It was late on a Saturday night several weeks ago. Dan Thompson, the pastor of the Almighty God Tabernacle, put the final touches on his sermon and then prayed for some time for all the people who desperately needed to hear the message the Lord had given him.
Finishing, he picked up the church phone to call his wife. It was 10:00 PM, but his wife didn’t answer. He cleared off his desk, turned off his computer, dialed his wife again, and she picked up on the second ring.
“Hi, Sweetie! Just wanted to let you know I’m leaving now. Hey, I tried calling a few minutes ago, and you didn’t answer.” She assured him that she had been home all evening and the phone hadn’t rung. He glanced at the church phone’s directory and realized he had dialed a “9” instead of a “6.” “I must be tired. I dialed the wrong number. See you in a few minutes.”
The following Monday, Pastor Dan received a call. The man on the phone wanted to know why he had received a call from this number at 10 o’clock on Saturday night. The man went on, “The phone rang and rang, but I didn’t answer it.”
Pastor Dan remembered and apologized for disturbing him, explaining that he’d intended to call his wife but dialed the wrong number.
The man said, “That’s OK. Your call actually saved my life. You see, my life has been pure crappy hell for the last year. I had finally decided to end it all, but just before I pulled the trigger, I decided to pray one more time.
“Well,” I yelled at God, “if you’re there and you don’t want me to do this, you’d better give me a sign.”
At that very instant my phone rang. I looked at the caller ID, and it said, ‘Almighty God.’ I was afraid to answer and even more afraid to pull the trigger. I think maybe I’m supposed to talk to you.”
Author Unknown
This most likely is a fictitious story; I really don’t know. But I do know that, from time to time, God does intervene in our lives – probably way more often than we realize. Why? Because He loves us.
“What, then, shall we say in response to these things? If God is for us, who can be against us? He who did not spare his own Son, but gave him up for us all—how will he not also, along with him, graciously give us all things? Who will bring any charge against those whom God has chosen? It is God who justifies. Who then is the one who condemns? No one. Christ Jesus who died—more than that, who was raised to life—is at the right hand of God and is also interceding for us. Who shall separate us from the love of Christ? Shall trouble or hardship or persecution or famine or nakedness or danger or sword? As it is written:
“For your sake we face death all day long;
we are considered as sheep to be slaughtered.”
No, in all these things we are more than conquerors through him who loved us. For I am convinced that neither death nor life, neither angels nor demons, neither the present nor the future, nor any powers, neither height nor depth, nor anything else in all creation, will be able to separate us from the love of God that is in Christ Jesus our Lord.
Romans 8:31-39
He loves YOU!