Twice I have had a suspected exposure to COVID, twice I have been tested, twice I have quarantined while awaiting results, and now twice I have been cleared. Early Monday morning the family I visited over the weekend received an all-clear from their COVID test, and a few hours later my own results confirmed the same. Evidently there are still some things that can make a person ill besides the Coronavirus. We are relieved, on multiple fronts. First and foremost, we are thankful the affected family is negative and hope the symptoms experienced over the weekend will not become severe or extend for as long as COVID infections sometimes do. Second, we are relieved my test also was clear. If theirs had been positive and mine had been negative, I would have felt obligated to obtain a second negative test before traveling to Presbytery later this week. But since both of our tests showed no evidence of COVID, I feel comfortable sealing myself into a metal tube and breathing recycled air with a group of strangers while flying to southern California. (I may have COVID by the time I disembark the plane, but at least I won’t bring it on the plane with me.) Third, we are happy my COVID test came back so quickly. My first some months ago took exactly 14 days. This one took less than 30 hours. For all of these blessings and many more, we sincerely thank God.
At this point some might be thinking I dodged a bullet, again. Despite my obvious foolishness in visiting ICU rooms and skilled nursing facilities to minister to residents, I have managed to escape multiple times unscathed. God alone knows how many times his secret providence kept me safe from much nearer misses and more serious scrapes. But I assure you I never dodged the bullet. I wouldn’t know how. It’s not like bullets can be faked out by juking and jiving, and I’m much too inflexible to pull off a realtime back-bending stunt like a messiah figure in a sci-fi film. I have never dodged any of the bullets the world, my enemies, and our mutual adversary have fired at me. But by God’s grace, this time as often before, I was spared.
First Kings 22 is a remarkable story which features one of Scripture’s greatest prophets and the death of one of its most villainous villains. King Ahab of Israel proposed to King Jehoshaphat of Judah that they team up to recapture Ramoth Gilead from the Syrians. Ahab realized he was not the most popular fellow in Syria, so he suggested that Jehoshaphat wear his royal robes while Ahab disguised himself as a common soldier. Jehoshaphat--kind-hearted, unsophisticated, not the sharpest arrow in the quiver, southerner that he was--thought this was a splendid idea, so while he put on his fine apparel, with the special red circle on the front and back of his robe, Ahab put on nondescript armor, a helmet, and climbed into a chariot, the ancient equivalent of rolling into battle inside a tank. Sure enough, the Syrian soldiers were particularly interested in identifying Ahab that day. He was the only prize worth finding. When the Syrians saw Jehoshaphat, they assumed it was the king of Israel. They gave chase like a mad sea captain after a white whale, but when they saw it was not Ahab, they lost interest and turned back. About this time a Syrian warrior named Random Archer drew his bow and fired an arrow into the Israelite lines. The arrow flew into Ahab’s chariot, slid between the joints of his armor, and pierced him deeply, inflicting a mortal wound. What an incredible shot! R. Archer must have been one of the most masterful marksmen in the history of the world. But actually, the Bible says he drew the bow “at random.” In other words, he fired blindly. He didn’t aim at anyone in particular. He just released an arrow at the enemy hoping it would hit someone. Sure enough, it did.
Now you may say that was a lucky shot or that R. Archer was a better artilleryman than he thought, but neither luck nor the human operator had anything to do with it. That arrow went where God told it to, and that day, he told it to bury itself in Ahab. Ahab couldn’t dodge it, even if he had seen it coming. It had his name on it, and no evasive maneuver could thwart its deadly purpose. There was not an arrow, spear, or sword that day that could harm King Jehoshaphat, no matter how skillful the warrior who wielded it. And there wasn’t a piece of armor, battlefield vehicle, or bodyguard that could save Ahab from certain death. God had made the appointment, and Ahab would keep it.
God’s servants aren’t always spared injury from the arrows and bullets fired by the enemy. Good King Josiah later died on the field of battle. Almost all of Yahweh’s prophets and apostles had their lives ended violently at the hands of godless men. Serving Christ is no guarantee you will not fall in battle. On the contrary, it guarantees you will be sent there and have arrows and bullets sent with malice in your direction. You cannot dodge them, so don’t bother trying to figure out how. You can usually tell you are nearing your mission target when the antiaircraft fire begins punching holes in your plane. The good news is that until the moment God has appointed, the bullets the enemy fires cannot harm you. They are lousy shots. Like Storm Troopers, they couldn’t hit the broadside of a Star Destroyer.
You can trust God to guide the enemy fire, to lead you safely through the fusillade, and not to allow any harm to come to you, even in death, except what he will use for his glory and your good. This is the confidence we have before him. The enemy’s fury and fire never was what endangered us. It was God’s wrath we justly faced and should have rightly feared. But Jesus took that barrage on himself. He quenched the fury of God’s wrath against our sin, and there is no longer any judgment for those who trust in him as Savior and Lord. So don’t worry about dodging bullets. They obey the direction of a higher power. God’s saints don’t dodge bullets; the enemy’s bullets dodge the saints of God. --JME
