How Can Christians Model Patience, Positivity, and Love in the Long Airport Lines
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With Easter less than one week away, families are traveling to and from to meet with extended family, engaging in party gatherings, and making last-minute preparations for Jesus’ big day. In between all the hustle and bustle, however, is a delaying dilemma—long airport lines and government shutdowns due to the recent loss of TSA workers’ pay.
From long TSA lines to delayed flights, and tired families during this busy Easter travel, it might be true that nothing tests your faith quite like an airport delay when you’re already exhausted, irritable, and full of airport snacks.
When life slows you down in frustrating ways, do our reactions reflect the patience of Christ, or the pressure of the moment?
Our Defining and Revealing Moments
It might sound silly, but these inconveniences matter more than they seem. Yes, delays and long lines happen, but they aren’t just setbacks; they’re revealing moments.
On the surface, delays and inconveniences often bring out the worst in us. But should they? Pressure exposes impatience, entitlement, dread, and anxiety. Especially in airports, we see this microcosm of culture. Nearly everyone is rushed, running, frustrated, and self-focused. Watch out, or you might just receive the stink-eye from the flight passenger in row 2B, who refuses to exchange his seat with yours.
By default, cultures’ response to life’s delays or slowdown speed bumps is irritability, complaining, and blaming others. We immediately think “I deserve better than this,” and social media reinforces this mindset. We deserve instant gratification right now, exactly when we want it, no waiting required. But just because this is the typical ingrained response doesn’t mean it’s right. It’s just what we’ve grown accustomed to as humans living in a fallen and sinful world.
Especially near Easter, however, this typical response should make us pause. Easter week is all about waiting, suffering, and surrendering. It’s about enduring when it’s hard, patiently waiting for answers, and giving the Lord all our expectations in exchange for His plans.
Jesus Himself experienced this in His life, death, and resurrection, but also in the many stories we see in Scripture. Time and time again, Jesus faced injustice, delay (like with Lazarus), and discomfort. But His response wasn’t one of entitlement, impatience, or irritability. It was one of surrender, love, and pause. Jesus saw beyond the delay, the inconvenience, the temporary setback because He trusted who held His future, and He trusted the purpose of the delay, even if He couldn’t presently understand it at that very moment.
We struggle with inconvenience, but Jesus endured ultimate inconvenience through the cross. We struggle with waiting, but Jesus waited 30 years to begin His public ministry until God said the time was right. We struggle with suffering, but Jesus died through suffering so that we would know we’re never alone in ours. We struggle with surrender, but Jesus gave His life as a ransom for many so we would learn to do the same.