A man once told me that he was the only survivor from a motor car crash. There were three of them in the vehicle but on impact he was thrown out onto the ground suffering relatively minor injuries. He said, “Somebody was watching over me that day.” An ex-World War Two navigator in a bomber aircraft shared how he was one of two men who survived a crash when their plane got hit coming back from a bombing raid over Germany. As he lifted his eyes to the sky he said, “The man upstairs made a last-minute decision. He didn’t want us!” When I asked each one if they had given further thoughts to the reality of “somebody” and “the man upstairs” both said they had not.
An old soldier from that same war smiled at me as he shared of his participation in the battle at El Alamein and said, “God only took the good ones, so that left no room for me.” Another one briefly shared of his horrific experiences as a prisoner of war to the Japanese. Subjected to the cruelest from them, he said, “How I survived that I have no idea. It was a miracle.” So I asked these men the same question as the other two mentioned here and they gave the same answer. I praise God that I was spared from judging these four men though, because there was a time when I thought or said similar things to events much less dramatic in my own life, but I too left it at that.
One day I was driving in an agitated state of mind in busy city traffic. Paying more attention to my problem than my driving I reacted far too late to avoid hitting a vehicle turning directly in front of me. Neither of us were breaking speed limits but as I hit the brakes I simply knew in that brief moment of time that there was just no way I was not going to hit that car. I was wrong. I did not hit it. The experience is hard to describe, but as I could hear the tyres screeching before impact, it was as though superman came out of the sky and stepped between me and the other car, bringing mine to a stand-still as we see him do it in the movies.
At the time I was not a believer or follower of the Lord Jesus Christ, but as I continued on swearing and cursing the other driver, I distinctly remember thinking that it was divine intervention that I experienced that day – perhaps a powerful angel of some kind. That thought remained with me for a long time. It was always great to share the experience of the event with others when talking about near hits and misses on the road, but like the men before me here, it did not make me curious to seek out if there really was a God who was willing to come to the aid of people in such a practical way.
My family and I drove to the country for the weekend. Along the way we stopped to view the picturesque scene of a dam. Cars were parked on the roadside which was also the dam wall and although the traffic was travelling reasonably slow past us all, it was fast enough to do serious harm if anyone were to step out. Our eldest daughter was about six years old at the time and for some reason she decided to go to the opposite side of the road. We looked up in a split-second to see a car coming towards her. There was nothing to do but panic and yell her name.
For all appearances it looked as though she was going to get hit. The car was too close for her not to, but she did not. There was no adjustment to the speed of that vehicle, but as it kept coming she seemed to stop in a freeze condition. Although that happened some months after my first experience I was left with exactly the same thought afterwards – that God or an angel came down and stopped her in her tracks. Later that night I was to look up at the moon and the stars and contemplate them as creations of God, but in my spiritual darkness I was not able to take my thoughts beyond that.
I drank far too much alcohol for far too many years. One afternoon I was attending a barbecue on a farm with some friends whose alcoholic state by late afternoon was the same as mine – all except for my wife and another friend that is. In my stupor I made a move to cross the road without looking, only to be pulled back by our quick-thinking, sober friend who looked up at the last moment to see a car coming. That car went speeding by me with only centimeters to spare. Even in that drunken state I had thoughts that this again was the intervention of God or an angel, this time using a friend to save me.
As a professional musician, I was driving to a function one late afternoon in a very narrow residential street in an older part of my city. With vehicles being legally parked on both sides I was travelling too fast for those conditions. Besides, I had consumed some alcohol with a fellow musician before leaving home and my mind was not on the job of driving. I saw the young child dart out from one of those parked cars but it was far too late. My reflexes were affected by those few drinks and that child was going to get hit by me for sure. But he didn’t. It was though an invisible arm reached out with lightening speed and dragged him to the other side.
My wife was not a believer at the time either, but one day she attempted to cross a very busy street to visit a friend at work. Looking, but not seeing an oncoming car, she stepped out from two parked cars and onto the road, only to feel what she describes as a great wind pushing her back off the road moments before that car went past her. A little later she gave more thought to the incident and reckoned the experience to be more than just the wind pushing her. She too could not get away from the thought that perhaps the intervening force was God or an angel. She didn’t dismiss the thoughts, but didn’t follow through on them either.
When tragedy happens, the most common question people ask is, “Why does God allow these things to happen?’ Since I have become a biblical believer and follower of Jesus Christ my question has sometimes been, “God, You have spared us from serious injury, road trauma and death. You have spared the lives of others whom I could have killed or destroyed as a result of my irresponsible and drunken behavior. You have spared me from going to jail – not to speak of the heartache and shame that could have been suffered by my wife and family. And even greater Lord, You have spared my life from eternal damnation, hell! Why did You not let those things happen?”
Without sounding simplistic, “things happen” because we are living in a fallen, selfish, self-willed world. It is a world of our own making and we cannot blame God, for we push Him out of our lives. And what is not of our own personal making can make us victims of someone else’s selfishness and self-will – hence “the innocent suffer”. God declares to us that lots of tragedy can be averted if we will turn back to Him, but most of us don’t want to do that – myself included, for too many years. Any serious study of the Bible gives us a perfect picture of the selfish human nature, but also of the most merciful, loving and forgiving nature of God Almighty.
God will do whatever it takes to grab our attention so that we will turn back to Him. We see that in the Scriptures time and again. He’s done it all through history. He did it for the crash survivor, the airmen, the soldiers, myself and my wife in this story. Sadly, most people do not respond. They never have and they never will. We do not deserve God’s mercy, we never have and we never will. But I thank and praise God for having received it, as does my dear wife. “Whoever is wise will observe these things, and they will understand the loving kindness of the Lord.” Psalm 107:43.