God's unapologetic favoritism

My prayer warrior friends went to the airport with the expectation of eight seats on the same flight to Florida. But the airline mixed up the reservation, booking the group on two different flights leaving many hours apart—four seats on one plane and four on another.

It’s a long story (and the following isn’t going to be one of those “Car Talk” math challenge questions), but this was a very bad situation because four of the party were children, and one of those children is severely handicapped.

After considerable discussion, the airline started offering $300 to anyone booked on the flight who would give up his or her seat (that arrangement would work well enough for my friends), but no one took them up on the offer.

Out of the blue, an angry woman appeared, loudly complaining that the valet had lost her car keys, making it impossible for her to get on her flight—the same flight my friends needed one seat for. In the end, my friends got the angry woman’s seat, and the day was saved for them. I suppose we will never know the rest of the story for the other woman, the one who couldn’t make the flight. The Lord has so much to manage, so many threads to weave together for each of us, and ours is to trust him with this messy underside of the tapestry of life.

But as my prayer warrior friend was telling me this story when I picked her up at the train station, the following verse popped into my mind:

“For to the one who pleases him God has given wisdom and knowledge and joy, but to the sinner he has given the business of gathering and collecting, only to give to one who pleases God. This also is vanity and a striving after wind” (Ecclesiastes 2:26).

This is a principle, a revealed way in which God works in the human drama. While some might cry “Unfair!,” God makes no apology for his favoritism toward His own. And yet, knowing my friends as I do, I am sure they prayed God would take care of this distraught stranger. And for all we know, it may be the first time in her life someone prayed for this woman.