Today was Day 3 of our Greek Island Travel Devotional Tour, and it was the day for moving from Venice to Ravenna to board the ship that would take us to the next destinations on our tour. This day involved waiting. A lot of waiting.
Leaving Venice
After boarding our water taxi at the canal near our hotel, we were taken to a part of Venice that is connected to the mainland by rail and road. We were told by our cruise line to be there by 10:30, and we complied, but once we were there we stood in a line for over an hour, outside in the heat, waiting for the buses to take us the 2 1/2 hours to Ravenna to board our cruise ship.
We were relieved to finally board the air conditioned bus. What did people do before air conditioning besides stink? I’m guessing you don’t miss what you have never had, but still it is hard to imagine.
The cost of answering nature’s call
The bus stopped about halfway to Ravenna to give us a restroom and snack break. I was not quick enough off the bus and ended up in a line to use the restroom. More waiting.
In Italy at rest stops it costs half a euro for the privilege of relieving oneself and when I got to the turnstile, there was a machine to receive the tariff. The machine indicated one may insert as much as a 2 Euro coin. All I had was a 2 euro coin, so no problem. But when I inserted the coin, the machine gave no change. I looked all around the machine for a slot with my change. Nothing. Apparently, I had subscribed to the family plan without knowing it.
So, I looked over at the restroom attendant and said in American, “change”—the little conversational Italian I had learned did not include how to conduct commercial transactions with restroom attendants. In response, she just snarled at me. I have no explanation for her her surly mien, except that I didn’t speak Italian.
If I had been able to speak Italian, I would have told her that the only attendants I had ever seen in restrooms only received money if they were polite and handed me a towel to dry my hands before I left, and she was doing neither. But I didn’t know Italian for “attendants” or “polite” or “towel” or really any words in that sentence. So, I just thought it, which made me feel a little better but not fully vindicated.
In the end I realized I was stuck with having paid 4 times the typical price of micturating in Italy, and I just decided to forget it. In retrospect, I should have told the three people in line behind me that theirs was on me.
Why waiting on the Lord is essential
When the bus got to the outskirts of Ravenna, it pulled into a car park and stopped. We were then told we needed to wait until the buses ahead of us unloaded at the ship because there wasn’t enough room for all the buses at the same time.
After a wait, we travelled the rest of the way to the port, where we stopped to wait twice more before finally pulling up to the place where we could disembark. After disembarking, we waited in the line for security, and then we waited in the line to board the ship.
I know patience is supposed to be a virtue, but I think there are different kinds of patience. As I’ve gotten older I have less tolerance for waiting in lines, but it’s because I value my time more now than when I was young. I think that is a good thing.
My raw ability to wait when it is necessary has improved. I just view most waiting as a waste of something precious and finite—my time. In this sense, I’ve become more sensitive to the fact that I am a steward of the time the Lord has given me.
There are some things, however, we must wait for, the most important of which is the Lord:
Yet those who wait for the Lord Will gain new strength; They will mount up with wings like eagles, They will run and not get tired, They will walk and not become weary.
Isaiah 40:31
The reality is we live in space and time. We experience time in a linear fashion, and each person can only be in one place at a time. It’s a construct in which the Lord has decided we should live. And while God can alter time, it seems He usually chooses to work within it.
As a practical matter, then, for the Lord to do a certain thing in our life, other things may need to happen first, so that people and things are positioned to cross our path at the right time. We had to wait today because a bus had to come from another place to Venice. Then we had to wait because other buses had to clear out of the dock before we could enter.
It’s the same way in following Jesus; it’s just that we don’t always get the explanation of why we are having to wait. We have to trust that God, who is directing an infinitely more complex flow of traffic than we can possibly imagine, knows what He is doing.
It is those who recognize this who are refreshed (“mount up with wings like eagles”) and reenergized (“run and not get weary”) when their waiting is rewarded by the Lord. Those who can’t wait never secure the reward because they leave the station before the train arrives.
So, in the end, today, we resigned ourselves to the necessity of waiting, and by late afternoon we had boarded our ship. We are now ready to begin the next leg of our journey.
Until tomorrow. GS
