"What happened that day at the intersection of the Perimeter Highway and Saskatchewan Avenue was an authentic miracle… The laws of thermodynamics were momentarily superseded by a higher law. It had much more to do with the faith and prayers of a few ordinary people inviting God's intervening hand, in Jesus' name, to protect him on the road in a way that no one else can do…"
(Winnipeg, Manitoba)—If you think miracles documented in the New Testament don't really happen anymore, you'll want to read the following story. Phillip may not have been the only one to be "transported" by the Holy Spirit, as Minnesotan trucker Roger Henry can testify. Read this remarkable account—written by his brother David—of what happened as Roger approached an icy intersection in Winnipeg one wintery day, just months ago.
Roger had just driven his rig north from the Twin Cities and was now headed back home with a large return load. The pavement was dry that day, so he set his speed at the 100 km per hour limit and prepared to make the familiar trip down to the North Dakota border and on south to home.
Roger and his wife Joyce are Christians. As a matter of habit and conviction, they pray in the name of Jesus and simply ask God to protect him as he travels a route that in a split second can turn deadly. In fact, Sandy Atkinson, a Jewish Christian friend of the Henry's, prays every day specifically for Roger to be kept safe as he plies his potentially dangerous trade. This day he would cash in those prayers; he would need all the help he could get.
Manitoba 101, The Perimeter Highway, is well-engineered for safety. On some of its crossings it has yellow blinking lights that forewarn drivers of their safe passage through the next traffic light. It's either, a yellow blinking, 'no'—you must prepare to stop at the next light, or the switched off light indicating 'yes'—you are safe to proceed.
Roger had his rig humming in high gear and relaxed as much as is reasonable into the familiar routine. He was headed south on the west side of Winnipeg, when he approached the next intersection at Perimeter Highway and Saskatchewan Avenue. He observed the yellow light was 'off', giving him the right-of-way through the intersection. He stayed in the right lane. Ominously, off to his right, his eyes locked on to a black four-door sedan traveling from the west at a high rate of speed that indicated someone wasn't paying attention. Roger quickly calculated that the driver could not possibly stop in time for the red light controlling the east-west traffic flow.
There was no time to stop. Air brakes on a big rig are slower to respond than car brakes. It takes a moment of time to develop sufficient air pressure to even begin to slow the giant down. Roger did not have the luxury of those few seconds. Do the math. Study the physics. That sedan driver had to die.
Roger describes what happened as entering briefly into a state of suspended consciousness. He did not faint or pass out. In Roger's words, "My screen went blank." His hands were on the steering wheel but someone had control of his truck for about two seconds. He did not steer into the left lane. He couldn't. He could not veer to the right. It would have been like playing 'crack-the-whip' with a huge load of steel and freight. He could neither change directions nor vary his speed. It was impossible. The distance between his truck's front bumper and the side of the car was roughly twenty five yards. While the front tires were aligned straight ahead, the whole 82.5 feet of the truck were instantly moved sideways into the left lane. To get into the left lane by means of the steering wheel would have meant a flipped truck.
An engineer was asked to calculate the foot pounds of energy contained in the mass and velocity of that truck. He wrote:
"The linear or translational momentum of a particle (mass = truck here) is defined as the product of its mass x velocity (100 km/hr). That is 5,650 tons momentum, in metric tons. Since one metric ton is 1,000 kilogram, and 1 kg is 2.205 lbs, the same momentum is 12,458,000 lbs." -Joe Horvath, PhD.
So much energy going straight forward would not allow the truck to swerve into the left land if Roger had attempted it. He would have taken out the black sedan plus several other vehicles with the flipped tractor and two trailers. While Roger's screen went blank, the only explanation left us is that God moved the whole truck in its north/south alignment 7 meters over into the left lane. When Roger's 'screen came back on' he found himself 100 meters through the intersection in the left land and gradually heading for the right shoulder. But, he did not so much as touch the black sedan. No screeching sound of steel exploding on steel and glass. No fire. No smoke. Nothing. He came back to his normal senses on the south side of Saskatchewan Avenue. Most unusual of all, Roger had no sense of fear, no panic, no adrenaline rush, no rapid beating of his heart. He was aware of a profound sense of peace all about him; and in him.
Roger quickly down shifted and pulled off to the right shoulder of the highway and got out of his truck. He stood there and looked back north at the crossing from 150 meters away. The black sedan was still there. It was parked right where Roger should have blown through it. All traffic had stopped. It takes something unusual to change the routine of drivers hurrying to work in bone-chilling weather. What they saw motivated them. About twenty witnesses were stopped. Three or four drivers got out of their cars and began to gather around the car to inspect it. The witnesses to this event were trying to make sense of what they had just seen.
As Roger watched, the light changed and the driver in the black car drove slowly away to the east toward the city. After assessing what he had just lived through without any damage to either vehicle, Roger made his way back into the truck and sat there for a while collecting his thoughts. He is a down-to-earth, laid back, professional trucker with a good sense of humor. But that day, he saw the curtain pulled back for just a few seconds; he saw into another dimension.
Roger has searched for a word to explain what happened to him. He said that the best he can explain it is he was, "transported" in the sense of Phillip the Evangelist in the eighth chapter verses 39 and 40, of the Book of Acts in the Bible. Phillip was ministering to the Ethiopian Eunuch who had just been baptized in Gaza. At the completion of that ministry, he found himself the next moment transported to a location eighteen miles to the north along the Mediterranean shore and a new ministry assignment. Phillip was 'seized' or 'caught away' from Gaza and 'found himself' in Azotus. Roger was seized from the right lane where death was, and found himself in the left lane and a good distance ahead where safety was. The Greek New Testament verb is "Harpadzo", the same verb that is employed in the English concept of rapture or a 'catching away'. Roger experienced what we might call a mini-rapture. He and the other driver were in imminent danger. Roger was covered in prayer. He was caught away from or seized out of danger. To redirect, or reposition that much rolling energy in a such surgically precise fashion required a greater amount of power than the force in the vehicle's mass and velocity.
Webster's Dictionary defines a miracle as, "1. ...an event or effect that contradicts known scientific laws and is hence thought to be due to supernatural causes, especially to an act of God." What happened that day at the intersection of the Perimeter Highway and Saskatchewan Avenue was an authentic miracle. Roger is a good truck driver; a very good one. He has amassed over three million miles of truck driving without an accident. That is testimony to consistently good judgment in all kinds of situations. But what happened on that patch of pavement had nothing to do with his skill or ability. The laws of thermodynamics were momentarily superseded by a higher law. It had much more to do with the faith and prayers of a few ordinary people inviting God's intervening hand, in Jesus' name, to protect him on the road in a way that no one else can do. Some old-timers call it, 'being prayed up'. Their months and years of prayers had gone ahead of him.
A lot of things pass for news that are no real news. And some things that are so astounding as to defy explanation go by and no one records it; no one tells the story. This true story is being told. There was a miracle in Winnipeg that day, on the Perimeter Highway. God did intervene; something holy, powerful and good happened on a cold Canadian winter's day. There is a person or persons who are alive right now who should not be. But they are. They might consider humbly giving thanks to Someone who, when asked in faith, does the impossible.
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