Words of Life

“Do you also want to leave?” Simon Peter answered him, “Master, to whom shall we go? You have the words of eternal life.” John 6:67-68

I was conversing with someone who said that he did not believe in God, and did not believe in the Bible anymore. He is just like the people in the 6th chapter of John who turned away from Jesus because it was too difficult to understand and follow Him. Even though Jesus said some hard things, Simon Peter and the other disciples decided to stay and trust Jesus.

Life can give us many jolts, we just need to trust God through it all. Two tall former basketball players, Clarke Bynum, Jr and Gifford Shaw, prayed hard and decided to go on a mission trip to Kenya. They got delayed for their first flight, and had to rebook another flight which they had to wait 8 hours for. They started to wonder if their decision to go on this trip was the right one. Finally they boarded British Airways Flight 2069, and they were given first class seats near the cockpit. After supper, both decided to get some sleep, when they were jolted awake by a nosedive. A man near them said in a terrified voice, “I just saw a man run into the cockpit!” There were screams coming from the cockpit. Clarke and Gifford rushed to help, and they saw a huge hooded man having the much smaller copilot around the throat. A Flight attendant and the pilot were also in on the mayhem. Clarke reached out and grabbed the assailant and after some struggling, they were able to drag the madman out of the cockpit. The plane pulled upward out of the near fatal nosedive at the last second! 

The Kenyan who rushed into the cockpit was 6 feet tall and about 200 pounds. What are the odds that two huge basketball players would be seated near the cockpit and would be able to rush in to help the overpowered crew? The plane had fallen 19,000 feet. In 5 seconds, the nosedive would have been irreversible! Clarke received the Order of the Palmetto, South Carolina’s highest honor, for his bravery in subduing the man with the help of other passengers. He was also awarded presidential commendation by Clemson University in 2001.

Sometimes, our life may take a left turn, or we experience inconvenient delays or we cannot understand why God is allowing us to undergo so much suffering. We should just trust God with our life, with the big and small things, because He has a plan. He always has a plan!