The Mystery Lying Behind Being Lucky

By Chen Shun

“Because you have made Jehovah, which is my refuge, even the Most High, your habitation; There shall no evil befall you, neither shall any plague come near your dwelling. For He shall give His angels charge over you, to keep you in all your ways” (Psalms 91:9–11). Pondering over these scriptures, I was deeply moved. In the past, I was always able to escape alive from the dangerous situations I had been faced with since I was little, this was totally because of God’s care and protection. I was really grateful for God’s great grace.

In my childhood, there was one time that I, without telling my family, went for a swim in the upper reaches of the reservoir with several children of my age in my village. After swimming just a short distance, I felt too tired to continue swimming. Then as my body sank straight to the bottom of the water, I cried out for help in panic. However, when seeing this, the other children were all scared and ran off. I didn’t know what happened to me after that. Later, I woke up to find myself alone lying on a shoal. Even until today, how on earth I made it remains unknown to me.

When I grew up, I worked for a railroad company with my father. Once when winching up one steel pin, the winchman made a mistake, causing the steel pin which was over ten meters in length and tens of tons in weight to drop down from a high place and come straight upon me. I tried to escape quickly but there was a row of steel frames beside me blocking my path and I was trapped. Just when I was faced with the immediate danger of being crushed by the steel pin, an idea popped into my head: It may be safer to squat down. The moment I squatted down, the steel pin fell down with a bang, leaving me dizzy. When I came to myself, I found that the steel pin had crashed onto the row of steel frames, which was a little higher than me. Had I not squatted down, I would have been crushed. The coworkers on the spot all got into a state of trepidation and when seeing me creep out from under the steel pin, they were all astonished and said: “You are really lucky!”

Afterward, I was assigned to repair railroad tracks in a very windy place in Xinjiang. The wind there blew so strongly that several times it flipped over the train. Our work was to improve the rail lines and repair the rail fence so as to safeguard the flow of railroad trains. One day, I was working under a train door when suddenly the wind blew the iron door off the train, and with a thud, the iron door hit my head. I lost consciousness right away. Thereafter, I woke up lying on a bed in the hospital 160 kilometers away from where I worked and saw a doctor was flashing a flashlight in my eyes. Seeing me wake up, the doctors were surprised because I had lost consciousness for several hours and they all thought I was dead. Later, after giving me a CT scan, the doctor said that I was diagnosed with a concussion and had a few cuts and scratches, but it was nothing serious and I would be fine after taking some medicine and being on a saline drip in hospital for some time. My coworker, who was looking after me, said: “You are really lucky to be alive after this. It’s a train door that weighs over 1000 pounds. When it fell and hit your head, we all thought you were done for; what’s more, it’s a bumpy car ride to the hospital and we took more than an hour to get you here. We were astonished that you made it. You must have done great things in your past life, so the Heavens protected you! ” Hearing these words, I also felt that it was a miracle.

After these experiences, sometimes I thought: Our life and death indeed cannot be foreseen and controlled by ourselves. Could it be that there is really an unseen Master protecting us?

After I received God’s kingdom gospel, I saw His words say: “In the long course of human life, almost every individual has encountered many dangerous situations and faced many temptations. This is because Satan is standing beside you, its eyes constantly fixed on you. When disaster strikes you, Satan revels in this; when calamities befall you, when nothing goes right for you, when you become entangled in Satan’s web, Satan takes great enjoyment from these things. As for what God is doing, He is protecting you with each passing moment, steering you away from one misfortune after another and from one disaster after another. This is why I say that everything man has—peace and joy, blessings and personal safety—is in fact all under God’s control; He guides and decides the fate of every individual.” Through God’s words, I understood that my several narrow escapes from danger was because God was always there, watching over and keeping me safe. Although Satan was seeking opportunities to swallow up my life all the time, without God’s permission, it could do me no harm, because man’s life is in God’s hands and it is God who governs and controls man’s fate.

Thinking back on my life so far, I have enjoyed plenty of God’s care, protection, and grace before I even came into His presence. There were several times I encountered life-and-death situations. The first was in my childhood when I drowned while swimming; the second was that time when I was nearly crushed by the steel pin weighing tens of tons; the third was the time when the iron door of the train struck my head. In all these situations, it was God’s rescue and protection that made me escape unharmed.

Praise God! Through these experiences, I have a true appreciation for God’s love and I am willing to set my determination to entrust everything to God and fulfill my duty as a created being to repay His love.
All the glory be to God!