Doug the Gatekeeper!

Last Thursday & Friday I was privileged to attend my 2nd Willow Creek Global Leadership Summit in Detroit [satellite site] with my son. It would be an understatement to say that I enjoyed, and was enriched, by this conference. I was attending with my son and a few others from his church. Thursday morning we got lost on our way to the conference and ended up being 20 minutes late; after we turned into the parking lot an usher, Doug, told us where to park the van. After we parked the van and almost in the church before we encountered Doug again; now being this late there's hardly anyone around and Doug mentioned that being late it might have been nice for the driver[my son] to have dropped us off at the door. Doug's remarks were fodder for a comical conversation between the group as we chided my son on his actions. After we had gone to lunch we were returning for the afternoon session, and again we were late ... and who should we see entering the parking lot ....Doug the Gatekeeper! Doug had some further observations to make, regarding the fact that again my son had refused to be courteous to the rest of us and drop us at the door.
The next morning [Friday] we didn't see Doug as we entered the parking lot - but Doug saw us! My son and the other guys thought we had entered the church without being seen by Doug, however the young lady and myself did encounter Doug, to which he mentioned that he had noted my son once again hadn't dropped us at the door. She and I had a good laugh over it, and when we were returning to our van to go to lunch mentioned to the rest of the group our encounter with Doug, and had a good laugh.I felt somewhat sympathetic towards Doug, because despite his attempts not once in those two days did we get dropped at the door. On Friday, near the close of the summit it is customary to have all the volunteers come and stand around the front so that we can recognize them and show our appreciation ............ well, we were sitting on the front row, and guess who stood right near us in the volunteers line - yeppers, DOUG THE GATEKEEPER!. What a paradox we must have seemed to him, the notoriously late ones sitting on the front row??! Inspite of all the fun we had at Doug's expense, his remembering us did remind us, that no matter how far off course we stray, no matter how late we may be God is always looking out for us! ... oh by the way, Doug, I pray God's richest on you and those you love.