Don’t Fumble Your Favor…

In September of 2022, I was traveling and on my way to the airport … because I left out with more than enough time, I stopped at McDonald’s to get something to eat because I didn’t eat before I left. So I go to McDonald’s and order my food, I get to the window and the man takes my card.

He says it’s going to be a wait because he was waiting for the card machine to come back up. He sits it on the counter, I can see it through the window. I’m not in a rush and it’s like 4:30 in the morning so I said okay and was just waiting.

He goes to get my food, comes back, and also hands me my card back. He says “I’ll have to charge you next time, it’s still not back up…” Then he asks if I come around there a lot. It was by O’Hare airport so of course I told him no I don’t and that I was only out that way this day because I was traveling. He says “ohh okay… it’s fine. Go ahead.“

Y’all my McDonalds was free… that was a blessing & the favor of God because money was tight & I’d been particular about what I spent it on. So I was immediately grateful and all I could say was “thank You, Lord!”

I was reminded in that moment about a Morning Meets with God with Apostle Raine where the word of the Lord was that He was just handing out favor to His people because He wanted to. That was at least a week before this and so the MMwG family had been doing favor reports when it was presented. At the time, I hadn’t experienced anything crazy that I thought was favor, but the Lord spoke to that too and reminded me of even the subtle things He’d been doing in that moment.

Fast forward back to this travel day… the free food happened, I was grateful, and declaring that day to be a day of favor.

I told y’all I was traveling right? Did I say what for? No?

Okay, I was traveling to Evergreen, Alabama for the ReFresh Evergreen Project through ReFresh Global NFP/The ReFresh Institute. I had to bring some art supplies because I was teaching. Because it was only for two days, I didn’t need many clothes and packed a carryon so my art supplies & clothes were in the same bag. Just the night before I left, I made sure that all of my toiletries were travel size so I wouldn’t have any problems at security. I was sure that I'd changed everything over and was ready to go. I got to the airport and check-in on the kiosk and it asked me if I wanted to check my carryon for free because there may be limited overhead space on my flight… I said no and proceeded. I ended up having to use the kiosk twice because I like to print my tickets, but forgot to the first time.

Y’all… I went through the whole process again and there it was again: do you want to check your carryon for free? There may be limited overhead space… yes or no? Again, I said no and wondered why it kept asking me that. I didn’t want to check my bag because I had a connecting flight that I had to make and I wanted to make sure my things got to my final destination safely -- my camera & gimbal was also in my carryon because I was doing some content capturing that weekend too so I knew it wouldn’t get thrown around or damaged if I had it. I had multiple, what could be considered logical, reasons to not want to check my bag. So again, I said no.

I went through security and they pulled my bag for a search… I didn't think anything of it and agreed to have it checked. Y’all… what they pulled out was some of my paint. I had multiple bottles, some small but about 4 of them were the big ones and I remembered in that moment that I grabbed them thinking that I wouldn’t have to worry if I had the big bottles of base colors because it’d be enough for me and whoever else was in my session. I didn’t think of their size when I packed them in my carryon. Completely forgot. So when I got to security, they asked me what I wanted to do — throw them away or check the bag. I said I’ll check the bag because I need my paint… cause I’m going to teach a painting class. The man walks me back to the check-in point and says you know it’ll cost money & I said yeah, but it gave me the option to check it for free. He said why didn’t you and I said because it would be easier for me to keep it with me. I go back to the kiosk and try to check the bag and it’s no longer giving me the option for free. I even asked at the desk and they said I’d have to do it with the kiosk. Discouraged, I tried again and it was gone. I was going to have to pay.. what I ended up doing was opening my bag and throwing the larger bottles of paint in the garbage. I went back through security and they asked me where my paint was because I came back with the bag. I said I threw it away because it’s cheaper to buy more paint than it is to pay to check my bag. I wasn’t distraught, but I was definitely a little annoyed by it.

I made it to my gate and realized it was the favor of the Lord that I was being given the option to check my bag for free — I wouldn’t have had to pay nor would I have had to throw my paints away. I said to myself, “The double asking was favor of the Lord… dang, I fumbled the favor.” I realized the favor, but after it was too late… then tried to go back and get it.

This situation really spoke to me because how many times in our lives have we overlooked the favor of God because we thought we didn’t need it? For whatever logical, sensible reasons we came up with or whatever understanding our finite minds could fathom. I think moments like this are where it’s determined that we further need to examine our trust in the Lord. Not because we don’t trust Him, but because we think ourselves out of Him. If our minds are renewed (Romans 12:2) and we have the mind of Christ, we shouldn’t have a problem thinking the favor of God and living according to it.