Late Again!

Do nothing from rivalry or conceit, but in humility count others more significant than yourselves.

Philippians 2:3

Drink some water, look at the menu, drink some more water, clean out my purse, study the menu, people watch. What are you supposed to do when someone is late for an appointment over a meal? It’s even harder if the meeting is someplace like an office or a Starbucks, no water and no menu, though you might find a newspaper or magazine there.

Do you hate waiting for people as much as I do? It’s not like I’m never late for anything but I do try hard not to do it to others because I hate it so much.

Many times as I’m leaving home it will “feel” like I have plenty of time and I think of one more call I could make, one more thing I could accomplish before I go, or one more paragraph I could get written. My experience is that when I go for it, when I try to get it done, I arrive at the appointment late. These things always take more time than I estimate they will. I end up apologizing and feeling terrible about it.

I never think of being late as a sin, not even when I am the one waiting. But, someone once pointed out to me that being habitually late is very selfish. It sends a clear message to the other person that their time is not as valuable as my own, that “what I have to do is more important than what you have to do.”

We were meeting a couple for dinner once and they were more than half an hour late. One of them called at the time we were to meet to say they would be late. Once they arrived we learned the other one had decided to nap before they came. I was stunned by that. I didn’t care about the nap but why wasn’t the call early enough that we could have had that extra time at home? It was baffling to me. We probably won’t meet them for dinner out someplace again.

We live in a day and time when life  seems busier than ever. Communication is constant and an instant reply is expected because we carry the tools with us all the time. We are hurrying from one place to the next and rarely feel like we can postpone our response or say “no” to anyone. But, I wonder if all the frenzy is making us less considerate of others. We do feel busy, we feel like everything we have to do is important, but is it so important that we are willing to waste someone else’s time while we get it done?

It may seem like a minor issue to some. But, because I want to respect others, because I want to do as God says and consider others more significant than myself, it is my goal to be more realistic about my time.

I like to think of myself as someone who does consider others more important than myself but if I’m not living that out, the truth is clear. If I am letting someone wait for me while I accomplish “one more thing” then I am wasting their time. My Mom taught me from the time I was a small child not to do to others what I don’t want them to do to me!  The Bible teaches the same thing.