The watch moved from 11:59 PM to 12:00 AM…and the calendar changed from Thursday to Friday…
An air traffic control computer had failed.
Flights were cancelled and delayed.
The airport waiting room that should have been empty at midnight was full of people who didn’t want to be there. Including me.
“Why”, I asked myself. “Am I sitting in an airport waiting room when my family is hundreds of miles away?”
That wasn’t the real question…as I would soon discover…
Two hours later I was home and in bed.
Breakfast was a quick family hello as everybody headed to work and school.
By eight I was in the office.
Saturday and Sunday, I slept late. There wasn’t time for church.
Sunday afternoon I packed a bag and drove back to the airport for another flight to another city and another meeting…
Driving to the airport I asked myself why…
And told myself I was sacrificing for my family’s future…
“Sacrificing”…the word wouldn’t leave my mind…
That’s when I realized I wasn’t asking the right question.
I should be asking what I was sacrificing and what I hoped to get in return.
What was I sacrificing?
I told myself that it was time. Time with my family. Time with God.
What did I hope to get in return?
Money? Prestige? Power ties? Fancy suits? Future career moves?
Before I could repeat the mantra that I was sacrificing for my family, I realized I wanted all of those things…
“Do not lay up for yourselves treasures on earth… For where your treasure is, there your heart will be also.
And that’s when I realized I was sacrificing a lot more than time. I was sacrificing my heart. I was sacrificing my soul.
A few months later I quit my traveling job.
The new job offered less money, less prestige, and fewer chances for career advancement.
But I soon learned less was truly more.
I came to think of the truth of that old saying in a travel metaphor…
When you pack a carry-on bag, less is literally more, because all you can take with you is what fits in the overhead.
The baggage that weighs us down while we are in this world won’t fit in the overhead when we leave it.
The only thing that will fit in that overhead is our soul, and the only way to gain our soul is to make the only sacrifice that really matters…
“and anyone who does not take his cross and follow me is not worthy of me.
whoever finds his life will lose it, and whoever loses his life for my sake will find it.” Mathew 10:38-39
