person who is asking for service and we are the service window. Now let’s switch the roles – we are the person who is asking for service from God (i.e. as the service window).  This becomes our second scenario. The situation is like this: “When you are asking help from God or interceding for others through your prayers, God told you to “get a ticket and wait”; worse yet, He forgot your prayer and let you hang there indefinitely, what is your reaction?” I bet you will start to grumble that He is not a loving god and He is not listening to your prayers.

The two scenarios I just illustrated give us two perspectives in our journey of faith. The truth is our God listens to and answer our prayers, according to His love and sovereignty of course. He is NEVER like the Baal god that prophet Elijah was taunting – who is deep in thought, or busy, or traveling, or sleeping and must be awakened (1 Kings 18:27). As the psalmist said, He will not let your foot slip — He who watches over you will not slumber; indeed, He who watches over Israel will neither slumber nor sleep. 他 必 不 叫 你 的 腳 搖 動 ； 保 護 你 的 必 不 打 盹 ！保 護 以 色 列 的 ， 也 不 打 盹 也 不 睡 覺 。 (Psalm 121:3-4)” Therefore, we don’t need to worry about the second scenario because He does care about us and love us dearly. All I ask is let us be sincere and examine ourselves daily, “Do I want God to get in line and wait, or I want to keep my appointment with Him?”