Last week, I had to stay late at work to officiate a funeral. I spoke on the providence of God, quoting Ecclesiastes: “For everything there is a season, and a time for every matter under heaven … [God] has made everything beautiful in its time” (Ecc 3:1, 11).
God has a purpose for everything, including hardships and tragedies. According to his perfect wisdom, he “works all things according to the counsel of his will” (Eph 1:11). Despite how things may look, nothing is truly random. Ultimately, there are no accidents.
On my way home from the funeral, I considered stopping at my sister’s house. I called my wife, and we decided I would drive straight home. Instead of turning, I continued driving straight.
One mile later, I saw a small white SUV waiting to cross the highway. I would learn later that the driver didn’t see me. She was focused on beating the traffic from the opposite direction and darted across the road.
She didn’t make it.
My cruise was set at 55. I had just a second to react. I slammed on the brakes and veered right, but the front of my truck struck her car where the passenger door meets the front fender.
If you’ve ever been in a car accident like this, you know how fast it happens and how disorienting it is. One minute, I was cruising along, wrapped up in an audiobook. Next, I was sitting in a smoke-filled cab, surrounded by airbags, thinking, Where am I? What just happened?
My first instinct was to get out. I did. Then I saw the other car and realized, Oh, I was just in a car accident. I ran over to check on the other driver. She had gotten out and said she was okay. Her daughter was in the passenger seat. She said she was okay, too, though they took her to the hospital just to be safe.
I walked away with some burns on my arm, a few bruises from the airbags and seatbelt, and general soreness like I’d been punched up and down my left side. Otherwise, I was fine.
The next morning, my daughter made me this.
I took it to work the next morning and hung it by my desk, not just because my daughter made it, but because it reminds me of God’s providence.
It was God’s providence that I was late leaving work, after preaching a sermon on that very theme. It was his providence that I stayed on the road instead of turning off to visit my sister. It was his providence that I veered just enough to avoid hitting the other car squarely—an impact that likely would’ve been far worse for the young girl in the passenger seat. It was God’s providence that all of us walked away alive and relatively unharmed. And it was his providence that I could go home that night, hug my wife and kids, and wake up the next morning to go back to work.
Ecclesiastes 7:14 says, “In the day of prosperity be joyful, and in the day of adversity consider: God has made the one as well as the other.”
Romans 8:28 promises, “And we know that for those who love God all things work together for good, for those who are called according to his purpose.”
I don’t know why this happened, but I can tell you it was no accident, neither the good nor the bad of it. And I’ll say with Job, “Blessed be the name of the LORD” (Job 1:21).