One Nashville police officer is crediting God with directing him away from the Christmas Day bomb blast that could have taken his life.
Officer James Wells recounted to reporters on Sunday that he was among the officers clearing people out of buildings, based on the bomb threats coming over a loudspeaker from an RV parked in downtown Nashville early Christmas morning.
When a three-minute warning was broadcast, Wells went back to his squad car to put on his “heavy plates” body armor, just in case.
Music continued to emanate from the RV as well, including Petula Clark’s “Downtown,” NBC News reported.
It was a surreal scene, according to officers’ accounts.
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As Wells was getting ready to walk back in the direction of the RV and some of his fellow officers, he felt God spoke instructing him to change course and check on Officer Amanda Topping.
“This might not be politically correct, but this is my truth,” Wells said. “I literally heard God tell me to turn around and go check on Topping, who was by herself down on Broadway.”
“As I turned around,” the officer continued with emotion now in his voice, “for me it felt like I only took three steps and then the music stopped. And as I’m walking back toward Topping now I just see orange and then I hear a loud boom.
“As I’m stumbling because it rocked me that hard. I started stumbling. I just told myself, ‘Stay on your feet, stay alive.’”
Wells explained why he will not cower from giving God credit for preserving his life.
“I’m not going to shy away from that, because that’s what saved my life,” the officer said, according to NBC. “That’s what got me to see my kids and my wife on Christmas. And ‘good to see you’ has a completely different meaning for me now.”
Topping had a similar experience, with something telling her she needed to change direction right before the bomb detonated.
“I don’t know what told me to do this. It was really weird, but I decided to change my direction and go on the other side of the road and start walking towards Wells. So as I started walking towards him, you know, he started walking towards me,” she said.
Topping has no idea how she kept her footing after the bomb blast, as she witnessed a huge plume of orange ignite before her face and Wells stumbling.
“I couldn’t see him for a second. I just lost it, and I just took off in a sprint towards him,” she recalled. “And, like he said, I’ve never grabbed somebody so hard in my life. I grabbed him. He grabbed me and we just ducked into a doorway, because we didn’t know what was coming afterwards.”
The Bible is replete with examples of God speaking directly to people in order to save them or their loved ones from physical harm, including to Jesus’ father Joseph after the baby’s birth.
“[A]n angel of the Lord appeared to Joseph in a dream and said, ‘Rise, take the child and his mother, and flee to Egypt, and remain there till I tell you; for [King] Herod is about to search for the child, to destroy him,’ according to Matthew 2.
Herod in fact ordered the killing of male children under two years old in Bethlehem following Jesus’ birth.
Of course in the famous 23rd Psalm, King David, who had faced death on many occasions in battle and otherwise, wrote, “Yea, though I walk through the valley of the shadow of death, I will fear no evil; For You are with me; Your rod and Your staff, they comfort me.”
Shepherds use their rods and staffs to guide and protect their flocks from danger.
David also related that God, in his divine providence, knows the number of our days on this earth even before we are born.
In other words, the Almighty is able to prevent anything from taking us out before our assigned time.
“Your eyes saw my substance, being yet unformed. And in Your book they all were written, the days fashioned for me, when as yet there were none of them,” he wrote.
The Apostle Paul also taught about God’s Holy Spirit being able to speak to humans’ spirits giving specific words of wisdom or knowledge to address various situations we face on earth.
Praise God for the Christmas miracle, that God preserved Wells’ and Topping’s lives and that no one but the bomber was killed.
It is reassuring to hear testimonies of God remaining active on the earth and more than able to save people from evil plots.
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