Laughter

One dark evening in 1991, I sat on a park bench atop Prayer Mountain.  No, not Pastor Cho’s Prayer Mountain in Seoul, Korea, but a 20-foot high mound located in a tiny Japanese garden near our home in Tokyo.  The pine and oak trees that towered overhead made the evening appear even gloomier.

But the worst gloom was inside me.  I felt so shattered.  The focusing muscles around my eyes filled my days with pain and fatigue.  Office work was torture and writing, impossible.  I simply didn’t know what to do.  So I decided to give up my missionary assignment and return to the USA.

Back to the Tokyo version of Prayer Mountain.  About eighty feet to my right lay a train track for diesel-powered engines.  Two hundred feet to my left lay tracks for electric-powered trains.  Well, God decided to exert his almighty sense of humor to perk me up.

I heard in the distance the distinct whistle of a diesel freight train.  Then a clattering electric passenger train approached; a second passenger train came from the opposite direction on another track, and, believe it or not, a third passenger train showed up.  A diesel freight train about eighty feet to my right and three electric passenger trains on my left!  The noise level soared.  But that’s not all.  A large twin engine U.S. Navy plane roared overhead.  I hadn’t heard such noise in all my life.

“God, time out!  Even you can’t hear me over this noise!”  I began laughing at the circumstances orchestrated by the Lord.  Only a supreme Creator could synchronize the arrival of four trains and an airplane at a tiny Japanese garden in Tokyo.

As the noise subsided and the evening calm returned, his presence visited me.  My inner gloom evaporated as I considered the great love of the Lord who sent four trains and an airplane to remind me of his control.  Is God good or what!

The One who always gives me the best of everything also  equips me to give the best of myself to him!