By Ronald D. Mallett —
Some years back my family lived in the Taconic Mountains, a 150-mile sub-range of the Appalachians running along the contiguous borders of New York and Connecticut. Our home base was Bethlehem, Ct., but we lived a few miles west of town on the Weekeepeemee River (for real).
The terrain is cut with many gorges, river drop offs and steep inclines/declines. A lone former carriage road winds north and south through the hills and dales and has never been widened beyond that designed for horse and buggy.
Our back lawn ran to the western bank of the river. We loved it, and I often ended my workdays with a half-hour or so of fishing and generally strolling with our Lord along the banks of the Weekeepeemee. Adjoining forests of thick hardwoods added greatly to the incredible allure and divine peace of these evening treks. Animals and birds in abundance completed the marvelous woodsy allure.
While living in Bethlehem, wife Pat and I had the pleasure of being instrumental in the formation of a new church headed up by long-time friend and minister Russ Lipton. One evening I received a call from Pastor Lipton telling me that the husband of one of our church ladies had asked for a one-on-one meeting with him.
The man in question had committed to the Zen Buddhist belief system while in college and the wife’s newly-enhanced fervor for Christianity was causing a great deal of familial stress.
The pastor called on me because he knew I had spent some time and study in understanding how to deal with some of the world’s alternative belief systems. I enjoyed debating those who knocked at our front doors from time to time, and had some success in at least planting doubt in their heads.
Pastor Russ was immensely capable of handling the issues for himself, but thought that a quiet evening of brotherly discourse between the three of us might be more amiable and welcoming to our new friend.
The evening before a fireplace, with quiet music in the far background, went well and ended gloriously as our guest went to his knees and accepted the Lord Jesus into his life.
Time flew, and I looked at the clock to learn that it was 9 pm, time to head for home. After a joyous round of hugs and hand-shaking, I danced out of the house and floated to my car.
I tuned the car radio loudly to a Christian music station. Shouting loudly in a series of delirious hallelujahs, I drove at full speed out of Russ’s driveway.
Just seconds later, traveling way too fast for the carriage road, I saw I was about to go over the edge of the road into the Weekeepeemee river ten or twenty feet below. I slammed on the brakes and steered sharp right into a heavy grove of birch trees.
The car rolled to a stop. By the grace of God I had avoided any damage to myself or the vehicle, and I just sat there steeped in a mixed array of emotions: joy, fear, anxiety and relief.
At the top of my lungs I laughingly and joyfully shouted to the Lord: “You’re going to have to drive me home Lord! I’m way too dizzy to get there myself!”
Shaking my head, and wiping tears of joy from my eyes, I looked around the little patch of birch trees to calculate the means for getting my car back onto the narrow road.
But, I couldn’t believe my eyes! These weren’t birches. They had turned into a neat row of pine trees. I looked to the front, and two large garage doors met my gaze. “Wait a minute,” I said. “What’s going on?” I looked out my left window and saw a long 12×12 inch timber that protected the long, sloping lawn leading to the river.
Totally dumbfounded, I yelled at myself: “This looks like my house!” The pine trees lined the driveway, the garage doors were there, and the huge timber protecting my sloping lawn was there. I stepped out of the car and hesitantly opened what I was half-afraid was a stranger’s garage. And there was my black Ford pickup.
How could I be home? I wondered. I just left Russ’ driveway a minute ago.
I shakily stepped into the foyer leading out of the garage into our house, and there was the big grandfather’s clock we had purchased a month earlier from Scotland. The clock said it was about eight minutes past nine.
A nearly 10-mile twisting and turning road would normally take about 20 minutes at best, but only eight minutes had elapsed since I left.
I went to bed that night, and the next day began to tell people the story of my car being carried by God (or angels) to get me home safely.
But I soon learned not to bother. Nobody was inclined to take me seriously, and all had suppositions to counter the experience such as: “You were in an altered state of mind and drove home unknowingly.”
I believe God carried me home that night!
I hadn’t even begun to back my car out of the trees and onto the road. This “teleportation” happened in a nano-second. Our grandfather clock proved to me God intervened for my safety and welfare.
I know the teleportation was of Him and by Him, in line with other accounts of God’s supernatural intervention in the Bible, such as Philip and the Ethiopian Eunuch (Acts 8:39-40)
After Philip baptized the Ethiopian eunuch, the Bible says:
When they came up out of the water, the Spirit of the Lord suddenly took Philip away, and the eunuch did not see him again, but went on his way rejoicing. Philip, however, appeared at Azotus and traveled about, preaching the gospel in all the towns until he reached Caesarea.
Just as Philip was miraculously transported from the baptism site to a city called Azotus, about 20 miles away, I believe he carried me that wondrous night.
