It didn't seem like a queue at the time and I guess I wasn't really in a hurry anywhere. After all I was only standing in a line and everyone else was only five years of age, but it was queue all the same. Since I hadn't been to see Santa Claus in the local store, this was really my first experience of queuing and psychologically it didn't have much effect on me. I suppose since that day, life has just been one long line of queues and I don't recall too many that I wanted to be part of. It probably all started with the dinner queue at school, then there was the queue for the school doctor and dentist, the queue at the little sweet shop across the road and then the line waiting to get on the school bus. From there it has deteriorated into getting into line at the supermarket, standing in a queue at the chip shop, being patient at a Starbucks, waiting for an cone from an ice cream van, taking your turn to get the car taxed, sitting at the barber's, the dentist's, the doctor's surgery, the solicitor's, the parent's evening at school and I haven't even got near the car yet. So if you're not stuck in a queue of cars in the middle of town, then you can be in exactly the same predicament on the motorway, exiting from a car park, waiting to refill with fuel at a petrol station, idling in line until the car can have an MOT test or slowly inching forward to get a parking space at the shopping mall on a bank holiday.But I reckon I've discovered one or two things about queuing. First of all, if there are two queues on the motorway, you always think that the one you are not in is moving faster than the one you chose to join. Of course the problem is that plenty of other folk are thinking the same thing as you so when you eventually decide to switch queues, you discover, because others have done the same, that your queue is now the slowest moving. Secondly, it's not always the best policy to join the shorter queue. I discovered this while going through passport control when wife, who had gone into a longer and what appeared to be slower moving queue, gently edged her way alongside my queue and then passed through several minutes before I did, simply because her control clerk was speedier than the one checking my passport. Thirdly, when you are standing in a queue, nothing is more annoying than a queue jumper. You know the sort that drives up the outside lane as if he didn't know what was happening ahead and then signals to squeeze in further up the line, thus pushing you even further back down the queue. It was the same at grammar school when we were in the junior forms and the senior prefects were allowed to walk straight to the front of the line and lift their lunch. Strangely I didn't find it so annoying when I was a senior and did the same thing! Fourthly, queues are really annoying when you don't know exactly how many people are in front of you. Haven't you joined the line at a concert or a ride in a theme park and it snakes its ways around the corner, into the building and up and down hastily constructed aisles and the queue you joined was only the tip of the iceberg? Or have you not being hanging on the end of a telephone, while some nice recorded lady tells you every few minutes, 'you are moving up the queue and your call will be dealt with shortly'? Fifthly, and most obviously, queues are not at all stressful if you're either not in one or if you are not in a hurry. Isn't it lovely to be driving along the other side of the motorway and see all those cars stuck in a jam?
Anyway queues teach me one thing, more than any other, patience. Solomon, the writer of Proverbs had plenty to say on the subject when he wrote in chapter 14 'A patient man has great understanding, but a quick-tempered man displays folly' and then again in chapter 15 'A hot-tempered man stirs up dissension, but a patient man calms a quarrel.' David, his father and Psalm writer records in chapter 40 'I waited patiently for the LORD; he turned to me and heard my cry' while Paul reminds the church at Ephesus to 'Be completely humble and gentle; be patient, bearing with one another in love.' However Peter tells us that there is one who has greater patience than all of us, despite our reluctance to follow the path He has given us, for he writes 'The Lord is not slow in keeping his promise, as some understand slowness. He is patient with you, not wanting anyone to perish, but everyone to come to repentance.' Clearly Jesus will keep that promise to return fro those who have believed in Him but His patience is giving those who are still beyond the Kingdom, an opportunity to be saved. Of course the good news is that you don't have to stand in a queue and wait, for Jesus is ready at any time to be your Saviour. With God you're always at the front of the queue
