Philadelphia?

            One beautiful Saturday morning as my husband and I strolled down a neighborhood street near our home in Queens, New York, the letter carrier pulled up beside us in his mail truck. We couldn’t imagine why he needed help locating anything—that’s his job: to know where everything is so he can make deliveries. Neither could we understand why he was laughing so hard. It was rather mysterious, until he explained.

            He’d been about his work when a car pulled up alongside him and the passengers quite seriously asked him: “Is this Philadelphia?”

            Were they serious, he wondered.  No, they couldn’t be! How could anyone be that far off in travel calculations?

            By their faces the letter carrier realized that the travelers were indeed serious. They thought they were in Philadelphia! In actuality they were ninety-three miles past their destination and had travelled two hours longer than they needed to!

            So no doubt, with amusement that would have been hard to suppress, the carrier told them, “No, you’re in Queens, New York!”

            The story sounds unbelievable, doesn’t it? Perhaps you’ve driven past an exit, like I have, or missed a turn because you were going too fast, but ninety-three miles is hard to believe.

            Or is it?

            My church friend Temeka might have ended up in New York on her way to Philadelphia.

            In the past year or so Temeka has experienced some traumatic circumstances that would severely challenged anyone. She also underwent foot surgery once, then a second time in the attempt to accomplish what the first surgery failed to do. Times were bleak, she shared a few months ago in a sermon. 

Tears, frustration, helplessness. She’d been on her way to Philadelphia—studying, serving, moving forward. Then wham! The unexpected, the unfair, the unthinkable broke into her life, circumstances that could have caused her to lose her way. She could have gone a long way off course—bitterness, resentment, loss of faith and hope. She could have completely despaired and ended up a hundred miles away from her Philadelphia.

But she didn’t. Instead God kept her on course. Today, as I talked with Temeka, she told me about the kids on her street. They love coming to her house, hearing about God, praying. And guess what? They want a ride to church. If Temeka is uncertain about the plans for a Jesus movie event, the kids are knocking on her door.

I think those kids have kept Temeka on the road to Philadelphia. She could have ignored the knocking on the door; she could have refused at any point to let them help clean out her garage so they could hang out there to hear about Jesus. But she couldn’t; they wouldn’t let her.

And Temeka is getting to Philadelphia. She is finding healing, hope, usefulness, and God’s love as she gives and receives love from the kids on her street. Who is rescuing whom? God knows.

Are you trying to get to Philadelphia? Have events in your journey thrown you off course and directed you to Queens, New York? Perhaps you have felt like you should have been in Philadelphia already, and you feel off course. Maybe you know you’re off course and you are deliberately driving toward New York.

New York will never do, if you are going to Philadelphia. God gave Temeka a course correction in an unusual way, and he would do that for you, too. He’s done it for me. Why not ask him to help you get you on the road to your Philadelphia, the place he wants for you to be, no matter how off course you’ve gotten?