God's plants

Yesterday I was rolling my suitcase through the bustling crowds of purposeful travelers at the Hartsfield-Jackson Atlanta International Airport, a city unto itself. I was on my cell phone talking to my husband about the promise that "all things work for the good of those who love God." I evidently had just spoken the verse out loud when a woman making fast tracks in the same direction as I passed me on the right. She turned her head back slightly and smiled at me, raising her right hand in a victory gesture while not slackening in her brisk gait.

I got excited and told my husband immediately, "A Christian just passed me!"

I was reminded of what happened a couple of years ago in the large and opulent Macy's in the heart of Philadelphia. It was Thanksgiving weekend, and the Wanamaker Organ, the largest pipe organ in the world, was playing to a store crowded with Christmas shoppers. Suddenly 650 of those "shoppers" interspersed throughout the store spontaneously broke into the "Hallelujah Chorus" of Handel's Messiah (see video below). Clutches of teens and men in business suits and supposed clerks at the make-up kiosks and women with shopping bags, all bellowed to the top of their lungs:

"Hallelujah! … for the Lord God omnipotent reigneth! ... King of Kings! Lord of Lords! ... The kingdom of this world is becoming the kingdom of our Lord and of His Christ, and He shall reign forever and ever. …"

It was a stunning moment of worship orchestrated by the Opera Company of Philadelphia, and those who were not in on the planned "random act of culture" stopped in their tracks, being caught up in the joy. After the performance, "normal life" resumed and strangers who had for several moments bonded in a transcendent experience went back to their pedestrian pursuits.

If I had not been speaking about God while walking the endless C concourse in the Atlanta airport, the same woman would have walked past me but I would not have known that she was one of God's children, nor would she have known that about me. There is so much more to any bustling airport or your average Macy's department store than you and I can see. But a day is coming, says the Bible, that the sons of God will be revealed (Romans 8:19), and all creation waits in eager expectation for it. Let the revealing begin now.