“Yesterday, my son, his girlfriend, and I drove about 2 hours away to pick up a piece of equipment. My son is 19 years old, and I let him drive so I could work on my computer. The weather in our area was wet and 38 degrees. Where we were heading, it had been snowing for about 6 hours, and the temperature was around 34 degrees. Snow was on the ground, but the roads were just wet. The forecast for where we were headed was for the snow to continue with accumulation, and the temperature to continue falling and hover right around 32 degrees as daylight faded.

As we got closer to our destination, the rain turned to sleet and then to snow. The roads were originally just wet, and as we kept going west, things continued to progress to a full-on snow and snow-covered roads. When we reached the town we were headed for, the roads had a good thin layer of snow on them. As we loaded up the equipment, the snowflakes were quite large and coming down in heavy volume.

Our turnaround time from arrival to heading back was 15 minutes at best. I was glad we were headed back because the snow coating was just getting deeper. My son wanted to continue to drive to get experience in the snow. It doesn’t snow much where we live in the South. Having plenty of experience myself from living in the Northeast, I really don’t need to drive in it.

The road we were on is a 4-lane road with a curbed grassy median between the lanes. The road conditions were ripe for someone to make an error. As is typical, just one lane was mostly cleared, and traffic stuck to the right lane. Not to anyone’s surprise, there is always someone who is more cautious than others and is driving super slow with their 4-ways on, holding everyone up a little more than is truly necessary. I instructed my son to get in the left lane where there were no tracks to ride in and told him to roll on. I wanted him to feel the truck pull and slide so he could get a good feel for how to react with the steering, gas, and brake as the truck slips and slides. We stayed in that lane for several miles, even passing several vehicles. He did quite well. Finally, I directed him to get back in the right lane where the path was better for staying in control. The lesson was over.

As the truck made its way to the right lane, we were heading up a hill and talking about the road conditions and the possibility of ice buildup under the snow. My truck does not have a temperature gauge, so I began to look up the current temperature of the area we were in.

As I am looking at my phone, my son exclaimed, “WHOA!” I looked up to see, there was a car flying across the median into our lanes, and it was airborne. The car bounced onto the road and was headed right for the guardrail. My son was already braking, but I yelled, “Brake! Brake! Brake!”. This was his cue to pump the brakes, as we had been previously practicing. Then I let out my standard first reaction when something bad happens. “S**t!” Then I put my hand on the steering wheel and said, “Hold on!”

Putting my hand on the steering wheel was not the best thing for me to do, but I wanted to assist my son. If it had been anyone else driving, I would not have done that. It was a parental instinct to help your offspring through an experience.

The car got to within about 20-25′ of our vehicle directly head-on when all of a sudden, the driver corrected again and veered away from us. As soon as the other vehicle started heading away from us, my son moved the wheel ever so slightly but yet enough to maneuver away.

We made it through that completely unscathed. I could feel my heart beating hard and it felt like it was about to come out of my chest. I checked with everyone to make sure all were ok.

Then the discussion started. Review of the tapes. That is when I blurted out, “The hand of God was in that one!” We were saved. Of course, everyone agreed, but we all went back to reviewing the tapes and how it happened and what took place and how we felt etc. The focus shifted right back to the human element of the incident.

Today I am writing about this story to reflect on the fact that we were saved. We were kept safe. While human control was involved with the situation, the question is: How do we know if it was all human actions and science working, or was it just the hand of God directing? Was it both?

Honestly, I am not a fan of making God out to be some puppeteer. God uses our situations to work on us. I do, however, believe that his hand does influence us in ways we cannot understand.

As I previously shared, my wife and I are currently teaching Romans 9, 10, and 11 in our Sunday school class. A primary message from these chapters is hope! Hope that the gospel will be preached to all. Hope that all will receive the gospel of the Lord. See our post The Story linked here for that!

Another big message that comes from these chapters is the message of God’s mysterious ways. Even Paul states that he does not understand what he is writing. Regardless, he believes it. He believes that the human mind does not have the capacity to think like the mind of God. Hence, the mysteries of God. At the end of the day, God sent his son to save us from our sin.

While we can recount what happened and how we traversed ourselves away from harm in our almost head-on collision yesterday, I believe we don’t fully understand what truly happened. I believe that God’s hand was all over that.

Paul’s Doxology from Romans 11: 33-36

“Oh, the depth of the riches of wisdom and knowledge of God! How unreachable his judgments and his paths beyond tracing out! ‘Who has known the mind of the Lord? Or who has been his counselor?’ Who has ever given to God, that God should repay them?” For him and through him and for him are all things. To him, the glory forever! Amen.

Have you been saved?”