Psalm 34:7 The angel of the LORD encampeth round about them that fear him, and delivereth them.
This scripture tells us that God will send an angel to encampeth round about – or to surround, those who fear– or reverence, Him; and that God will use the angel to delivereth– or to deliver, or draw them away, from their troubles.
In other words, if you serve God, then He will send an angel to protect you and to help you out when you are in danger- a fact that we recently learned firsthand…
We were driving on a 3- lane interstate, when our van started making a LOUD noise- which got worse and worse as I- Gail- drove. UGH!!!
Our mini-van is 18 years old and has well over 170,000 miles on it now. It has a bad habit of breaking down at the most inopportune times, so we don’t drive it too far. We couldn’t believe this- as we had JUST told a friend of ours the night before that it had not broken down and left us stranded anywhere for TWO whole years! WOW! And now this!!
We could not turn around anywhere, so decided to keep driving. But only 6 miles later, while driving in the center lane of the 3-lane highway, surrounded by vehicles traveling at 70 MPH, we heard a LOUD popping noise and the van started jerking almost out of control and making an even louder noise!
I looked in the rear view mirror, saw something black go flying up into the air off to the left side of the van, (miraculously missing EVERY vehicle in both the middle and left lanes), and quickly assessed the situation in a split second of time. I realized that the only thing that I could do would be to somehow get into the right lane and get off the highway onto the grass.
As I looked quickly to my right in the rear view mirror, and steered towards the right lane, I saw a LARGE 18-wheeler in the center lane directly behind us, and a small, compact, white car trying to get into the right lane. (The car had been following us, but when the debris flew off our van, I saw the car trying to pull over to the right lane- in front of a LOT of traffic- in order to pass us on the right and to get around us. And now, here I was, driving right into its path!)
I knew that either we were going to be hit by the truck, (because the van was now almost completely out of control, veering all over the road), or we were going to crash into the small car. So I prayed out loud, “Father, please help us”, then I steered right into the path of that car and all of the cars behind it.
But what happened next was a miracle. An honest to goodness miracle! (I am still in AWE as I write this a week later- with tears in my eyes!)
I drove across the right hand lane into the grass, and as the van came to a rest on the side of the road I looked up in absolute amazement! The white car had literally vanished, and we had not hit any cars- at all! Plus, we had not wrecked- our van was still in one piece.
(Every time that we get into our van, we pray and ask God to keep us safe, and to keep everyone around us safe as well. And boy does HE answer prayers- or what?!!)
Eddie and I just sat there stunned for a second, then we looked at each other and said, “Praise God! Thank-you, Jesus, that no one got hurt!”
The Holy Bible tells us in:
1 Thessalonians 5:17 Pray without ceasing.
1 Thessalonians 5:18 In every thing give thanks: for this is the will of God in Christ Jesus concerning you.
We live by these two scriptures- and we certainly seem to have plenty of opportunities to put them to practice in our life!
This was one of those times.
Please notice that 1 Thessalonians 5: 18 says “IN” everything, not FOR everything. So when we are in a bad situation like this one, we immediately look for what we have to be thankful for “in” it. And we had a LOT to be thankful for here.
We thanked God for not allowing the debris that flew off of our van to hit anyone; for getting us safely off the road; for supernaturally moving ALL of those cars and not allowing anyone to get hurt; for not allowing our van to crash; and just for always being there for us.
Eddie got out and looked at the damage. It turned out that a belt had blown through the tire wall, sawing the tread off the tire like a knife cutting through butter, and the tire tread is what I had seen airborne in the rear view mirror!
There was not much left to the tire, but it was not flat…and that is something that neither one of us could figure out! And we still can’t!
We called AAA Auto Club, and a nice young man came out and changed the tire for us.
Now we are praying that God will bless us with a more dependable vehicle, and with a spare tire for our van.
God’s Word tells us in:
Psalm 34:6 This poor man cried, and the LORD heard him, and saved him out of all his troubles.
Psalm 34:7 The angel of the LORD encampeth round about them that fear him, and delivereth them.
There is no doubt in our minds that God surely had one of His angels encampeth round about – or surrounding, us that day.
It was a day that we will never forget!