I admit it, but here is something about me and queues. How else can you explain why only yesterday a gentleman should stop and inform me in a random way that he had carefully calculated how long he had spent in traffic queues on the M42 by the time he retired and worked out that it was two and a half years!
Airport queues are designed for sanctification. In order to speed up the laborious process of checking in you now do that yourself online so all you have to do when reaching the airport is join the queue for the 'fast bag drop'. However because almost everybody checks themselves in these days it has in reality become the slow bag drop and it's actually quicker to join the shorter queue where the airport staff still check you in. But either queue is usually a training exercise in patience because someone ahead of me manages to remain at the counter for so long that I begin to lose the will to live. At some point while this is happening (and it always does seem to happen), I observe to my wife that people must have more interesting lives than I do that they can spend so much time talking, discussing, gesticulating and creating the need for endless telephone calls to be made. Come on; just check in. However yesterday I had the reverse experience checking in at Budapest Airport when the lady at the desk informed us we weren't booked for the flight at all. Immediately there was a feeling of minor (well actually major) panic. I could see us stuck in Budapest Airport for days on end while governments tried to sort out our repatriation. On such occasions my wife always helpfully refers to the lack of any clean, but necessary items of clothing that we need. Anyway, the resulting discussions, conferences with other colleagues sitting by, and the numerous phone calls before it was sorted out did provide me with a certain satisfaction that probably in the queue behind husbands were saying to their wives, 'what an interesting life they must have.'
But the worst are Bank queues. Today was typical. I went to pay in a cheque, but then I was stuck in a queue of three people for over 15 minutes. At Number 1 counter was a Muslim couple already in place before I even entered the Bank and looking as though they had been there so long that they had actually grown old in the process. Their business which was not concluded even when I left the Bank seemed to involve mobile phone calls to Jeddah with the Bank assistant shouting down the couple's phone followed by more earnest discussion with the couple themselves while anguished shouts were still audible through the phone for all of us in the queue to enjoy if only we had spoken Arabic. This left only one counter open. A lady approached it while in loud conversation on her mobile phone, carried out several transactions with the assistant while continuing to talk on the phone and eventually left with the phone conversation still in full swing. Incredible! Next up the gentleman in front of me who was busy texting on his mobile phone, who then propped it up against the counter and while continuing to send and receive texts carried out what seemed quite complicated transactions with the poor lady behind the counter. 'Sorry to keep you waiting' she said as my turn came and I eased myself past the Muslim couple who were by now for some reason writing messages in Arabic on bits of paper. 'Don't worry', I said, 'I don't have an interesting life', and in 30 seconds I was gone.
So what I sometimes think about is the Day that all people will appear before the great white throne as detailed in Revelation 20. That will involve some queue. But it will be a queue which will witness judgement, grace and glory. Our focus will be on the one seated on the throne and it will be one queue that Believers could be happy to be in for eternity.