Around 8:30 p.m. Brenda, Turner and I left the prayer meeting at one of our member's home to commute back home. When we reached the interstate, we debated about stopping for something to eat or just going home. We decided to go home.
I topped a hill on the feeder road and Brenda yelled, "Look out!" Out of the corner of my eye I saw a man dressed in black standing in the middle of the road. To his left I saw something else in the road as I jammed the break, steered to miss both and prayed all simultaneously. The person scurried toward the shoulder to avoid getting hit. We noticed the object in the road was a motorcycle.
I quickly pulled off on the grass and made my way back up the hill. Turns out the person was a man trying to get his motorcycle off the ground. I feared for him as oncoming traffic might come and never see him before it was too late. By the time I reached him, he had the motorcycle up and asked if I could help him get it off the road.
Traffic backed up as we did this. I had to go back out and retrieve his windshield from the ground holding my hand out to keep people from running me over. People asked if we were okay as they rolled past.. The man seemed rattled by not badly injured. He told a deer ran out in front of him knocking he and his motorcycle to the ground.
He took his helmet off and told me what happened again. He said nobody else had stopped. How could I not stop. I nearly ran the man over. I could not believe a deer ran so close to I-20.
I told him I was the pastor at Spring Creek Baptist Church and I wanted to pray for him. We had prayer and his wife pulled up in a car just after we finished. She had followed him but stopped at a store. She told she had an uneasy feeling as she topped the hill. She saw the cars backed up.
This same man got run off the road by a car just two weeks before. I told him God protected him and had a plan for him. He took down my phone number and asked if I had a business card, which I did not. The whole scene played out in less than five minutes. I stayed nervous for him and his wife as they both were still near the edge of the road just below the crest of the hill. I urged him to move his bike and themselves a little further off the road for safety.
He complained that his hip was sore but nothing else seemed to ail him except his nerves. Looking back I wish I had shared Jesus with him. It all happened so fast. At first, I just wanted to get him and his bike out of the road before something more serious happened. Then, I became concerned for my own safety retrieving the windshield. Then I further concerned myself with his and his wife's safety as they stood on the narrow shoulder.
It was a close call. How easily I could hit and possibly killed that guy. My thoughts immediately turned to a lady in our church who continually tells me she prays for our protection during all the driving we do. It was also a close call because we talked about Turner driving home that night as he still has his beginner's permit. Brenda and I both praise God he was not behind the wheel. I praise God I could see. Two years ago my vision degenerated so badly I could not drive at night. I praise God He has restored it. Just as I reached our car to leave a eighteen wheel truck came barreling over the hill driving must faster than the speed limit. If that man would have still been trying to retrieve his bike or getting up off the ground himself he would have been hit.
I do hope that man and his wife will call me. I hope one day they show up at Spring Creek and I get to lead them to a saving relationship with Jesus, if they do not already know Him. I know I blew that opportunity, but looking back the man was in shock and his wife gravely concerned for her husband. They were in no emotional state for a sermon. God knows them. He is more than able to preserve His work in their hearts. I believe God will intersect our paths again.
No comments:
Post a Comment