In their hearts humans plan their course, but the Lord establishes their steps. (Prov. 16:9)

A few months ago, I flew from Oklahoma City to New Orleans for a work conference. After hearing so much about delays and problems with flights over the last few years, I wasn’t looking forward to it.

Thankfully, the delays I experienced were minor, and I got to my destination only five minutes later than planned. The longest delay occurred when I arrived and couldn’t find my luggage. I watched the conveyer belt for my lime green suitcase (you can’t miss it!), but it never appeared. The Uber driver who was taking me to the conference hotel called every ten minutes or so as he circled the airport, waiting for me to emerge. Finally, when the conveyer belt stopped moving, I realized that my suitcase wasn’t coming out. I found an airline representative, who went into the back to check for me, and thirty seconds later she wheeled my suitcase out.

Delays in life are inevitable. Do we handle them with anger and annoyance? Or with patience and calm? If you’re like me, it depends on what causes the delay and how long it takes. Usually, there’s a mixture of emotions—first anger at the delay, and then worry as reality sets in and I realize I can’t do anything about it. Calm acceptance happens much later, often after a delay is resolved and I’ve moved on.

In the Bible, Jesus experienced numerous delays as he traveled around the countryside teaching, healing, and connecting with people. Instead of letting the delays annoy him, he used these delays to teach lessons and reiterate how much God loves us.

A good example of this occurred in Mark 5:21–43. Jairus, a synagogue ruler, asked Jesus to heal his daughter. On his way there, Jesus was stopped by a woman who had been bleeding for twelve years. There are many significant things about this story, but today I want to focus on how Jesus healed her, even though this wasn’t in his plan for the day, and this delay cost Jairus’s daughter her life. By the time Jesus arrived, Jairus’s daughter was dead. But this allowed Jesus to demonstrate his great power, and he raised the girl back to life.

When the unwell woman touched Jesus’s garment, he had a decision to make—he could stop and address what had just happened, or he could ignore it and move on. After all, he was on a mission—a good mission—so he could have kept going.

He chose to stop. To allow the delay, because he knew what it would mean to the woman who, according to the custom of the day, shouldn’t have been out in public with an illness like hers. Who probably hadn’t been out in over a decade because she was considered “unclean.” But when she heard Jesus was passing through her area, she decided to take a chance because she knew, with absolute certainty, that Jesus could help her.

And in that delay, Jesus spoke directly to the woman, seeing her, acknowledging her faith, calling her “daughter,” and healing her.

The next time I’m faced with a delay, I pray that I’ll recognize the chance I’ve been given, and that I will see it as an opportunity to do something good. That I will stop even though it wasn’t in my plans for the day, and that I will see what’s going on around me and how I can be of service.

Dear Jesus, thank you for the delays that beset us, even when we don’t recognize them as the gifts they are. Help us to see them as opportunities to help others and to respond in the same way that you would. Amen.