I had been reading a Guideposts book on wonderful, true but unexplained and often, unexplainable, experiences people have had with God. One story (briefly) was of a woman (Corrie ten Boom) who was in a prison camp during WWII. She knew she could survive if she had her Bible so she hung the Bible on some string and wore it on her back underneath her clothes. She was able to get the Bible in to a point, but then they started strip searching everyone. She looked up and said, "Now it is in your hands, God." Unbelievably, as it was her turn to be strip searched, the guard saw her standing there, waiting her turn and he said, "What are you holding up the line for? Get moving!" And she went right past him, avoiding the search.

My wife, Linda, was flying in from Paris where she was visiting her niece and had one of her suitcases full of vitamins and brewer's yeast powders that could have been easily mistaken for contraband of some sort. The custom man randomly chose her for a thorough check as she got off the flight in San Francisco. She made light conversation with him as he opened one suitcase after another. When he got to that last, problem laden suitcase, he said, "Okay, you can go now." He didn't even look in that one.

Those might sound like fairy tales. You probably think this sort of thing doesn't happen much. They were lucky, you might say. But I think this type of thing can and does happen a lot. Especially as we become open to the world being Satan's playground and he simply cannot hold a candle to the light of Jesus Christ. If we can recognize that nothing our senses can tell us is "true" then we are on the road toward God's sight and God's hearing in which the Lord will be protecting and nurturing us, providing His data to our senses which were previously only focused on the appearances of the world. God will never jeopardize our free will, imposing His supernatural information on our belief system, so if we totally believe that Satan has no ground to stand on in our physical world, we will be more likely to see God's handiwork in our world. Seeing ISN'T believing, in this case. We must believe first that Christ is King, then we'll be shown that, indeed, He is!

After sharing that WWII story with Linda, I thought how wonderful it would be to be able to experience God's works in my world, instead of Satan's works. I wanted to feel God's protection. We had rented a video and were in a hurry to go on an excursion. It was a Saturday morning when we pulled into the large supermarket parking lot to drop off the video. Since we usually rented from a certain video store that was adjacent to the supermarket, and I was in a hurry, I didn't give a lot of thought to what I was doing and just ran up to that store front. It wasn't open but I saw a box in the window and knew there must be a slot in the door. I looked everywhere and could not find that slot. I stepped back...I eyed the space from the box up to find the hole so I could drop the video in but, I swear on that Bible that hung on Corrie Ten Boom's neck, there was none. My wife saw me at the window of the video store and shouted, "It goes in the supermarket...we didn't rent it from that store." Then I remembered that we had rented it from the supermarket and I hastily went to the supermarket to drop off that video.

When I had done that, I just had to walk back over to the video store to see if I could find that slot for the videos. Of course it was there! In plain sight. It simply could not have been missed. But I had missed it. It was as if it were deliberately hidden. Praise God!

I believe that God was guiding me and making it so I couldn't see that slot. I believe, though it was a small thing, He knew it would have been inconvenient for us and I was being protected from my own wrong assumptions that this was the correct place to return the video. I was open to it and therefore grateful for the divine intervention. We were going to be gone for two days and dropping it in a box in the wrong store would have haunted me all weekend and taken away some of the joy we were about to experience.

Years later, after Linda's death, I was married to Eva, residing in Indiana. She and I recently had a powerful illustration of God, once again, bringing His glory to fruition by making it so we could not see something. We were camping in our motor home at Patoka Lake in Indiana and having just returned from the beach there, Eva mentioned that she couldn't find her car keys. It wasn't disastrous because I had a set of her keys, but it was inconvenient. Both she and I scoured the car, front and back, trying to find those keys. Eva looked in the glove box three times during our search. On Sunday morning, I told Eva I was going back to the beach to check on a picnic table there, as well as have my morning prayers. I didn't find the keys but I decided, on the way back to camp, to check with lost and found at the camp entrance. The lady there said they hadn't been turned in but that I should check with “Sissy” who manages the beach concession stand and showers—someone might have turned them into her.

We packed up my guitar, later, thinking we might be able to sing a little as well as have a nice swim in the lake. At the beach, I searched for Sissy, finally finding this thin, blonde, middle- aged lady with twinkling eyes. She said no keys had been turned in so I gave her my business card which talks about our “Opening Window Ministries.”

“Oh, you're a Christian,” she said, smiling.

“Oh, yes!” I replied.

I went back to the car and there was Eva, holding up the car keys as she said “Well, here they are. I found them at last.”

“Where were they?”

“In the glove box. Vic, I looked there three times!”

“Well, I'd better go back and tell the manager we found them.”

“Sissy,” I said, as I caught up with her again, “we found the keys. They were in our glove box.” We resumed celebrating the Lord in our conversation. I told her about my website in which I had a book or two she could download and read if she had Internet access. “Oh, I want to write a book, too!” she exclaimed.

“I'm a songwriter. I believe the Lord has touched many of the songs. I brought my guitar, would you like to hear a few songs?”

“I sure would.”

We walked back to the car and I introduced Sissy to Eva, as I got my guitar out of the case. We celebrated and exalted the Lord together for about 20 minutes. Eva and I sang about 3 songs intermixed with each of us contributing Lord inspired mini-sermons and testimonies about what great things He is doing in our lives. The joy was palpable and all of us were blessed immensely.

In retrospect, we marveled at God's work. Had Eva found the car keys in the glove box, where she looked for them on three separate occasions, we would never have connected with Sissy. During our session, Sissy shared that she was obligated to work every Sunday and always missed church. That very morning, she had prayed to God that He would send someone to have “church” with her in some way. God had a church service in mind, when He hid the keys from us and brought Sissy and us together, in celebration of the Lord's Day.

Of course, in this world, it can be good to NOT see, especially when it comes to our focus on this carnal world. But there are times when God, Himself, occludes our eyesight so that something good can happen that He is ordaining and that, in some way, will glorify Him. He made it so that the security person would not look in the suitcase containing all the vitamins and powders in Linda's possession. He made it so the guards could not see the Bible Corrie ten Boom was smuggling into the German prison camp. He made it so I could not see the slot as I attempted to return my videos to the wrong store. In addition, He hid Eva's car keys (in plain sight) in order to answer Sissy's prayer to have a church service that very morning at Patoka Lake. We have an awesome God!  

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