What’s it like to have a prayer you prayed for five years finally answered? What if I extended that to seven years? Ten years? Eighteen years? A lifetime?
Johnny Nash sings the song, I Can See Clearly Now (1972), and the lyrics really depict what salvation feels like, and true salvation is series of salvation moments over a lifetime—once we’re saved by the Grace given freely nearly 2,000 years before any of us were conceived. Accept something free that can catapult you for life—now that’s a deal none of us ought to pass up.
Enough spruiking.
Here’s the story.
Driving home from my school chaplaincy work on Friday February 19 this year, at about 3.10pm, feeling tired, I sought to move lanes left to pull over and have a nap. Only I just happened to pick exactly the wrong moment to do it. Doing what has happened only occasionally to me, I indicated left and proceeded to move into that lane, and immediately the large truck behind me advanced and my eyes are trained on my rear-view mirror. Almost in the same action, I indicated left again to pull into a quieter road to find somewhere to park and get my 10-minute nap.
This is one of those moments that only lasts 3.7 seconds but kind of becomes life-defining.
As I slow down further, prepared to take my left turn (remembering that in Australia we drive in the left side of the road), the truck behind me sounds its horn, which partly startles me, partly gets my ire, and partly completely shifts my focus from what is about to happen—yet I’m convinced now as I look back that this truck driver could see what was unfolding.
Remember too that I’m tired and my limited conscious thought is completely given to my rear-view mirror and not to the left where it needed to be.
Immediately after the horn sounds, about 207 milliseconds before I begin to make my turn, I hear “Oi!”
Tired, confused, intimidated, I make the turn, completely oblivious to a collision that is about to take place. All my safety training over more three decades is ignored in the human error of the moment.
To see the cyclist out of my left eye take the turn with me, obviously livid, I am mortified in the moment. Even as I recall it, I sense the trauma in it. For a moment he continues with me and then before I really know what’s going on, he continued on his way. With the mix of tiredness, confusion and now mix of trauma and guilt, I went straight into flight mode. I did not want to face what I’d done. Even if there was no contact made with the cyclist, I’ve done a reprehensible act. Unforgivable. And I don’t normally think anything’s unforgivable.
When I talk about the song by Johnny Nash, I Can See Clearly Now, I say it tongue in cheek, because anyone who knows their Bible will quickly point me to 1 Corinthians 13, which, apart from being famous about what it says about love, tells us that in this life we see as if in a mirror dimly.
But this event that I’ve just been in, that I’ve just experienced, is going to change my life. It’s the providence of God. Grace will use it to change my heart. I’m about to get a fresh appreciation of mercy. I’m about to really go much deeper into mercy and to see how judgment completely blurs the view of this fathomless mercy enshrined in the Cross.
Back to the story.
Immediately my life changed. What was, was no more. I was living now as a wanted man. I tried to rest to no avail, so I continued driving home tentatively, fearful that the cyclist or another witness would point me out—a criminal. That’s how I felt.
I could have killed a man. I deserved judgment.
Years ago, I organised “impact sessions” with a man with quadriplegia who presented his story at workplaces—he was knocked off his bike! Here was I, a person who has worked for half their life in keeping people safe nearly killing someone.
For the hours that ensued I wrestled about reporting the incident to the police. I also agonised about the possible Go-pro vision that could exist. I would then think about the fact that I could lose my driver’s licence over this. If I lose my licence, I then stand to lose my job. With all this fear running through my mind, I’m suddenly caught in the thought that I’m only caring about me—I’ve forgotten completely about the man who could have been seriously injured, his life and his family’s life changed in an instant.
The best thing about this event was the torture I faced for the days after, for a week or two or three after, in fact. When I counsel people about the blessing of a brokenness that forces change, I say that it’s because the new reality cannot be changed, and that’s good, because the transformation that’s taking place in their life is sticking because of the pain they’re in. They need to stay there. That’s why it was life-changing for me. I fully expected that I’d have the book thrown at me.
Then something truly miraculous happened—something only God could do. I began to plead for mercy, seeing how much I needed it. I begged the Lord in a mood of petition, “Lord, if you’ll be merciful to me, I’ll change and be better for you...”
The Lord answered the prayer. Both parts. He showed me a mercy I’ve truly never known, though I thought I knew it so deeply. The depth I didn’t know was this: EVERYONE deserves mercy if I deserve it, and, because nobody deserves the mercy of God, I immediately saw what I needed to repent of for the rest of my life.
Verses that came to mind... “My sin is ever before my eyes... as far as the East is from the West, so far has God removed our transgressions from us.” (Psalms 51:6; 103:12)
The past 5, 6, 7 years of our lives have been challenging—much more challenging than many of you will know. I’ve been stuck in occasional triggers for injustice. My usual soft heart has had these little rock-hard nodules on it, of hurt, of bitterness, of resentment, “residual hurt and anger” as it’s been put to me by people I know I can trust now.
Finally, in seeing the copious mercy that’s been poured out for me at the Cross, that mercy that bleeds hope all over me, I’ve seen the damage judgment has done, and in an instant, God has replaced that judging heart with a merciful heart. I could not have done it. Only God could have done it.
See how I can see clearly now? Well, clearer. Mercy is needed for us all. Only since this event a couple of months ago now have I been able to see how my judging heart had held me apart from the fullness of measure of Grace God has already secured for me, but I was unable to access. I couldn’t have it because I wasn’t prepared to give it.
Suddenly now that mercy has replaced judgment, gratitude is purer than ever before, and suddenly I’m focused more on the simpler things that are really important—like nurturing a closer bond with my young son who is growing up before my eyes. I’ve been able to admit things that I’ve never said before—about my contributions to things that previously were the other person’s fault. So many shards of blessing.
I say this to encourage you, if you’ve prayed for something for years, keep praying. You don’t know HOW God will use even the hard circumstances of your life for divine glory, and for GOOD purposes beyond your comprehension right now.
The answer to this prayer is a long time coming. It’s not a prayer of only 5, 6, 7 years. Really in all reality it’s been a prayer I didn’t know I needed to pray, and God’s delivered on a prayer I wasn’t even praying but should have been.
The rest of life is one day at a time. Now it’s about mercy where judgment might mar. Justice appropriately, yes, but not without mercy.
James says in 2:13, “Mercy triumphs over judgment.” It’s the way to life.
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