What A Lost Passport Tells Us About Faith

Proverbs 3:5-6 – Trust in the Lord with all your heart; do not depend on your own understanding. Seek his will in all you do, and he will show you which path to take. (NLT)

It was time to renew my passport. New photos taken, check; references obtained and verified, check; and forms filled out, check. I determined that the quickest way to obtain a passport would be to visit the local Service Canada office. Upon arriving, I discovered a full office with 50 people standing in the passport line. I resolved to try another day. At 8:30 the next morning, I joined 15 others in line. After ten minutes, I was told at the screening point, "Because you have a passport that is still valid, you will have to include it in the application." Strange, I thought that my passport was in the envelope. Now I had an even bigger problem — a missing passport!

At home, thinking it through, I remembered putting the passport in the envelope with all the other documents. If I had inverted the envelope, the passport, being the heaviest item, would have fallen out.

Back I went to the shopping centre where the Service Canada office is located and retraced my steps. It was not at the grocery lost and found. Finding an information booth, I asked, "Did anyone turn in a passport yesterday?"

"As a matter of fact, yes, one was turned in. We gave it to the Service Canada office." Some Good Samaritan had found it. I did not want to get my hopes up, because several hundred people visit that office each day. After giving my details to an agent, I was presented with my passport! I thanked God for His intervention and for saving me from having to go through the process of reporting and replacing a lost passport. The third day, I returned to the office and submitted all the documentation for a new passport.

Four times I went to the Service Canada office — why? This is the kind of question that almost everyone wonders about at some time. For reasons that we may never understand here on earth, it is not always in God's plan for our problems to be speedily resolved nor for us to know what other issues or even disasters that He may have saved us from by those delays. As Christians, we are called not to depend on our own understanding but to trust in God's timing. Whenever we encounter a situation that we deem frustrating, let us remember that God is working behind the scenes.

Prayer: Dear Father, help us to remember that the things which we consider obstacles or inconveniences are part of Your plan, which we cannot see or comprehend. You may be saving us grief or have other reasons why things do not work out as we would see fit. Help us to remember that You have everything beautiful in Your time. Amen. (Ecclesiastes 3:11)

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About the author:

Orlanda Drebit <orlandadrebit@hotmail.com>
Manitou Beach, Saskatchewan, Canada
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