Jules: That was ... divine intervention. You know what divine intervention is?
Vincent: Yeah, I think so. That means God came down from Heaven and stopped the bullets.
Jules: Yeah, man, that's what it means. That's exactly what it means! God came down from Heaven and stopped the bullets.
I believe we all have had moments of divine intervention. Some are very obvious, such as the scene from Pulp Fiction. Others are not so obvious,but they have happened nonetheless. I believe if we look back over our lives whether we want to acknowledge it or not, or whether we were receptive or not, we have experienced times of divine intervention.
I would like to share with you one of my times. It was very obvious to me when it happened that I had experienced divine intervention, and I still believe it to this day. It was October of 1988, the band I was playing in were going to play out of town. Usually the majority of us rode together, but this time we didn't because the van we usually rode in wasn't running. So one of the members and I decided to go together. I drove only because my car had a tape player. I had a little Pontiac Fiero. For those of you who don't remember those cars, they were little two seat cars with the seats all the way to the ground. It was raining really bad on the way home. Everytime a semi truck would pass me it would cause my car to shake. Well, as one semi passed me my car began to shake more than usual and the car began to hydroplane. Then I made the mistake of hitting the brakes, which caused the brakes to lock. We began to slide into the other lane with a semi coming. I can still remember the semi honking his horn. I knew that we were going to get hit by the semi.
Let me interrupt the story to tell you at this point in my life I had a knowledge of God like all of us do, but I was not living for Him. I had gone to Sunday School as a child and I knew that Jesus had died on the cross for my sins. I had even asked Jesus to come into my life as a child, but once those teen years hit I lived for myself. I guess you could say at this point in my life I had a head knowledge of Jesus but not heart knowledge.
Now back to the story: As we were sliding into the other lane getting ready to get hit by the semi, I remember putting my head down and saying in my mind, "God please don't let me die." We got hit by the semi on the passenger side, as it went by us it sucked us underneath it and then spit us back out with its back tires. After the car stopped spinning it came to a dramatic stop, which pushed my head into the steering wheel and caused my nose to push the steering wheel into the dash of the car. Well, took make a long story longer, the semi missed our seats by about one inch and tore up the rest of the car. I had a broken nose, but the doctor said it was set perfectly. We had to get all the glass from the windshield removed from our faces, and we couldn't wash our faces. But there we were, still alive, still hard to believe. Divine intervention.
I know that there are people who may think like John Travolta's character that we were just lucky. I appreciate their opinion, but I don't agree with it. Some may still argue their point that there is no God, which they have a right to believe, but argument can never win over experience. Let me also be honest enough to acknowledge that though I believe in God, I don't always understand Him. I don't know why I lived, while other people have died in car accidents. I have had the opportunity to pray for people and see them live, or be healed. But I have also prayed for people who still ended up dying, or who are still sick. I don't understand His ways all the time, but that doesn't stop me from believing in Him.
Let me also add that after getting hit by the semi, it still took six years before I finally surrendered my life to Jesus and decided to live for Him. You would have thought that I would have instantly given my life to Him, knowing that He had allowed me not to die. I mean, even Jules in Pulp Fiction after he experiences his moment of divine intervention decides to change his lifestyle. Not me, I wanted to change my lifestyle, but as each day went by, I eventually kept on living the same way.I thank Him for His patience and grace that He extended towards me during that time.Maybe that is why I understand when God has got someones attention and yet they still don't surrender over to Him.
There are many examples in the Bible of dramatic moments of divine intervention. The time God parted the Red Sea (Exodus 14), Daniel in the lions den (Daniel 6), Peter getting out of prison (Acts 12). These are just a few instances. But as I stated earlier, there are times that God has intervened into our lives that were not as dramatic, and yet He still intervened.
Let me finish by saying, take some time to reflect back on your life, thank Him for the times He has intervened on your behalf. As you are thinking back, maybe He will reveal to you some times that He intervened that you never thought of before because they weren't dramatic moments. Thank Him for the those moments and also for the revelation of those moments. Thank Him for His grace that He has shown you. Hopefully in the future we will be like Jules and acknowledge when God has intervened on our behalf and not just think of it as luck.
Troy
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