Time and Chance

I arrived at a church at 9:45 a.m. for the 10:00 a.m. service. The time was posted in a public directory and on the front window of the facility, but as the pastor welcomed me he said, “Services don’t start until 10:30.” I asked about the sign in the window and he said, “Oh we really should change that. People kept coming into church late, so we just moved the time to 10:30. An awkward situation, the pastor made an effort to introduce me to people as they came in; however, the reality is that for me, what should have been a two-hour worship service took three-hours. In my frustration Solomon reminded me, “I have seen something else under the sun: The race is not to the swift or the battle to the strong, nor does food come to the wise or wealth to the brilliant or favor to the learned; but time and chance happen to them all” (Ecc 9:11 NIV).