Fire In The Hole

I am aware, but probably not nearly enough, of my lack of natural appreciation and gratitude. But there are times when things happen that simply cannot be missed, especially by someone who really wants to learn to be more grateful. One of those events happened to me yesterday and I do not want to let it go unnoticed or underrated.

I was working with my brother-in-law getting his house addition ready for them to move into in a couple weeks. I have been working with him and his brother for several weeks now and have enjoyed working with them with their fun-loving, hard-working, easy-going attitudes. I was helping to put in a floor addition that will expand the size of the living room to a more comfortable space and was starting to nail the floor joists into place.

The room addition was inside the garage that we recently built and the day was a rather gloomy, rainy day outside so the light was rather poor. In addition I was trying to work down close to the wall far from the doors or windows so it made it even harder to see where I was nailing exactly. Suddenly just after I shot the air nailer gun to fire a 16 penny nail (about 3 inches long) into the floor joist I felt the nail whiz past my ear and felt my glasses sitting a little askew on my face. I wasn't sure what had happened so I stood up and tried to straighten my glasses.

I finally took them off to see what the problem was and then realized what had happened. The nail had ricocheted from where I had intended it to go, had grazed my finger on my other hand drawing a little blood and then evidently had passed through the corner of my glasses on the way past the side of my head.

The more I thought about it the more I realized that I had been extremely close to either getting killed with a nail into my brain or at least loosing the sight in one eye, neither of which I have any desire to experience to say the least. I also sensed that God had used one of His angels to possibly guide that nail past my face and even through my glasses in such a way as to protect me once again from harm that demonic forces would like to inflict on me.

I realize that many people would just chalk this up to really good luck. I know that it would be somewhat easy for me to do that as well unfortunately. But I also am becoming more aware that there is much more activity in the supernatural realm than we ever realize, and that sometimes their effects show up in things that we can detect if we are willing. And I also believe that our choices about our spirit and how we decide to relate to those supernatural forces have a great deal of influence to determine the outcome of events in our lives as well as the abilities of either side to work in our lives in the future.

So in light of this and as soon as it came to my conscious attention, I began to thank God very intentionally and sincerely for the protection that I knew had come from His hand. I also prayed that I would not downplay this incident due to my fear and shame that too often causes me to only talk about Him to people who are like believers. I want to be more real and more consistent in what I believe internally and how I talk and act around those who do not believe in God or think that He is not worth trusting.

I have observed that there are numerous times that I have been very close to serious harm and that it is completely possible that I have many times recently had supernatural assistance to prevent disasters that could easily maim or hurt me seriously. I know that there is no way of proving most of these encounters, at least to a scientifically skeptical mind with a predisposition to doubt God's care for us. I also strongly suspect that most of the deliverances I have experienced go completely unnoticed and the angels must be in constant amazement at my naivety. But that does not prevent them from continuing to serve and protect me anyway while hoping that I will soon begin to be more appreciative which may in turn give them more permission to work more actively in my life.

At any rate, I want to take this opportunity to thank God publicly for this very specific incident of protection. It causes me to be more conscious more about how blessed I am to have eyesight as good as it is, not to mention the rest of my head that could have been affected. And most of all I am so grateful for the fact that the reason God does things like this is because He is like that in His character and His desires toward me. It is because He is such a faithfully caring God that He looks after me each moment in ways I will never know until I am shown my life in heaven. But I can get to know Him better right now and learn to trust His heart and His consistently good intentions towards me irregardless of whether I am hurt or not.

Father, I want to praise you for protecting me and having your angels intervene on my behalf during this close call. Thank-you so much for your grace and mercy and kindness and faithful love. Dwell in me and cause me to be more free in my praise for you. Heal me of the shame that inhibits me from being more lavish in my gratitude. Thank-you for the work you are doing in me and the incredible plans you have for me. You are my God and I worship you in gratitude and humble appreciation.