A strange thing happened to me the other night. I went to a friend’s birthday dinner hosted by her family. It was a lovely time with them eating pizza, drinking hot tea, and fellowshipping. I left at 5:30pm in order to feed my Mulligan girl her dinner. It was raining out and very dark (Rehoboth, MA does not have street lights- insane). Then, the fog rolled in, becoming thicker as I drove down the street, resulting in dangerously low visibility. I began to pray- thanking God for the time with my family in Christ and asking for protection and safe arrival home. As I was still speaking with the Lord, I found myself driving into someone’s front yard into a tree stump. It was shocking, to say the least. I got out of my car, preparing for the worst, only to see that everything looked intact and there was just a small mark on the tire wall. I got back into my car and felt completely disoriented. I put my hazards on, backed out blindly a few feet, only to realize that I was now in someone’s driveway. All of this was as bizarre to me then as it must sound to you now. Just to be clear, I had no drugs (prescribed or otherwise) or alcohol in my system and I was neither tired nor emotional. Anyway, I called another friend (using Bluetooth, of course) and had her stay on the line with me until I got home safely.

As I pondered this event, later that night, trying to figure out what exactly had happened, my mind immediately went to the negative. I figured I must be getting disciplined or this was some sort of “wake up call” from the Lord. I even wondered if there was an underlying medical issue; did I have a TIA or a mini seizure?! So, as I should have done from the very beginning, I asked the Lord to please reveal what this was all about. He asked me to recall what I had been doing right before the incident. I answered that I had been praying for protection on my drive home. The reply was something like, “Mm-hmm”. It then became crystal clear to me- He was answering my prayer! God had been protecting me from something. Was it from an animal that would have crossed in front of me? Was there a distracted driver ahead that would have run me off the road? I will probably never know exactly from what, but what I do know is that the Lord promises to answer the prayers of His children.

Mark 11:24 “Therefore I say to you, all things for which you pray and ask, believe that you have received them, and they will be granted you.”

1 John 5:14-15 “And this is the confidence that we have toward him, that if we ask anything according to his will he hears us. And if we know that he hears us in whatever we ask, we know that we have the requests that we have asked of him.”

When I shared this story with my church family the next day, all of their responses were very similar. They all gave thanks to the Lord for protecting me and marveled at His mysterious ways. See, I was driving down a straight stretch of road and I never turned my wheel. He, quite literally, moved my car off the road into that person’s yard. It may seem hard to believe for some, but the following passage shows that such things are more than possible for God to accomplish. In fact, anything is possible for Him (Matthew 19:26).

John 6:16-21 “When evening came, his disciples went down to the sea, got into a boat, and started across the sea to Capernaum. It was now dark, and Jesus had not yet come to them. The sea became rough because a strong wind was blowing. When they had rowed about three or four miles, they saw Jesus walking on the sea and coming near the boat, and they were frightened.  But he said to them, ‘It is I; do not be afraid.’ Then they were glad to take him into the boat, and immediately the boat was at the land to which they were going.”

Interesting things continued to happen to me the following day. One of which was when we were asked to turn to the first Bible verse in church, I opened up to the exact page. Here was the verse:

Matthew 6:33 “But seek first the kingdom of God and his righteousness, and all these things will be added to you.”

This brought a tear to my eye because I had been doing just that. I had been seeking Him, laying aside unhealthy routines and habits, and truly trying to focus on living righteously for His good pleasure. One request that I had been making recently was for Him to draw me closer to Him, to allow me to feel His presence. I would say that He had done just that (yet another prayer answered and promise fulfilled).

James 4:8a “Draw near to God, and he will draw near to you.” 

Another passage in the Bible was brought to mind. This one telling of when Hagar, Sarai’s maid, ran away from her and ended up having an encounter with the Lord. 

Genesis 16:11,13 “And the angel of the Lord said to her, ‘Behold, you are pregnant and shall bear a son. You shall call his name Ishmael [“God hears” in Hebrew] because the Lord has listened to your affliction. So she called the name of the Lord who spoke to her, ‘You are a God of seeing,’ for she said, ‘Truly here I have seen him who looks after me.’” 

Never forget that the Lord sees you, the Lord hears you, the Lord is looking out for you. Keep seeking and keep praying; you will find Him and He will answer.

Matthew 7:7-8 “Ask, and it will be given to you; seek, and you will find; knock, and it will be opened to you. For everyone who asks receives, and the one who seeks finds, and to the one who knocks it will be opened.”