I love airports. I’m fascinated by sitting and watching people. Airports bring people from every culture, background, and circumstance. Every multitude of emotion can be seen. There’s the mother sitting next to me bent over her baby in it’s stroller. She’s smiling, filled with joy, laughing and babbling as she plays with her child. There’s the businessman running frantically while dragging his carry-on behind, trying to reach his gate in time. There’s the Asian lady to my left laid back in her seat trying to catch a moment to eat a meal. Another woman behind me crying and speaking in a broken voice into her cell phone, “I can’t believe he’s gone . . . I don’t know where to bury him.” Dozens of people stream in front of me, some engaging in conversation with a husband, wife, child, or friend but most with a blank early morning stare that says “I just want to get where I’m going.” So many people going so many places from so many other places all brought together by a single need: to catch a flight.

On the flight I just left, there was a little girl maybe half a dozen rows behind me. I couldn’t see her, but I could most certainly hear her. She must have been 4 years old or so. She was obviously distressed and repeatedly yelled to her mother, “I want my coloring book!” The outbursts reached a culmination in, “Mom! Give me my coloring book right now!” The poor mother attempted to reason with the child that we were about to land so we needed to put things away to get off the plane and that she could have it back in a few minutes. But there is no reasoning with a 4-year-old.

As this scene was playing out, I was reading the first chapter of “Patriarchs and Prophets” which discusses why God allowed sin. It makes a case for the unfailing love of God. It made me think about how I can act sometimes. I demand from God my “coloring book” when he’s saying “Its not time. It’s not best. It’s going to cause you harm. ” And all I can think is “I want it! I need it!” and if God really cared about me he’d give it to me. I don’t know what your coloring book is but I do know that the unfailing love of Christ is just that – unfailing. According to Isaiah, his thoughts are not our thoughts, his ways are not our ways, and as high as the heavens are above the earth, so are his thoughts from ours and his ways from ours. My “4-year-old” mind can in no way grasp the implications of every part of my life and cannot understand the reasoning behind God’s actions. I can however trust that he has my best interest in mind and that truly, his love never fails. What is your “coloring book”?