I suppose it’s about time I started acting responsibly. I’m in my sixth decade, after all.
The other day I was offered this tremendous opportunity to lecture again on a Scandinavian cruise. As you may recall, I’ve lectured on a couple Norwegian cruises in the past, under contract with a company that allows you to buy your cruise at fifty bucks a day (now it’s $65), and you have to pay your own air fare. Not a way to get rich, but if you have a little money to spend it’s an inexpensive way to cruise.
This would have been the cruise of my dreams. Departure from Southampton, England, then oversea to Iceland. Then Norway and the other Scandinavian countries. It would have been the longest cruise I ever did, and an opportunity to lecture comprehensively on all the Viking stuff I’ve learned. And see places I’ve never seen, as long as places I hunger to see again.
But I turned it down, of course. I don’t have much money now, and anyway embarkation is September 1. I have to participate in Student Orientation at our Bible School on Sept. 2.
On top of that, that’s the week I start online classes for my graduate work in Library Science.
So, no.
Then yesterday I got another e-mail. These people are really desperate. The cruise line was willing to pay my air fare, and the booking company would have reduced my per day cost by fifty percent. I could have afforded that.
All I would have had to do would have been to get to Southampton by tomorrow.
Of course the offer, irresistible as it was, had to be resisted. I have responsibilities.
This is one of the things it means to be a responsible adult, I guess. Turning down what looks like the opportunity of your dreams because you’ve made commitments.
Pray for me. The one thing I hear from all sides, as I approach my studies, is that it’s going to be harder and more time-consuming than I ever dreamed.
One of the key distinctives between productive societies and poverty stricken ones is the ability of individuals to forego immediate pleasures for distant blessings. If it was easy anybody could do it. The problem of temptation is it is so tempting.
About the time I was considering seminary I heard a sermon by radio preacher Ben Haden telling about his call to ministry. Right after he had committed to leaving his job as a newspaper editor to go to seminary his boss offered him the chance of a lifetime to become editor in charge of a large regional newspaper. At the same time a prominent church in a large city invited him to become their pastor without first going to seminary. He concluded that both were temptations to deviate from the path God had called him to – to invest in the proper preparation for ministry by attending seminary. Hearing his story helped confirm the same call in my life – to invest in a few years of seminary preparation before accepting a call as a pastor.
The fact that the opportunity to deviate from your intended course is so alluring may just be confirmation that you’re doing the right thing. Stay the course.
Thanks. As it happens, I’m a big fan of Ben Haden, though I haven’t heard him for a long time.
Haden was the pastor of First Pres. in my city for a long time. For those who don’t know him, here’s his site: http://changedlives.org/
Wise comments. It’s been my experience that, quite often, another “once in a liftime” experience will come along. I pray that for you!