Tight Spots and Miracles

                      “When I was desperate, I called out, and God got me out of a tight spot.”                                                                                                  Psalm 34:6 (MSG)

While writing an Operations Manual for a small company a few years ago, my computer suddenly crashed. After several agonizing hours on the telephone with a technical representative from the manufacturer, she delivered the bad news – my only hope of using that machine again was to have it reformatted and re-install the operating system. That was when sheer panic set in – I hadn’t saved a word of the file to my external drive, and the project was 90% complete.

For days after the crash, I was still frantically using every trick the technician tried to get my machine to start up in “safe mode,” my only hope of retrieving the file. Time after time, I got the same result – a blank screen. My anxiety level soared as I thought of how I would tell my client. Finally, I decided to sleep on it, but truth be known, I wanted to run away to a deserted island.

The following day, I went into my office and made several more feeble attempts at retrieving the file. Finally, I turned off my machine, went into my bedroom, and got down on my knees. “O God, if this is your will, I will give up and stop trying.” I knew I would need to accept the consequences that awaited me.

I dried my tears, went back to my office, and sat down. Then, for some unknown reason, I pressed the on-button of my computer. With that one touch of my finger, my computer turned on in “safe mode.” I could not believe what my eyes were seeing. But I lifted those eyes to heaven, pointed upward, and declared, “I know you did that.”

When we cry out to God, He meets us in the lowest and most desperate places of our lives. And though He may not always rescue us from our tight spots, He does hear our every prayer and responds in accordance with His will. I will forever be thankful that in the case of my self-created problem, His will was to “get me out of a tight spot.”

Amazing things happen when we wave the white flag. But don’t wait until you’re desperate. If you surrender every day to His will, you may be able to avoid a tight spot altogether.