Perhaps you’ve never experienced a close call and you may not even believe in divine intervention.
Well, I’ve had a few close calls in my life and I do believe that Almighty God is still at work in this world that He has created for His purpose, our benefit and His glory!
Let me share a few of my close calls without going into much detail.
The first one that always comes to mind was that small piece of shrapnel lodged less than two feet above my head late one evening during a mortar attack in Vietnam on our base camp in the Spring of 1967.
I distinctly recall thanking God and then totally focusing on my duties as the battalion communications officer that next day.
Then my four-day hospital stay in December 1992 came to mind. Upon being advised that staying home without proper treatment could well end in my demise, I gladly admitted myself into Santa Barbara Cottage Hospital.
Double pneumonia can be fatal if not properly treated. My physician, Dr. Rick Danson, shared the account of Jim Henson dying from very similar complications less than a year before my diagnosis.
Then again, my five-day stay in the COVID-19 intensive care unit at Cottage Hospital at the ripe age of 77 may well have been the closest I came to facing death.
Yes, the COVID ICU staff was amazing, but I soon realized God was not finished with me yet! During those five days His Holy Spirit filled me with His unexplainable peace and grace.
All this pales in comparison with what former President Donald Trump recently endured in Butler, Pennsylvania. That nearly fatal bullet came within a few centimeters of ending his life.
What’s most significant about his near-death experience is how he’s apparently handled it all. With grace and a certain calmness unbecoming the man, I for one believe he has been transformed into a more compassionate and caring person.
Few in the political arena demonstrate God’s grace.
Scripture gives us examples of many who have been struck down in some fashion by the Lord.
The Apostle Paul experienced this on the Road to Damascus. God’s grace immediately came upon him and he was miraculously turned from a zealous persecutor of Christ’s followers into perhaps the greatest defender of the faith. God used him to write much of the New Testament.
The story of Jonah describes God’s pursuit of one of His anointed, who totally ignored His call to evangelize the wicked King and people of Ninevah.
According to Scripture, Jonah spent three days in the belly of a great fish before being spewed out of the fish’s mouth. Only after this dramatic ordeal did Jonah obey God’s demands.
The king and all the people of Ninevah not only repented, but worshiped God Almighty because Jonah finally obeyed his Lord’s call.
Perhaps you will one day face a close call. In fact, I suspect many of you will do so in God’s perfect time.
Here’s the question you will need to ask: “What must I do Lord?”
Yes, He has a plan for you!