The best seat on the bus… + Storytime
Today, I’m getting back from work, standing right in front of my office building and waiting for a loading taxi to take me to the junction.
Finally, one comes along and there’s this young man also standing with me waiting for the cab. He opens the door and motions for me to sit. In my head, I’m like “Bro why? Sit down first erh.”
I have the slightest hint of hesitancy. I don’t like being squished, particularly because of my long legs. So, I’m hesitantly sliding in to sit anyway when I hear the ripping sound of fabric!
My jeans has ripped, people!
Ripped right between my left inner thigh down to just below the cup of my left bum.
I wanted to insult that son of Adam, but I didn’t. So I get to the junction and stylishly get out of the taxi. I’m low-key checking the damage level. And it’s bad, but not that bad, unless a nosy wizard wants to fixate on looking keenly at my bum…
I get into the bus towards my next stop (yes, I take 3 cars to get to work and back. Lord, my car must come na troski no d))so dodo). Anyway, I’m riding shotgun so I don’t have to overly get up when people need to alight, because it’s just two seats in the front.
Let’s skip the part where instead of picking my third car after alighting and going straight home, (that’s what a normal person who’s trousers is torn will do right? Go home! But no!) I head to a restaurant to grab a quiet dinner while watching something on Netflix because I’ve had a long week.
I need my me-time/space, ripped jeans or not…
So, I’ve finished and crossed the street for my third car. And I wanted to get the closest seat possible to the exit, and I try to but another son of Adam says it’s for the mate, which it isn’t. But I’m not about to argue with someone’s son.
I’m heading to the back of the bus for the seat on the right, by the window, just about to grumble about the discomfort and having to go to the back with my ripped jeans, when I hear the Holy Spirit say within me. “Hey, it’s okay. I saved you the best seat.”
“Hey, it’s okay. I saved you the best seat,” the Holy Spirit said…
The best seat? I didn’t understand but I sat anyway and there was good leg-room, which was a plus. When we got to one of the bus stops about 700m to my house, everyone alighted from the bus. Everyone.
Everyone alighted from the bus, leaving me as the only passenger. It was incredible!
So now it’s me, the driver and the mate alone. I’m shocked. I laugh out loud. There’s no one to see me get off the bus and remotely notice my torn jeans. The rest of the ride is more or less a chartered one. I drop off at the closest spot to my house, which the bus wouldn’t usually stop at, because it’s not a bus stop, and walk home. I ask my parents if they can see the tear on my jeans and they say no, but it’s there and if I bend down, a nosy person just might see.
The profound message for me in this, is the personalized conversation of the Holy Spirit to me. So kind and clear, I heard him speak “Hey, it’s okay. I saved you the best seat…”
God was looking out for me in a bad situation, an uncomfortable situation such as ripping my jeans when I still had almost a 2 hour commute in traffic home. Saving the best seat for me, even when I was about to grumble. It felt good to have him present in this too.
And you’d ask yourself, so if God could save me the best seat on the bus and make sure I was comfortable in an uncomfortable situation, then he sure had the power to save me the stress of having my jeans rip in the first place. Right?
It’s like asking, if God is such a good, kind God who is absolutely all powerful and all knowing, why would he let bad things happen to good people?
Well, while I have a whole lot of answers to that kind of question because I’ve asked God questions like that in my own melting moments, today I’d say the simplest thing:
Because if I didn’t rip my jeans, you for one wouldn’t be reading this…
If I didn’t rip my jeans, you wouldn’t be reading this, that’s for sure. I wouldn’t have had that encounter with the Holy Spirit in the bus and his assurance of his presence in that moment and even making a way for me.
God did a good thing, like this blog post through a bad thing. And it’ll be an encouragement to someone reading that God is saving the best seat for them also even in the chaos ripping apart of their lives.
Even in the discomfort, the disappointment, the pain, the betrayal, the heartbreak, the failed test, the miscarriage, the bad news, the lost job, the scary health diagnosis — through it all, God is here. He’s whispering his assuring word that “Hey, it’s okay. I saved the best seat for you…”
I cannot tell why everything happens in our lives the way they do, and I may not always know why God allows them. But I can say, that God will unequivocally use our lives and stories for his glory if we let him.
If we cultivate a close relationship with God, we can hear him speak to us about anything and everything at anytime. The other day, God spoke through a donkey, today he’s speaking through a wardrobe malfunction. God is always speaking if we can hear. And even his silences are full of answers.
So, my dear reader, no matter what you’re going through right now, I want to share this profound word with you, “Hey, it’s okay. God’s saved the best seat for you…”
P.S: We’ll be holding a cremation ceremony for my black jeans tomorrow. It’s lived a good full life, right from my University days to date. That black jeans is durable and tenacious. That jeans has outlasted all my relationships 🤣🤣 It deserves some accolades. Okay bye.
#robbiewrites @radiantrobbie 8.4.2022
