The Lord of the Gaps

Do you ever open your Bible or read your morning devotional and see the exact words that you need to see for the day? Has a friend ever called you at just the right moment? Have you ever seen some small sign that seems meant for you alone? At our church we call these God Sightings, ways that God breaks through into our lives, and we love sharing the details of them with each other when they happen.

There are some books I have read called Godwink Stories by Squire Rushnell, a popular speaker and New York Times best-selling author who actually coined the term “Godwinks” to identify experiences that might appear to be a “coincidence” yet are so amazing that they can only come from a divine origin.

To relate a few of my own experiences: I have always been fascinated with the sky and with clouds. To me, there is a beautiful majesty in it. Clouds never seem the same. When I was working through the worst of my grief after my husband died, I would so often look up at the sky searching for answers. Many, many times my eyes would be drawn to a cross made by the contrails that planes had left behind. For me, it became a reassurance that God was walking with me, and I should not be afraid.

Probably the most amazing God Sighting or GodWink happened for me when I started driving alone to see my sons. Since they both live in metropolitan areas where traffic is extremely heavy and fast moving, it took me quite a while to venture there. I jokingly tell people that to pull out onto Route 22 from my neighborhood I wait until there is no traffic for two miles in either direction. But in those areas with so much traffic on the roads, no matter what time of day you travel, you quickly learn to take any gap between cars that you can. There were several places where merging into traffic was extremely difficult, so I would start praying when I was two miles away from approaching those areas, and ask God to make a gap between the cars so that I could safely merge and continue on my way. God never let me down when I needed a slight gap in the traffic, so one of my nicknames for Him has become the Lord of the Gaps.

I have gotten to be a stronger, better driver over the years as I have had to depend more on myself. God seems to always make it easy for me by providing gaps in the traffic whenever I need it. Sometimes I have to laugh at how easy He has made merges become even in this area with little traffic to contend with.

There are times when GodWinks can seem more complicated and we might not recognize them at all until we have the time to look backwards and contemplate what all transpired. A few days ago, a friend told me a story about her nephew being in a horrific car accident. A few vehicles back was a doctor—a heart surgeon—who witnessed the accident and quickly ran to her nephew’s car with his medical bag.

After assessing the situation, he gave her nephew a shot. The ambulance arrived and took him to the hospital where he survived his injuries from the accident thanks to the quick action of the doctor who seemed to be in the right place at the right time.

I know you have all had instances like these in your lives: the kind of experience that you know only God could have created a moment such as this. If you haven’t had one for a while, try being a little more attentive. They seem to be around us even more than we know, but sometimes we can get focused on other things and not recognize them as God’s abundance. Sometimes they are tiny gifts such as a cardinal singing joyfully in a bush, a breath-taking sunrise, or the star-filled sky at night. At other times they are bigger gifts given by the love of our Lord. But these “coincidences” are all extraordinary gifts.

When you condition yourself to seeing GodWinks and accepting them with thanks for the gifts they are, you will begin to see the massive evidence of God’s love for you, the evidence that these are special messages meant just for you. God does see every strand of our lives, and He knows how to weave them together.

These God Sightings or GodWinks can fill us with a sense of amusement as my gaps did, but they can also bring joy, encouragement and hope. Watch around you for where you see God in your life today. God is constantly reaching out to strengthen and affirm us all.

“Everything that was written in the past was written to teach us, so that through endurance taught in the scriptures, and the encouragement they provide we might have hope.” (Romans 15:4)