The truth of inconvenience

Someone recommended a magazine I fell in love with, so I decided to subscribe. I had a wait in the doctor’s office, so I whipped out my cell phone to take care of business. I dialed the toll-free number listed in the magazine’s masthead and was connected to the subscription department. But suddenly I gasped when I found a gaping hope in my wallet where the credit card should have been. The representative who quoted me $44 for a year’s subscription understood when I told her I would have to call back.

It was a false alarm, and I located the renegade card in my skirt pocket, where I had stuffed it an hour ago after filling up at the gas station. So I redialed and restarted the transaction. Once again I was quoted $44 and was about to read the 16 embossed digits that make the world go round when to my surprise the doctor was ready to see me. I bailed out of the order a second time.

I left the doctor’s office and drove to a train station to fetch my daughter. She was late so I tried a third time with the magazine people. This time I got a rep who quoted me $25 rather than $44 for a year’s privilege. She said, “I’ll say you tried online but were not successful.” I said, “Well, that’s very nice of you.” And perhaps because I thought the more favorable deal was cinched anyway, I added, “But to be honest with you, I didn’t try online first.”

My over-righteousness (Ecclesiastes 7:16), if that’s what it was, cost me the deal, momentarily. My stunned interlocutor got cold feet, and the way we left it is that I would indeed try online first, which was no trouble for me. But I was glad to have been apprised of the very real possibility of paying nearly $20 less than I almost shelled out.

My takeaway lesson was to trust God with interruptions and setbacks. How many times does it happen to us that interruptions and inconveniences actually turn out to our benefit in the end?

Granted, the discount of a few bucks on a magazine subscription is not great gain, and there are many blessings the Lord is more interested in giving to us than chump change. Nevertheless, this small example suffices to demonstrate that the God who is kind in the small things is more than capable of kindness in the great things, too. We can relax with interruptions and setbacks, knowing that all things work together for good for those who love Him.