“Can I tell you my story now?” he asked.

It is not really very likely that I will ever say no to this question.

It was an ordinary day at the office. He’d been fighting discouragement for a while. It’s hard, when you have total faith that this is what God is calling you to do and still the doors feel like they’re not only closed before you, but also locked. But he’d been praying and today God replied:

“Go to Cleburne airport tonight and stay until sunset.”

BUT WHY THOUGH. It wasn’t like he could fly tonight. There wouldn’t even be any airplanes for him to watch and wish he would be piloting them. What would be the point?

“Just go.”

Okay then. Whatever You say.

He called his wife to warn her that God had booked his evening, and invited her to go along. His enthusiasm levels about visiting a lifeless airport were not high, but at least they could have a date night. He didn’t think God would say three is a crowd tonight.

The airport disappointed his expectations. Not only were there two airplanes which took off and landed several times before flying away, there was a third which seemed inclined to stay the whole evening; taking off, flying the pattern he knew so well, landing, and then starting all over again.

They parked their car and sat on the hood to watch. But if you do not have the call to flight whispering in your veins, pulling your gaze ever skyward, you can only watch an airplane do the same thing again and again for so long. His wife’s eyes wandered, and she saw wildflowers growing in the field by the runway. Could they go and pick some?

“Just wait,” he said, “It’s not quite sunset yet.” And he hadn’t had any shining revelations. Yet.

He continued not having them while the sun dropped, and when it slipped behind the horizon, he gave up. Maybe he wasn’t meant to have any tonight. They had had a good evening. Maybe that was meant to be enough.

He took his wife out into the field, and while she was gathering her wildflowers, he looked up again to the place where, according to the pattern it had been flying, the airplane should have been. It wasn’t there. It wasn’t anywhere in the sky or on the earth either, as far as he could see.

“If I brought it here for you to watch, why would I keep it here after you stop looking?” God pointed out.

Oh, right. This evening had been God’s idea, not his.

“Thank You for the airplanes tonight.” And he turned back towards his wife.

God cleared His throat. “Ahem. Also. Where are you standing right now?”

In a field in the middle of a tiny airport?

“Remember how you used to stand outside the airport fences, watching, longing just to be on the other side? These closed doors you keep staring at? Yeah, there might be a few still before you. But what about the gates we’ve opened? Look around you, Craig. You are inside the fence.”