As a pastor, one of the things a church does weekly and weakly, is to take a moment during the church service to offer a moment of praise and prayer requests. Often this little segment resembles more an organ recital than a praise service; persons stand and say this organ hurts and that organ hurts.

It is quite exciting for me and I’m sure for God too to actually hear an honest to goodness praise report. This week my wife and I were spared a head on collision when a car passing us tried to pass me and four other cars on a hill. The oncoming car and I slammed on our brakes and the car scooted in in the nick of time. At church if I heard that true account, I would definitely classify that as a praise.

However this morning, an incident occurred in San Francisco that would have made me wait in line to get to church early just to hear the praise first hand. A worker with Century Window Cleaners had his harness break while washing windows 11 stories up. Usually such a mishap would have resulted in instant death. But not today, the worker’s guardian angel had to have been working the early shift.

What can only be described as miracle, the man crashed onto a moving Toyota Camry.  With a thunderous boom, he landed on the roof of the car behind the drivers seat and caved the back end of the car down to the seat shattering the rear window.

Can you imagine the thoughts running through his head as he plummeted to the ground? I can only assume his relationship with God improved far greater on his decent than his earlier morning ascent.

Police say he was rushed to San Francisco General Hospital and he was conscious. They say he suffered a fractured arm, among other serious injuries. The person in the car however managed to escape with minor injury.

I’m not sure when the accident victim will be able to attend church again but if he wants to come to my church and share his story during the praise and prayer request segment, I’ll give him all time he needs. In fact, I’ll give him the whole sermon time. Talk about being having the right form of thankfulness this coming week!

Regarding the man driving the car? His praise report is mixed. While he was spared serious injury, his auto insurance policy won’t cover the damages; something about an “act of God.” A typical response; God frequently gets the blame but not the credit. So what do you want to thank God for this holiday season?