Of Prayer and Car Wrecks: God Does Answer Prayer

These days it sometimes seems as if God is just not listening when I pray. I ask for guidance, it doesn't seem to come. I ask for help getting a job which will be more fulfilling and will pay enough to live on. Nope, I still have the same dead end $27,000 a year job. I ask that my sixty pound chocolate lab will stop trying to climb into my lap and lick my face every time I sit down and oh wait what was I ... excuse me I had to get the dog off my lap and go wash my face, lost my train of thought there. I think I was saying that it seems God just does not seem to be listening to my prayers these days. Maybe He is though...

Just the other day I was driving into work on a bright spring morning. I was nearing the point where the expressway expands from two lanes to about a dozen for the toll plaza and traffic was at a dead stop there. I, in my bright red, four door Dodge Dakota quad cab, was the last vehicle in the left hand lane while there was a vehicle stopped beside me and one behind him in the right hand lane. While sitting there wishing for the traffic to move I heard a siren approaching. A quick scan of my mirrors revealed the flashing blue lights of a Virginia State Trooper approaching, from the rear, in the right lane.

Having been a licensed emergency vehicle operator for seven years, four of them as a field training officer, with EMS, I know a little bit about driving an emergency vehicle "priority one" (with lights and siren). I expected the officer to shut off his siren and give traffic time to clear out of his way without causing a panic. To continue to approach the stopped traffic, while sounding the siren and, in effect, demanding people to "get out of the way NOW," is a technique known as "ramming" your way through traffic and it is frowned upon.

As I watched the officer approach, in my rearview mirror, the words of my very first EVOC instructor flitted through my head, "ramming traffic will cause an accident." Apparently the officer's instructor never told him this. At that moment I watched it all play out, almost as if in slow motion. The vehicle to my right rear, seeing the police car racing up behind him panicked and accelerated into the car in front of him and beside me. This vehicle had, apparently, been waiting for me to pass and had his front wheels cut to the left so his vehicle leaped ahead and left into the vehicle to my front. The State Trooper slammed on brakes, skidded to his left into the left lane, towards me.

In the middle of all of this crashing metal I remember saying a real fast prayer on the order of, "please God..." I think that is as far as I actually got but I am certain He got the idea. When the crunching of bumpers and smashing of glass stopped, there were wrecked cars all the way around my truck. However, my truck sat unscathed amidst the chaos. Also, no one was injured. One thing I learned in EMS, vehicles can be replaced, live bodies cannot.

I remember saying a quick, "thank you God" right then but it was not until two days later that it really hit me, "hey, God did, in fact, answer my prayer right there on the spot!" That is nice. I am thankful but I know that God does not always answer prayers so directly. Sometimes we pray for things which we really do not need. Sometimes what we ask for is just impractical and sometimes He does answer us, the answer just happens to be "no."

Take me asking for a new job. Maybe, for some reason I cannot fathom, God wants me in this dead end job? My family has gotten by on the low pay so far and I have found other ways to supplement the income. What about me asking for guidance? What form does that guidance take? I tend to expect a burning pillar of fire going before me. Well, Moses I am not. Maybe I am just missing the more subtle hints. Oh and the chocolate Lab who likes to lick my face? Well, I could do with out the face licking but at least I know she loves me and that is one of the best dogs I have ever had. I thank God for her, she makes the family complete with her sweet temperament.

I think I will keep on with my praying. Oh, and God, you don't have to always answer those prayers so directly if You don't want to. Don't get me wrong, feel free to if You do want to, I won't mind, really I won't. And uh, if this job is where You want me at, could You at least make it FEEL a little more rewarding? Thanks