Incident at Motel 6

Five years of insomnia are over, praise God. But for two consecutive nights last week in Michigan I slept four hours, and by the third night I really needed to make up the deficit. I was at a Motel 6 and was awakened from a sound sleep long before daylight when my room phone rang. A man with a foreign accent (it sounded Middle Eastern) at the other end of the line said it was the front desk and that I needed to check my door to see that it was securely locked because there was a serial rapist in the motel-"and he doesn't bother Muslim women."

I checked the door, then slowly cradled the phone on the receiver and started praying. I wasn't sure what was going on but neither scenario was encouraging-if it was a legit call from the office, then there is a rapist yards away from me. If it was a crank call, then there is still a crazed person very near, who now knows that a single woman resides in Room 105.

But after a few minutes of unadulterated terror, my predominant concern was a hangover-like headache from sleep deprivation. I couldn't understand why the Lord had allowed the phone call on this particular night when He knew this was the night I needed to sleep. So I spoke to Him about it. When you speak to the Lord, it is important to come in faith because, as He himself said, "Without faith it is impossible to please him, for whoever would draw near to God must believe that he exists and that he rewards those who seek him" (Hebrews 11:6). He also said, "We have access by faith" (Romans 5:2), not by unbelief.

I spoke something like this: "Lord, I believe that you are the Lord of Lords and King of Kings, and that You are above all principalities and powers, and You know all things. Therefore You know all about this phone call and why I was awakened before I had slept enough. I believe You have a purpose in this that I don't see yet, and I am going to trust You."

God has a whole universe to run, and just imagine the trillions of details He has to dovetail in order to make things turn out according to His plan. It would be lunacy for me to begrudge an interrupted slumber when I have no idea of the carefully positioned dominoes involved here. And besides all the cosmic reasons why I was awakened early-which started my day earlier, which got me on the road earlier, which caused me to meet an entirely difference set of people and circumstances all day long and into infinity-there are the personal reasons God means just for me.

It occurs to me that God may simply have allowed the perplexingly untimely phone call to test my heart, to see whether I will trust Him when I am baffled ("The LORD your God is testing you, to know whether you love the LORD your God with all your heart and with all your soul"- Deuteronomy 13:3). Sometimes He gives us these opportunities to exercise a muscular faith in the face of a sheer unknown-when there is no explanation but that God is God. And I believe He likes to hear us say the words-out loud and before the angels-"Lord, no matter what happens, I will trust in You."

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