Godwink: (n) 1. an event or experience, often identified as coincidence, so astonishing that it could only have come from God. 2. Answered prayer.[1]
Have you experienced Godwinks? If not, or if you’re unsure, I hope the following post will inspire you to ask for and seek them, and then identify them as more than sheer coincidence when they occur.
If you pick up a “Godwinks” book, or simply hop over to author SQuire Rushnell’s Facebook page (see footnote below), you will read amazing accounts and testimonies of God’s perfectly-timed interventions in the lives of praying people. I believe even the most cynical and scientifically-minded readers out there would be hard-pressed to find natural explanations for the stories of people like Nathan Christensen, a high school athlete from a small farming community in Wisconsin…
Nathan was out one night driving his mom’s convertible down a winding country road when he hit a deer and was sent flying, rolling, and crashing over a fence. Kevin Lindow was on his way home from Madison and just happened to reroute on his way home that night, and so was just in time to find Nathan, all alone, sitting on top of his mom’s car, suffering from hypothermia. Kevin just happened to have training from a volunteer fire department and knew exactly how to care for Nathan until the ambulance arrived.
The doctor told Nathan’s parents that if he survived, he would likely be a paraplegic, maybe even quadriplegic.
Nathan’s father, a part-time preacher, sat beside his son’s hospital bed and opened his Bible to the story of Lazarus and began urging his son to “wake up. Tomorrow, you need to wake up, Nathan!”
While in his coma, Nathan had a vision of someone – he couldn’t see his face, but knew instinctively that it was God – leaning down to hug him. He then felt a load being lifted off of him, leaving him with an overwhelming feeling of warmth that lingered two days.
Soon after, Nathan woke up, just as his dad, filled with faith, had told him to do. What’s more, emergency workers concluded that Nathan had been catapulted through the car’s windshield, and that that had saved his life. Otherwise, he undoubtedly would have been crushed to death. But witnesses who examined the wreckage said the seat belt was still snapped closed (cue The Twilight Zone theme song 😉 ).
After he awoke from his coma, Nathan was told he’d never return to contact sports due to a teardrop fracture to the C4 vertebra. He immediately began praying for a miraculous healing.
Lying in bed one night, waiting for sleep to come, Nathan heard three loud popping noises – the sounds of a miracle in the making.
At his next doctor’s appointment, the X-ray screen showed zero evidence of an injury.
Suffice it to say, Nathan returned to sports, even leading his wrestling team to wins and a number of pins and breaking all sorts of records as a fullback on the football team.
Sometimes the Red Sea stories of the Bible and “David and Goliath”-type Sunday school lessons seem mythological in my mind — like the tales of Odysseus, Hector, and King Arthur — entertaining, but irrelevant, instead of historical, divinely orchestrated events dotting the timeline to Christ’s first coming. It’s “Godwinks” like Nathan’s, the modern day miracles, that bolster my faith, reminding me that God truly is the same yesterday, today, and forever (Hebrews 13:8).
Perhaps our 21st century society, with all of its mind-blowing technology, medical advances, outstanding universities, and endless supply of easily accessible information has silenced the prayers for miracles, which is tragic because the need for miracles is blaring. When we’re thrown from metaphorical cars, slip into spiritual comas, and when the trials of life threaten to paralyze us, perhaps it’s our trust in man that prevents us from feeling the hand of God.
Miracles weren’t just for Old Testament patriarchs or New Testament apostles. They’re for small town boys like Nathan, 21st-century yuppies, college students, stay-at-home-moms, and everybody in between. God wants to hear from us all every…single…day. He wants to exceed our expectations, to lavish his grace, mercy, and best gifts upon us (Eph. 3:20, Matthew 6:26). All we have to do is ask, humbly admitting: “I can’t do this without you.”
Stay fit, stay faithful ~<3 Di