Call upon the name of the Lord!

January 25, 2007

By John W. Kennedy

Acts 2:21 tells us, “Everyone who calls on the name of the Lord will be saved” (NIV). That verse is talking about eternal salvation. But when we face unexpected danger, the Lord should be the One we think of immediately.

On a winter day in 1986, my wife, Patty, and I took a short vacation to see our friends in Moberly, Mo. We lived in Fairfield, Iowa, at the time, so it was about a 150-mile journey. We left on a Thursday night after I finished work. Patty, six months pregnant at the time, drove in the dark. I soon fell asleep, as did our 3½-year-old son Josh and 2-year-old son Jesse.

Just before we reached the Missouri state line, the car hit a patch of ice. Patty was driving 55 miles per hour, and the car began spinning out of control. I immediately woke up and instinctively yelled, “Lord, save us!”

And He did. The car turned 360 degrees and ended up on the opposite shoulder facing the direction we were headed. So many disastrous things could have happened. The car could have flipped and we could have been killed. We could have dropped into a deep ravine on either side of the highway. There could have been a car in the oncoming lane that would have hit us head-on or broadside.

We were powerless in that situation — except for the saving hand of Jesus. We emerged without a scratch, either on us or the car.

The excitement of this trip wasn’t over. I drove the rest of the way. When we reached Macon, Mo., we stopped at a convenience store to buy some milk for Jesse’s bottle. En route, Patty had taken her wedding ring off to put lotion on her chapped hands. But she forgot. When Patty got out of the car the ring fell off her lap onto the pavement.

Patty didn’t notice the ring was missing until she woke up in Moberly — 30 miles away — the next day. Then she realized what happened.

Again, God was with us. It had snowed overnight. We called the store in Macon, but no one answered. So we called the police department. An officer graciously drove over and found the ring in the snow by the front door, 14 hours after Patty lost it. In another 45 minutes the parking lot was plowed and the ring might never have been found.

As James 5:13 reminds us: “Is any one of you in trouble? He should pray.”

John W. Kennedy is news editor of Today’s Pentecostal Evangel.