CAN YOU STILL SMILE?
By Charles Swindoll

As I write this I'm at 35,000 feet. It's 5:45 p.m., Saturday. It should be 4:15. The airline was an hour and a half late. People are grumpy. Some are downright mad. Stewardesses are apologizing, promising extra booze to take off the edge. To complicate matters, a Japanese man across the aisle has a rather severe nosebleed and they're trying to instruct the poor chap...but he doesn't speak a word in English.

So now the meal is late. The lady on my left has a cold and makes an enormous sound when she sneezes (about every ninety seconds---I've timed her). The sports film on golf just broke down and so did the nervous systems of half the men on board. It's a zoo!

It all started with the delay. "A mechanical trouble," they said. "Inexcusable," responded a couple of passengers. But we ...don't like to wait. Delays are irritating. With impatient predictability we are consistently demanding. We want what we want when we want it. Not one of us finds delay easy to accept.

The rubber of Christianity meets the road of proof at just such intersections of life. As the expression goes, our faith is "fleshed out" at times like that. The best test of my Christian growth occurs in the mainstream of life, not in the quietness of my study. Those late takeoffs...that's where faith is usually "flushed out."

The ability to accept delay. Or disappointment. To smile back at setbacks and respond with a pleasant, understanding spirit. To cool it while others around you curse it. For a change, I refused to be hassled by today's delay. I asked God to keep me calm and cheerful, relaxed and refreshed. Know what? He did. He really did. No pills. No booze. No hocus-pocus. Just relaxing in the power of Jesus.

I can't promise you that others will understand. You see, I've got another problem now. Ever since takeoff I've been smiling at the stewardesses, hoping to encourage them. Just now I overheard one of them say to the other, "Watch that guy wearing glasses. I think he's had too much to drink."