When Your Bags Go First Class

My husband and I were making a long trip, one of those where you have to take several flights to get to your destination. It seems the planes are never big enough for all that has to go into them. Sometimes that includes people’s carry-on luggage. (Yes, we fly economy class.) We had two carry-ons that wouldn’t go anywhere, so a stewardess stowed them in first class. Another man arrived later, and there was no place for his bag, either. My husband told him what we did, and so he trotted off to find another obliging steward. He returned empty-handed and told us, “My bags travel better than I do.” We had a good laugh along with him.

The bags go first class, and we go economy. Such is life.

I love the TV ads where they advertise airlines. You see a passenger reclining in a bed in a dimly lit plane. He or she is just about to nod off into la-la land while covering hundreds or thousands of miles. The attendant is gorgeous, immaculately-dressed, and she (always a very pretty woman) tucks the person in. Oh yes!

My experience is that all of this is . . .

                                                            in your dreams.

Granted, the TV ad is probably about first class, and I’m too cheap to pay for that. But honestly, I’ve flown on many airlines, and first class, though roomier than sardine class, is certainly not flat beds and perfect-looking stewardesses. 

It’s a funny world, full of funny circumstances, like our bags going “better” than we do.

The spiritual world is full of “funny” things, too.

Think about these biblical paradoxes:

• Give and it will be given to you. (Luke 6:38)
• We can be rich with God or poor spiritually and rich financially (Luke 12:20-21).
• A spiritual seed has to die so it can grow and bring forth fruit (John 12:24).
• Christians are in the world but not of the world (John 15:19).
• But God hath chosen the foolish things of the world to confound the wise; and God hath chosen the weak things of the world to confound the things which are mighty (1 Corinthians 1:27—two paradoxes here).
• When I am weak, then am I strong (2 Corinthians 12:10).
• Jesus left the glories of heaven—to become poor—so we could be rich. (Philippians 2)
• But what things were gain to me, those I counted loss for Christ (Philippians 3:7).
• Paul wrote from prison: But I have all, and abound: I am full (Philippians 4:18a). 

So when your bags go better than you do, think on the paradoxes in the Bible, how God is glorified using weak, sinful man. How God turns things upside down and inside out, because His ways are not our ways.  How Jesus left the glories of heaven to make Himself flesh in order to save us. Amazing!

And, by the way, heaven is a lot better than first class!