A GAME OF INCHES
Psalm 139:16
Your eyes saw my unformed substance; in your book were written, every one of them, the days that were formed for me, when as yet there was none of them.
This saying, “Life is a game of inches” has been applied to many sporting or hunting pursuits, baseball, football, horseshoes or often
hunting. Back in 1977, the year I shot my first buck, I experienced, “the game of inches” in my hunting. I was sitting watching a valley
when a big 9 point buck came walking below me. I took aim and fired, and fired again, and again. The buck ran off unscathed. A few seconds
later I heard him run through the thin ice on the flooded creek to the west of me. As he got across creek, I heard him jump up onto the bank
and then a series of shots rang out, followed by cheering and laughing.
I had missed, the other hunter obviously didn’t. Recently we had the sickening opportunity to see how much of difference one inch can count. While speaking at a campaign rally in Butler, Pennsylvania, president Donald Trump was hit in the ear by a bullet. It passed within an inch or less of killing him. Had he not slightly turned his head to take a look at the teleprompter, he would surely have died on July 13, 2024.
While he was wounded by the bullet, Trump was not the only one affected. Two others there on the stage were shot during the assassin’s shooting spree and survived, but one bullet hit Corey Comperatore, and took his life. He died at the scene as he heroically shielded his wife and daughter from the shooting. Mr Comperatore and President Trump met two different conclusions from the same shooter: one walked away barely scathed, and the other was killed, leaving his family heartbroken.
It’s natural to consider this critical question. Why did one man survive a shooting and another die? If we acknowledge the God’s sovereignty, we have the answer: God was in control. Yet, within His supreme plan, humans have been given the gift of choosing our actions. Within these truths, God’s control and man’s, it stretches our finite comprehension, we can confidently say that God works out His plan in and through our circumstances, If we are to acknowledge the Almighty’s sovereignty, we have the answer: God was in control. Yet, within the divine covering of His supreme plan, humans have been given the gift of choosing our actions. While the interplay of these two truths — God’s control and man’s choices — stretches our finite comprehension, we can confidently say that God works out His plan in and through our circumstances. We see that in Psalms 103:19.
All our days are “written” and “formed” by God, as written by the David’s words In that scripture. God’s plan was in place before He formed the world. Though we may be tempted to resist the His sovereignty over our lives, His power clarifies His work and comforts us.
Abraham Lincoln proclaimed profound assurance that God was overseeing all of man’s undertakings, even as he served as president, leading America through its darkest days of the Civil War. “If it were not for my firm belief in an overruling Providence, it would be difficult for me, in the midst of such complications of affairs, to keep my reason on its seat. But I am confident that the Almighty has His plans, and will work them out; and, whether we see it or not, they will be the best for us.”
We can rest assured that… Life is indeed a game of inches, and God has measured them all perfectly within His Providence.
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