A man much smarter than me told me in this life you get one chance to show up. Either you are on time. Or you are late. Not once will you be early.

Crossroads like this? I’ve sat at many, many times, wondering what my next move is. This is where I’ve been, more times than I care to count in fifty some-odd years. Poor choices are made more than good ones. I either hesitate to move. Or worse. I overthink it. Then I stand there, watching the moment pass, wondering why I didn’t do it differently.

A trip to India was one of those times. I got that one right.

I had everything. Supplies packed. Materials organized. Bags checked and rechecked. I prepared for that trip the way you prepare for something that matters, which means I buried myself in the details and forgot the most important one. I had no contact. No name. No phone number. No photograph. No email address. Nothing that would connect me to the person I flew halfway around the world to find.

I never thought about it until I was almost 24 hours into my travels, already in-country, far from my own.

The humidity was somewhat familiar. Hit. Sticky. Uncomfortable, but not impossible to deal with. Then the smells. Cultural, like the burning of trash everywhere, toxic plastic smoke floating through the humid air. Sounds of high whining engines, horns, high pitched and off key from the U.S. in a city that had no idea people like me existed, my skin color a novelty. I took a domestic flight arriving in a remote location where Americans did not travel. Or Europeans. I stepped off that plane and felt like Waldo. Goofy stocking cap. Glasses. Completely out of place.

And now? I was running through an imaginary checklist of what to do next.

I could take my phone out of airplane mode. That thought terrified me. I could call home, except my team was in California and it was 2 a.m. there, which meant 4 a.m. Central. That would help me very little. I could send an email. Same result.

So I stood there.

And I asked myself the only question that actually mattered.

Would God really bring me halfway around the world to die in a foreign country?

No.

So I prayed.

And waited.

Four hours later, my guy arrived. He had serious car trouble. A mechanic somewhere close by was finishing a repair job that had nothing to do with me and everything to do with me. Before the car was ready, he took a taxi to the terminal, found the only person who looked like Waldo, and took me back to the mechanic who finished the car. Then we drove another five hours to a hotel that would be my home for the next twenty-three days.

He was on time.

Just not my time.

Showing up means you skip the alarm, the day planner, schedules, or appointments. Your only decision? Walk through the door when it opens. God shows up on time. He comes in the exact moment he needs to, showing you how much he loves you. The only question he asks is are you still there? Are you ready to go?