Ok God…….I Hear You!!!

I may not understand everything that is going on around me on a daily basis, but after today, I guarantee it won’t take God going to the lengths He did, to save my life.  I truly believe that there was a Divine intervention that took place today….and without it, I may not be here writing about it.

I work in the aircraft industry, as I have stated before.  A few weeks ago a plane came in from Saudi Arabia.  On our pre-inspection, the cabin of this plane was doing things that no one had seen before.  The switch panels would flicker on and off, the monitors would come on, cycle through all of their settings and turn off.  Everything was randomly broken.  However, the only thing that would play on the monitors…..without any glitches….was a DVD that was all Muslim prayers.  I jokingly said that the plane had a demon….but I almost believed it was true.

Fast forward a few weeks and today was time for a test flight.  Now, this plane isn’t in great condition, so yesterday my bosses were joking with me about having my life insurance up to date.  When the customer asked who would be flying with him they pointed at me.  He asked if my life insurance was up to date.  At that exact time my phone rang and it was a robocall about insurance.  I started feeling very uneasy…like I wasn’t supposed to fly.

Last night, on the way home from soccer, I listened to a past sermon from my pastor.  At the end he told a story about a women who had three weeks left to live.  They were making her funeral arrangements and she had one request…..that she be buried with a silver fork in her right hand.  Her pastor asked why and she said, “I’ve been around church my whole life.  At the potlucks when people come around and clean up and take your plates they always tell you to keep your fork because there is something greater coming.”  So she was buried with her fork.

Now I was feeling even more uneasy…..life insurance….sermon about a funeral and death.

I show up to work today.  It’s time for the flight.  The pilots show up and begin to start the plane….some small warnings come up…some indications missing….but they say it’s still safe to fly.  If everyone is comfortable, we will proceed.  With everything that had happened in the last two days, comfortable was not the word I was using to describe my situation.

I started feeling very uneasy…I shouldn’t be doing this….I need off this plane.  I walked towards the back of the cabin and as I made it to the credenza, a fancy coffee table, I looked down and saw the picture above…..a silver fork….presented nicely, before me in a leather box.  My heart stopped….all I heard was my mother saying from our conversation from the night before, “Just don’t take a fork on the flight with you.”  It took everything I had to stay on that plane….even though God was saying, “Get off.  I have given you multiple signs….I can’t tell you in a clearer way.”

I walked to the front of the plane and asked the pilots if everything was okay.  They said everything was fine and that I could close the door.  I closed it….not exactly sure what was about to happen.  Before I could even make it back to my seat the pilots called me up front.  There were multiple warning messages showing up on the screen.  Lights were flashing on and off….not normal.  The pilots said when they turned on the left engine they felt a rumble that they had never felt before….their seats were shaking.  They said the flight was off.

I got off that plane and knew God had just intervened….He had tried to warn me…tried to give me the signs.  And  what’s crazy is that I saw every one of them and kept proceeding down that dangerous road.  It wasn’t until a little later that I thought back to the book This Present Darkness I had recently reread by Frank Peretti, about spiritual warfare.  In my mind I could see an Angel of the Lord standing on that left engine, with his sword right down through the center.  I could see another standing on the dashboard of that 65 million dollar plane with his sword stuck in all of the flight deck instruments.

I told my story to many throughout the day, receiving many responses….but the general consensus from every one of them was that there is no way, once they saw that fork, that they would have stayed on the plane any longer.

I’m not sure why I stayed….I wasn’t testing God, but He sure showed His mercy…and that today wasn’t my day to go.  I was told later that I might possess the spiritual gift of discernment…..the ability to see through smokescreens and obstacles in the pursuit of truth; possessing an uncanny sense of knowing…or gut feeling about things that are taking place, knowing and being able to see good and evil.

I’m not sure if this is the case….but I know I will continue to pray for wisdom, guidance, and the ability to see what God is saying.  And there is no way that I will ever make God work as hard as He did today….to get His point across again.

……..And by the way…..I will never fly on that plane!!!!

“And this I pray, that your love may abound still more and more in real knowledge and all discernment, so that you may approve the things that are excellent, in order to be sincere and blameless until the day of Christ; having been filled with the fruit of righteousness which comes through Jesus Christ, to the glory and praise of God.”

Philippians 1:9-11