Today's Devotional

                                                                                              August 1, 2002



Subject: Simply Mighty

Psalms 145:5 - "I will speak of the glorious honour of thy majesty, and of thy wondrous works."

On yesterday it had already been a pretty long day because we had awakened a little earlier than normal to take a trip to Austin, Texas.  It was Maestro and me and as we returned, somewhere between Elgin, home of the best sausage in the world (I had to throw that in), and Brenham Tx, we came over a hill and around the curve to be greeted by a long heavy piece of aluminum ladder stretched across the road.   The cars which were some 50 to 100 yards ahead of us were hitting it and we heard the resounding thud and knew that we must avoid it at all costs.  As I approached at a high rate of speed, definitely too fast for obstacles on the roadway, I gently swerved onto the shoulder.   The gravel on the shoulder began to give way slightly and so I attempted to pull back onto the road.  As I did the right front tire hit the pavement and immediately gripped it while the other tires were still in the gravel and it pulled the car directly on to the pavement, whipping the back end around.   Letting the car move that direction resulted in self-correction and forced the back end to now swing around the other direction and the car simply skidded for what seemed like forever in that direction coming to rest in the middle of the highway.    This is my recollection of the events, but who really knows when this kind of thing happens.   I do know that at one point we saw enough to see that an 18 wheeler was directly behind us and headed our way.   It slowed and never really threatened us although all you could hear from Maestro was "let's go, let's go."  I tried without success to turn the ignition on the now-stalled car still in drive gear after it had come to rest.  Once he identified that we were still in drive, we put the car in park,
started it and pulled away to the side of the road to examine the car for any damage. So what is the point of this story?

On yesterday we talked about remembering God before the hard times and how the children of Israel returned to God after He slew them.   Truly the events of yesterday are a show of His providential care, but should I be thankful for what didn't happen, the tragic accident that He prevented, or do I thank Him for bringing me through safely what did happen?  Trick question.  While I will thank Him for both of those things, I should really thank Him for putting the aluminum ladder piece to be in the road because it gave two of His servants an awesome opportunity to speak of His wondrous works.

Carlen