Before they call, I will answer

In the book of Isaiah is found this wondrous promise of God: “Before they call, I will answer, while they are yet speaking, I will hear” (65:24). I believe I can understand this promise because of a roadside experience I once had with a family of strangers.

The year was 1975. I was a junior at Texas Christian University in Fort Worth and was returning from my part-time, weekend ministry in Belton. I was driving north on IH-35 just south of Cleburne and it was about 9 p.m. and dark.

Being alone in a car in 1975, I was, of course, entertaining myself by listening to my trusty, 23 channel CB radio. CBs were the thing back then. No one had yet conceived of a cell phone. And in 1975, the CB phenomenon was heightened by movies such as Smoky and the Bandit, and C. W. McCall's novelty song 'Convoy.' Probably every other car on the road had a CB. My radio was connected to my unseen, in-windshield radio antennae, so I chose as my handle The Invisible. But I digress.

My radio picked up a message from a traveler who was stranded on the side of the road with a busted radiator hose. He gave his location as mile marker so-and-so. My eye caught the next green, illuminated mile marker: The stranded traveler was just four or five miles ahead of me on my side of the road. When I saw his emergency flashers and his hood up, I pulled up behind him and turned on my emergency flashers.

The man came back to meet me saying, “You must be from AAA. It didn’t take you long to answer my call. We’ve only been here for about fifteen minutes.” I told him I was not from AAA, but that I had heard him in conversation over my CB radio. He had three other family members with him and a flashlight, but not a tool one.

We both looked under the hood and, sure enough, you could see the gash in his lower hose and a little stream of green coolant still trickling onto the pavement. About twenty minutes later, we shook hands and he thanked me for fixing his problem. He asked how much he owed me and I said something like, “Not a thing; this is Texas.” Now how did it come about that I was able to help this man?

Months before his radiator hose had busted, my brother, Randy, had gifted me a multi-drawer Kennedy tool chest (wow) which I had filled with almost every imaginable tool. It weighed about one hundred pounds but fit nicely into the trunk of my car.

Weeks before this man’s radiator hose had busted, a mechanic had checked my own. It had a soft spot on it, so it was replaced and I had kept the old one in my trunk for a spare. Not only that, but what are the chances that my old hose would have the same configuration as this man’s? And, of course, I had enough antifreeze for the motorist to get to the nearest gas station.

Had this traveler’s dilemma resulted in a prayer before I arrived? I do not know. But, long before this traveler’s car problem, God had put within my brother’s heart the generosity to give me a wonderful, useful gift. Before this man’s radiator hose had worn out, God led a mechanic’s hand to feel a bad hose under my car’s hood, which resulted in me having an it’ll-do-for-a-while spare to share. “Before they call, I will answer.”