Chuck Swindoll tells a story about a man who was shipwrecked on an uninhabited island. Seeing that rescue might be a long time in coming, he painstakingly built a little hut to provide himself protection from the elements, and a place to store the few items he had managed to salvage from the wreck.
For weeks, this man lived in this little hut, with only the hot sun and the cold nights to keep him company. But each and every day, he would prayerfully scan the horizon, hoping for the approach of a ship.
But there was nothing.
One evening, after he had been searching for food on the island, he came back to see that his little hut was in flames. He tried to put the fire out, but it was too late. Everything he had in this world had gone up in smoke.
He went to sleep that night, listening to the pounding of the surf, stunned by his own misfortune.
The next morning, he awoke to find a ship anchored off the island—the first ship he had seen since he had been marooned. Still trying to believe his eyes, he heard footsteps and then a human voice, saying, “We saw your smoke signal and we came to rescue you.”
That’s how it happens sometimes. In sovereignty and grace, the worst case scenario somehow becomes the best case scenario.
Sometimes disasters can turn out to be great opportunities for God to work in your life. The Lord is always present with us, always intimately acquainted with our circumstances, and He can take impossible situations and turn them around.
