Published: 06-20-2023

Author: Luke Arthur

“God, What is it you are doing in my life?”

These are the words I spoke quietly to myself as I stood by the runway watching my good friend take to the sky for his long flight back home after briefly visiting me. It may seem strange why this moment might make me ask this question, so lets step back a few hours.

It’s midnight, and I wake with a start. I’m not sure what woke me at first. Looking over at my bedside I notice my phone is lit up with a text message. Picking it up I feel my heart pound in my chest a little. “I just sent you an email”. It’s from my fiencé, and I wonder why she would be up sending me a message at midnight. A little worried, but mostly confused I open my email inbox and sure enough, there is a brand new email. Reading it my heart sinks in my chest, and my eyes begin to cloud over. In the long message two words have me frozen. “we’re through”.

”God, what did I do wrong? Why did this happen? Why now?”

As I lay in bed, I felt a tumultuous mixture of emotions welling up inside. Anger, sadness, regret, pain, they gather together turning my stomach in knots and all I could do was whisper over and over, “God, Help!”

Somehow I fell asleep, but it was a troubled and long night. I kept waking up half expecting that it was just a dream, or that there was an apology awaiting me, but the nightmare sank into a realization of reality as the night drew on.

A new text message came in:

  • 5:25am - Brendon:
    Hey Buddy! You awake?

  • Me:
    Yeah

  • Brendon:
    You in Michigan?

  • Me:
    Yeah, that I am.

  • Brendon:
    You busy today?

  • Me:
    Well now you're making me wonder...

  • Brendon:
    I want to come see you!

At this point I was really starting to get confused. It’s 5:30am (4:30am for him), and he’s talking about traveling 800 miles seemingly just to see me.

I didn’t know what was going on, but decided just to go along with it and see what was up. We made arrangements, and just after noon I went out to the local airport and picked him up. His small airplane kissed the runway and as I saw him taxi in I could for a brief moment forget some of the turmoil in my mind. His greeting was warm and friendly and all seemed natural, but still, I couldn’t figure why he would fly all this way just to see me.

Walking back to my car amid bits of conversation I tried to run over in my head all the possible reasons for his visit.

Could he have found out about the breakup already?

Of course that would be impossible. It had only happened four hours before his text, and in the middle of the night. Maybe he had some business proposal. Maybe he really did just want to make a day trip of 1600 miles for a day off.

”I’ve had some concerns about your engagement and wanted to speak with you about them face to face.”

Out of the blue as we drove through town the words hit me like a ton of bricks. That explained the sudden, and seemingly unreasonable trip. It also gave me a huge amount of respect. Here was someone who cared enough about me that he would travel halfway across the country just to have a meaningful conversation about a concern.

”We broke up. Last night.” The words caught in my throat, and I could feel the emotions from the night before coming back, though this time much more manageable.

He looked at me with a blank expression on his face, and for a second all I heard were the tires on the road. “wait… what time was this? You say this was last night?”.

”It was midnight. Midnight last night.” For a moment there was again silence before he answered.

”I woke up last night just after midnight, and I couldn’t sleep the rest of the night. Something in me kept telling me to go and talk to Luke, now.”

A different kind of emotion started to fill my heart. The realization was hitting me.

God directly answered my prayer, even as I was still asking.

As I asked God for help, he sent it.

Brendon continued. “I didn’t want to come. I said to myself ‘This is ridicules. Luke is fine. I mean what would he think if I just showed up out of the blue to tell him I’m concerned about his engagement. This is truly ridicules.’ Somehow though I couldn’t let the thought go until this morning and 5:20am I gave in. I said “Fine! God, if i’m supposed to go, I’ll go.”

As Crazy as all this was, God wasn’t done with me yet that day.

As our time together wore on, and we talked, I found myself being jolted to reality and the sense of God’s direct leading once again. “Luke, you know it’s pretty crazy, and I wasn’t going to mention this to you, but my wife and I have felt ourselves called to the mission field, and I believe maybe god is calling you too.” My mind lurched to full attention.

I sent up a quick prayer, “God, are you doing this twice today? Are you shutting one door and opening the next?”

I realized that this was not the first time God had brought the mission field to my attention. It was just that before I had been too preoccupied with my own plans to notice.

Several weeks earlier, missionary news struck close to home as a friend was lost to the service of others through a tragic accident, and at the time I had felt the call to go. I had remembered that the more the devil would destroy, the more the Lord would send out, and I had wondered if God was sending me, but then I had said to myself “no, I am starting a family in just a few months. This isn’t the time. It would be too hard.”

A few days later someone approached me at church and mentioned the need in the field stating that they wished they could go. Again I felt the call, and again I gave excuses.

Finally a close friend of mine, and a pastor mentioned it to me. They said perhaps the Lord was calling me. by this point I was pretty sure God was, but I still was stubborn and would not admit it.

Now, here I stood hearing Brendon, from half way across the country, reinforce this same call again. How many times could I ignore it?

I knew I had to take God seriously. He’d already shown me even that day, that He was with me. The question was, would I be with Him. Would I listen to His spirit, or would I plow my own way?

Standing on the airport ramp with the cold wind turning my cheeks red, and the sound of Brendon’s little airplane disappearing into the distance, I knew I had to step out, and see what it was God would do with my life.

- Luke Arthur