We know not what we should pray for as we ought: but the Spirit itself maketh intercession for us… Romans 8:26
I awoke at 4:15 this morning praying urgently to the sound of screeching rubber, crashing metal and shattering glass. I was completely alert, anxious even. I’d been praying when I woke up, a split-second before I heard the skidding tires. Lord, help those people in the accident. Be with them. Comfort them.
This is New York; I’m used to being awakened at all hours by the city that never sleeps (and sometimes won’t let you, either). Still, I couldn’t remember ever waking up actually praying. Even now, I didn’t want to stop.
There was an all-night newsstand on the corner; they would surely call the police. Beat by beat my heart rate decelerated from a gallop to a canter. My wife Julee slumbered peacefully beside me, her slow breathing mingling in the dark with the dogs’ tranquil snores. Finally, I drifted back to sleep to the sound of voices and approaching sirens.
A few hours later, I was buying my morning paper on my way to the office. “What on earth happened out here last night?” I asked Hassan, the newsdealer.
He paused, then nodded. “Oh, yes, that. Just a little fender bender. Nothing to worry about.”
I strode across the intersection, now clogged with commuter traffic. My eye caught a few shards of a brake light glittering in the morning sun, the only evidence of any kind of mishap. I found myself resenting having being awakened so dramatically for a mere fender bender.
Yet the urgency of that prayer still echoed. I’d awoken an instant before I heard the screeching tires, and I was already praying. What did it mean?
I reached the other side of the intersection. Maybe I wasn’t meant to know. The accident certainly sounded as if someone could have been hurt. What I knew for sure was that I felt as if I’d been shaken awake and told, “I need you.”
God, thank You for those extraordinary moments when You use me to help others. Let me always be ready, even in the dead of night.
