Surprise?

The kingdom of God is like a king who decided to square accounts with his servants. As he got under way, one servant was brought before him who had run up a debt of a hundred thousand dollars. He couldn't pay up, so the king ordered the man, along with his wife, children, and goods, to be auctioned off at the slave market.

    The poor wretch threw himself at the king's feet and begged, 'Give me a chance and I'll pay it all back.' Touched by his plea, the king let him off, erasing the debt.

    The servant was no sooner out of the room when he came upon one of his fellow servants who owed him ten dollars. He seized him by the throat and demanded, 'Pay up. Now!'

       The poor wretch threw himself down and begged, 'Give me a chance and I'll pay it all back.' But he wouldn't do it. He had him arrested and put in jail until the debt was paid. When the other servants saw this going on, they were outraged and brought a detailed report to the king.

       The king summoned the man and said, 'You evil servant! I forgave your entire debt when you begged me for mercy. Shouldn't you be compelled to be merciful to your fellow servant who asked for mercy?' The king was furious and put the screws to the man until he paid back his entire debt." Matthew 18:23-35 (Message)

This may be a familiar story to many of you as it was to me but today it means something more to me. As you already know I am going to Korea to teach English, that adventure embarked this morning at 5:15 from Winnipeg. So instead of driving in at an unearthly hour we came in the day before and had a nice family dinner at The Olive Garden and the stayed the night at a hotel near the airport. This made for an unappreciated but bearable 4:00 wake up call.

One tricky thing about this flight was that I needed to interview at the Korean Embassy in Toronto in order to get my visa. This meant having a long enough layover to go to the Embassy and get back to the airport. Thankfully(?) I had 14 hour layover. I went to the Embassy and with a lot of time and little trouble I got my visa, I allows me in to Korea to teach. As you can imagine I made it back to the airport with plenty of time to spare.

In the past week leading up to this flight I have realized that my travel day will be 34 hours which is a very long day. So to ease this I looked in to using miles to upgrade to business class so that I might be able to get a bit more rest. After my flight was booked I was told that I didn't have the right ticket to upgrade so that meant flying in Economy which would get me there but perhaps not with the rest I could have. 

So this is where Matthew 18 comes in, having looked at all the options I resigned to the fact that I would be flying economy, but when I checked in they said that they had a treat for me, I would be flying Prestige which is Korean Air business class! Imagine my surprise! Boy was I grateful... until I found out that it did not include free use the lounge. I threw a fit... well not really but I did not have an attitude of gratitude. Thankfully my story doesn't end with me selling my family in to slavery and getting tortured for the rest of my life.

The golden ticket:

It was just a reminder to be thankful for the things that God does allow in to our lives. What does this look like in your life?

Any sweet stories that I am missing from home?

This joke is about tickets:

Three lawyers and three engineers were travelling by train to a conference. At the station, each lawyer bought a ticket whereas the engineers bought only one ticket between them.
How are you going to travel on a single ticket?. asked a lawyer.
Wait and watch, answered one of the engineers.
When they boarded the train, the lawyers took their seats, but the three engineers crammed into a toilet and closed the door behind them. Shortly after the train started, the ticket collector arrived. He knocked on the toilet door and asked, .Ticket please.. The door opened just a crack and a single arm emerged with a ticket in hand. The ticket collector took it and moved on. Seeing this, the lawyers decided to the same thing on the return trip.
So when they got to the station, they bought only one ticket. To their astonishment, the engineers didn.t buy any. .How are you going to travel without a ticket?. asked one of the perplexed lawyers.
Wait and watch, answered an engineer.
In the train, the three engineers crammed into a toilet and the three lawyers into another nearby. Soon after the train started, one of the engineers got out of the toilet and walked to one where the lawyers were hiding.
He knocked on the door and said, .Ticket, please...