Note: This week's daily encouragement messages (as well as the last two messages from last week) are from a study prepared for our Crossroads Adult Bible Fellowship class this last Sunday based on teaching from 2 Timothy 4:1-8.

Message summary: Life's greatest transition, the time of our departure will come for us all. Are you prepared? Each of us is scheduled for a future departure. Though we don't know the time of our departure we can have an assurance of where we will arrive.

Listen to our message on your audio player.

"The time has come for my departure" (2 Timothy 4:6).

A common sight in airports is the constantly changing departure/arrival digital displays. If you are going somewhere you tend to check the departures. If you are waiting for someone you check the arrivals.

Imagine if we had access to such information for human departures, especially our own. That's a "flight" where we may welcome the "delayed" designation, depending on the circumstances, of course!

Daily prayer:  Faithful Father, we are a moment; You are forever;  Lord of the ages, God before time. We are a vapor, but You are eternal, love everlasting reigning on high. We are like grass and our glory is like the flowers of the field. The grass withers and the flowers fall, but Your word lasts for all eternity. Help us to prepare our souls not just for living here and now, but for eternity as well, when our mortal flesh will give way to immortality and we will join the angels choirs with all the redeemed singing, "Holy, Holy, Lord God Almighty. Worthy is the Lamb that was slain. Glory, praise, honor and blessing be unto Your name!" Amen.

Prayer inspired by lyrics of the song, "Be Unto Your Name"

Additional departure memory. My (Stephen) dad died in 1998. After he died I took my my brother to the KC airport where he flew back from Kansas City to eastern Pennsylvania where he pastored at that time. The TWA flight he was scheduled for was canceled so they put him on a Continental. This required going to a completely different terminal at the KC airport where my brother and I talked and had a cup of coffee. I bid him farewell and was walking through the terminal to catch a shuttle bus when I ran in to someone very special. I committed my life to Jesus in a meeting in Kansas City Missouri on a hot Sunday evening in August of 1971. The preacher that night was Lowell Lundstrom. Now nearly 27 years later I "by chance" ran into him at the KC airport. (He's not from the KC area, but was connecting to Minneapolis.) After telling him my story, he was thrilled to hear of a convert who had stayed the course, so perhaps I was a blessing to him as well. We walked back to my brother for a few minutes and he shared words of comfort with us regarding the passing of our father. His illustration was helpful and appropriate as he shared how my Dad took an earlier departure.  Isn't that an interesting perspective? After a few minutes of fellowship his flight boarded and our brief "chance encounter" ended. That was the last time I  ever saw him and he too is now with the Lord.

This brings to mind another airport chance encounter when my dad was still living but in need. I lived in New England at the time and had flown from Boston to KC connecting through Dallas, a huge very spread out airport. Getting off the plane I saw Dave Simpson, my best friend from 1st grade, who was traveling to Florida for business. We visited for a few minutes and had a pizza together. Dave is my longest term friend I have stayed connected with in life. He had his 70th birthday yesterday so I texted him and identified him by his childhood phone number, which I still have memorized. He texted back identifying me by my childhood phone number!