Cliffhanger

“May I say something?” I interjected at a Bible study last night. We were discussing hearing from the Holy Spirit and I was reminded of something that happened to me several years ago. As a church secretary, I was doing some errands on a beautiful fall afternoon, checking an item in a catalogue at a bookstore before I would purchase some hard to get items at the supermarket to send to our church missionary in Kenya.

Leaving the bookstore and stepping out into the glorious sunlight, I reached for my car door and saw a glint of silver twinkling on my steering column. My car keys were dangling from the ignition! I was locked out! A coat hanger! I thought. I wondered if the clerk in the bookstore had one. She did, but I wasn’t sure what to do with it. I knew I couldn’t poke the hanger through the key hole, but I saw no other way to get it in.

Finally, I pushed the hook of the hanger against the rubber that lined the window, and gratifyingly, I felt it give. Still, there was no way to guide the hook the tantalizing two inches to the protruding knob that would unlock the door. Risking all, I pulled the hook out of the window and decided to insert the corner of the hanger. It slipped in easily, too, and my confidence mounted. The sharp angle of the hanger would have caught the knob, but it was slanted away from the lock.

Try again. This time, I bent the hanger corner before I inserted it, and it slipped expertly over the lock. I held my breath as I gave a quick, but firm, yank (kind of like pulling a baby tooth). Incredibly, the lock popped up! I was positively euphoric. I had an impulse to keep the hanger, but it was all bent, so I deposited it on a pile of boxes at the back door of the bookstore.

As I was pulling into the parking lot of the grocery store, I was suddenly aware of an older man calling out to me from the parking space opposite mine. “I don’t suppose you have a coat hanger in your car, do you?” he asked with an embarrassed laugh. “I’ve locked my keys in my car.” I knew then why I’d had that inner nudge to keep the hanger.

Was that the Holy Spirit? I decided it was when I realized that little things we do and take for granted are actually part of living a Spirit-led life. “In all thy ways acknowledge Him and He shall direct thy paths.” Proverbs 3:6. The others tended to agree with me.