Some of you might have read of
Nancy Howard’s (neé Shore) deep forgiveness of her husband. Mrs
Howard drove home from church one day in August 2012 but a hitman was waiting for her with a gun. She survived, but was stunned to learn, from her hospital bed, who police accused of paying to have her killed.
Now I don’t want to dwell upon a wife’s duty to obey her husband and forgive him for everything, because that is unremarkable – wives have a duty to do that and we all should forgive those who persecute us. Rather, I want to address this part of Mrs
Howard’s story. She has just been to church, a Baptist Church, and so we know that she has “sinned no more.” She has driven into her garage. She gets out of the car.
At the point at which she made the interesting statement, the hitman is in the garage and is holding her by the neck:
"He demanded my purse a third time with expletives," says Nancy. "I was close enough to him to shove my purse into his chest and when I did I cried out, 'Jesus save me!' and he immediately shot me in the head and I went down."
(I wish to make it absolutely clear that when she said “'Jesus save me!' and he immediately shot me in the head.” She did not mean that Jesus shot her in the head… I know it can be read like that, but she means “the hitman.”)
Now the fact that Mrs
Howard called upon Jesus and was immediately shot tells us more about Jesus.
As I am sure I have said before, God has three responses to prayer: “Yes”, “No” and “Wait”. We know which one it was. I suggest to you that you have already worked out which one of those three it was. Jesus was right there beside her – He was in her soul – and his perfect answer… “Wait”.
But why is it such a brilliant answer? Well, that is because it was the Just and Holy thing to do…
Why? Jesus was showing Nancy Howard, IN ADVANCE, that because her
immediate forgiveness of her husband simply would not be there – it took her years to do what is a Christian duty, - that His Perfect delay in saving her was a message to her to “be a little quicker next time"
– and if she is, then perhaps Jesus will be a little quicker (or perhaps not depending upon what He knows.)
Sources:
https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/stories-44521209
https://abcnews.go.com/US/texas-man-...ry?id=17215629