Last year our youth minister, Mike Hollifield, and I were traveling to Sweden to teach at Holsby Brunn Bible ” School. As we left Nashville, the airline agent looked at our tickets with concern. “There’s a mistake here,” she said. “I’ll correct it or you may have trouble getting back.” After a few minutes at the computer, she handed us new tickets, smiled, and wished us a good trip.

But when we tried to return home two weeks later, we were told that she had inadvertently cancelled our west­bound flights. Our names were nowhere in the computers, and our tickets were worthless. After hours of negotiation and anxious waiting, we were finally squeezed onto an oversold flight and given the least desirable seats ever assigned by an airline. But as it happened, Mike was beside a Danish businessman who was open to hearing the gospel. For six long, transatlantic hours, Mike quietly talked with him about his life and about the wonderful difference Jesus Christ could make.

It wasn’t an example of airline incompetence; it was an instance of divine providence.

Robert J. Morgan, The Red Sea Rules. Nashville: Thomas Nelson Publishers, 2001, p. 87.