Episode Transcript
Hi everyone. It is too often said that there are no miracles performed these days. Well, I'd like to challenge this idea with my story of the hidden coral reef. You're watching Miracles in the 21st Century at the moment. I'm Mike Browning and I'd like to share this story with you. Ann and I, my wife and I, had been posted to work in the Solomon Islands and our base was in Honiara. And it was a very exciting time and we so were blessed and enjoyed our ministry out there in the Solomon Islands. On the particular occasion that I want to share with you, we were out in the western Solomons area. I was there alone. Ann was back in Honiara with the children. And we went out there and while I was there, there were some others, both nationals and another young chap from Australia was with me. And we were going to visit some of the different islands. And one of the ways, well, the main way in which they travel between the islands is they have canoes. Now, some of these are dugout wooden canoes and other ones they call plastic canoes. And these are plastic or fiberglass canoes which are long and thin, just like a dugout canoe, but made out of fiberglass. And they have an outboard motor sitting at the back. These little boats can come across the waters between the islands and they're tremendous to travel in. We had some very interesting experiences on this particular trip. There were 3 or 4 of us in this plastic canoe, as it was called, and we were traveling between one island and the next. These things move along at quite a clip. And the two interesting events took place. First of all, we could see in the distance where we're heading for, there was clearly a storm gathering. And as we watched it, we realized we were going to motor right into that storm. And so it was very level ocean at the time. There were very— there's hardly a ripple on the water as we were flying towards this storm. And when we hit the storm, suddenly, folks, there were waves, quite big waves. And the national chap who was on the tiller handling the motor and the direction was very quick because we were heading straight into the waves. Now, these are long, thin canoes, and if you go into the waves, why, folks, you're going to go straight through them, not over the top of them. And so very quickly he managed to turn the boat so that it was side on to these waves and we went over them quite nicely. And made our way through the storm. Well, that wasn't the end of the story because after that we were motoring along nicely again, storm gone and flying along through the waters. There were just a few tiny ripples, not very much at all. And it was a nice sea. There was a bit of a swell, but it was quite safe and we were just going for our lives to get to the next island. And as we were going along, and going along quite fast. The motor was moving the boat along quite fast. And it was very interesting what happened. The other young Australian chap, he was right up the bow of the boat and he was watching where we were going. And I was sitting around about the middle. And of course, you had the person on the motor at the back in the stern. So we were hammering along and then Suddenly the young Australian chap who was up at the bow of the boat turned to me with a shocked look on his face and he blanched white and he was white enough as it was. And I looked ahead to see what had worried him. And there was this amazing coral reef, but it was just a big round patch of coral, of coral. And it was actually exposed there. And we were going straight for it. And it was very close to us. There's no way of avoiding it. And there was no time even to say anything. And folks, it was incredible. We were just gonna go plowing into this coral. It was quite surprising. It was out in the middle of nowhere, by the way. And it was just projecting up out of the water, a big round piece of coral and about the size of a large house, I would say. And so here we are heading straight for it. As we got to it, we didn't even have time to pray. And I'm going to read you what Psalm 34:7 says. You might know this. The angel of the Lord encamps all around those who fear him and delivers them. Now, we didn't even have time to pray about that particular promise, folks. We were just on top of that reef so quickly. And as we came to the reef, folks, a swell of water went over the top of that of coral reef and our boat sailed over the top of it and down the other side without touching it. And when we looked back, the water had parted again and there was the reef right exposed in front of us. And we never touched it. And, you know, the motor, the propellers never touched it. And as I've looked back on that, I mean, we were amazed at the time and just praised God for what he had done because we'd have just plowed into that and the boat would have gone to pieces. There's no question about it. And I'm just so grateful that God knows our needs and he's prepared to do whatever it is. And as it says here, the angel of the Lord encamps all around those who fear him and delivers them. And he delivered us on that day. And I'd like to encourage everyone who's taking part in sharing in this talk today to make everything we do a matter of prayer. When you go out in your car, pray before you go, because life is very uncertain. We know that. And God is willing to help us, but he wants us to work with him in partnership by committing our lives to him and praying. And I would encourage you to do that. God bless.
