This recent Christmas season, I decided to surprise my friend in America by sending her a Christmas present. All nicely wrapped up, I handed the box to the worker at my local post office in Scotland and happily mentioned that this very special parcel was going to the USA. She processed the details and handed me the receipt with a tracking code. I went merrily on my way, highly anticipating the smile this gift would put on my friend’s face when she received it in only two weeks, as per the post office's advertised delivery times.
A few days later, I checked the parcel’s journey online to see how long it would take until my friend received it. To my surprise, it had been delivered to a sorting hub in Australia. I don’t know much about international deliveries, but Australia is in the opposite direction to the USA from Scotland, where I live. So, I decided to inquire about this at the post office because, a few days later, when I checked its whereabouts again, I noticed that the parcel had not moved. It seemed somehow “stuck in transit.” At this point, I realized that the post office worker who processed the parcel delivery details had, from the start, recorded it as going to Australia and even made an error by misspelling the second line of the delivery address.
I then began to think that this delivery might never reach my friend because of the confusion. But to my surprise, a few days ago, my friend joyfully told me that the parcel reached her. A package that was meant to take a flight across the ocean and be delivered in 14 days had, instead, traveled across the globe and arrived in 34 days. This story made me reflect on our lives.
Lost in Transit
Has God intended for us to be somewhere where we would be a blessing to others and in the right place at the right time, but we, either because of our own choices or maybe after listening to the wrong counsel of a friend, set off on a journey in the opposite direction? Maybe as we traveled along life’s path, we arrived in a place completely strange to us and where we never should have been. We seemed to become “lost in transit,” without value or a clear destination. Perhaps this is, in broader terms, the condition of the human race. Sin set us all off on a path God never intended us to be on, and our lives took a wrong course.
I imagine that for my parcel, stuck in a place from where there should have been no way out, an employee must have taken a different kind of action than the usual one—pile it up on top of those “lost items”—and sought to redirect it to the correct destination. This person looked at it, with the colorful message on the box, “Season’s Greetings from Scotland and don’t open until Christmas,” and, realizing its emotional value, arranged for its redelivery to the USA. It took an investment of attention, time, and perhaps even finances, for this to happen.
Do you feel stuck in transit, lost, on the wrong course, as if you have been tossed aside, no one noticing your value and the blessing you could be? The story of the Christmas parcel reminded me that just like the employee in the Australian Post Office, who saved the parcel from being discarded, Jesus has taken it upon Himself to arrange for you and me to be redirected on the right track so we can reach our initial destination.
Our Saviour sees the value in us; we are not insignificant to Him. He doesn’t toss us aside, even if we might be, at this time, in the wrong place due to our own choices or because we have been set on this journey by the wrong actions of someone else whom we decided to trust. Sometimes, the enemy of souls might appear as one we can trust to guide us toward the correct destination, but the result is a different one.
Dear reader, be encouraged. Jesus has made all the arrangements possible for you and me to be redirected toward the intended destination God has in mind for us. If you give your life journey to Him, all that He has in mind for you to become will be accomplished. Philippians 1:6 (ESV) says, “And I am sure of this, that He who began a good work in you will bring it to completion at the day of Jesus Christ.” He will make you a blessing when you trust in Him to take you to the right place at the right time!
But that’s not all! I heard a sermon recently, and the message focused on the fact that sometimes, we, just like Zechariah and Elizabeth, who prayed for many years for a child (see Luke 1:5-19), might have been praying for a blessing for a long time, and yet, the answer we desire—a yes—is not coming. The preacher encouraged his listeners by saying that even if there seems to be a delay, God has not forgotten you—the one who is finding himself struggling with a deferred hope. I know I am one of these people, as I have been praying for a blessing for 19 years, and the answer hasn’t come yet. The desired answer seems to take longer to reach some of us, just as the Christmas gift took 20 days longer than anticipated to reach my friend and gladden her life for a moment.
Call to Action
I’ll leave you with this quote from Melody Mason’s book My Single Joy (released in 2024), in the hope that it will encourage you as it did me.
“Think of the forty years Moses spent herding the sheep in the wilderness. Think of the additional forty years he spent herding the children of Israel, trying to get them safely into the Promised Land. Think of the fifteen years David fled for his life from King Saul, the thirteen years Joseph served as a slave and prisoner in Egypt, the fourteen years Jacob worked for his love Rachel, the years Hannah spent praying and waiting for a son, and the many quiet years Jesus spent working as a carpenter in Nazareth. The examples go on and on. While the waiting was not easy, God was always at work in the delay. (…) Just because there is a delay in our love story, just because we haven’t yet seen our prayers answered for a child, or for a position in work or ministry, or for deliverance from suffering, it doesn’t mean it’s an absolute denial. (…) The God of delays is not the God of denials!”
