Inbeat
The Marines were pinned down by an enemy machine gun and were taking casualties. Lt. Paul Moore raised himself up to throw a grenade and was struck in the chest by an enemy bullet. Looking down at the wound, his mind raced:
The air was going in and out of a hole in my lungs. That didn’t mean I was finished, but I thought I was dead, going to die right then, because I thought if that happened you were gone. I wasn’t breathing through my mouth but through this hole. It felt like a balloon going in and out, going pshhh. I was thinking to myself, Now I’m going to die.
While undergoing treatment for his wound, he later learned:
The bullet… came through my chest between two ribs, slightly shattering them, went past my heart, as the doctors later told me, when it must have been on an inbeat instead of an outbeat, and then missed my backbone as it went through the other side of my body about an inch. So it was a very close shave.174
What would life be like knowing that a bullet had missed your heart by less than an inch? Perhaps you would feel that it was no coincidence, and that God had spared your life for a purpose: your work on this earth was not yet complete.
The apostle Paul told the Corinthians all about his own “close shaves.” Five times he received from the Jews the forty lashes minus one (forty lashes were thought to be lethal, so they stopped short at thirty-nine). He was beaten with rods three times, stoned once, shipwrecked three times, and the list goes on (2 Corinthians 11:24–27). Instead of these brushes with death stopping him from his work, he carried on by God’s strength. God has numbered each of our days as well, from the moment we were born (Psalm 139:16). The Lord will call us home when the time is right, whether we die from a car accident, a heart attack, or an act of war. But in the meantime, he has work for us to do; we should not think our contributions to the kingdom of God are over as long as we are alive. (JG)
For we are God’s workmanship, created in Christ Jesus to do good works, which God prepared in advance for us to do.
—Ephesians 2:10