Did You Miss the Boat?
When I was 16 years old, I went on a mission trip to Europe with my friend Craig and a group of other teens. We finished our boot camp training then were bussed to catch our plane in New York City. No one had told us what time we had to be there, so we got there extremely early. It just so happened the plane did not leave until that night, so we spent the day killing time in the airport.
Craig did not say anything to anyone, but he had sisters who had done this before and had the inside scoop about a very important task. He went to the currency exchange counter and obtained for himself enough spending money to use after we landed. He obtained both French and Swiss currency. He was the only one who did this. The exchange rate was higher, but he was willing to pay the little bit of extra to save himself the inconvenience he knew was about to hit 39 other people at the other end of the plane ride.
We got there and realized none of us had local money. Craig did. So when the mobile bus came to sell the things the shops did not have, Craig was able to go in and shop to his heart's content. Everyone was asking him, "Can we borrow this, can we borrow that?" Craig was not obligated to share or help anyone. There would not have been enough for everyone, even if he had tried. He had done his research ... research technically available to all of us. He had prepared himself appropriately for the task at hand. He had cold drinks and snacks while the rest of us just lived in inconvenient teen misery until we were taken to exchange our own American dollars for local currency. While he was getting ready for what we all knew was coming, we were all just killing time, figuring we had all the time in the world. We did not realize we were seriously lacking in some important things, and that we were about to wish very heartily that we had spent or waiting time in the airport WAY differently than we had.
In keeping with this, I remember a very vivid dream I had. There was a long housing development, and a particular road ended at a cul-de-sac. The closer you went to the cul-de-sac, the steeper the terrain became. The problem was, there was a serious flood. Houses at the entrance were 2 stories under water. People were on the peaks of their houses, attempting not to be overtaken by the flood waters.
I was in a rubber raft with a motor trying to rescue families and take them to higher ground. While I was doing that, a guy I knew from college who lived in the cul-de-sac saw what I was doing and yelled to me from about 500 yards away, "HEY! HOW ABOUT YOU COME HERE AND GIVE ME A RIDE!" He was on higher ground than anyone else. The flood waters were barely half-way up his driveway, and although he was landlocked, he was fine. He did not like the inconvenience of being blocked by the flood. He wanted rescue first, even though it was obvious that other people were at the verge of death and needed help way more than he did. I heard a voice whisper to me, "If you go rescue him, he will take your boat. You will not have a boat any more, and all these other people will drown. Leave him where he is." I responded to him at a distance, knowing I needed to leave him where he was, or I would not have the ability to help the people who needed it a whole lot more than he did. Here is the Scripture that immediately came to mind: