I want to tell you a story about my friend Pat.

Pat is huge, weighing more than 270 pounds and standing 6 feet 4 inches tall. He was a bouncer in a bar before he gave his heart to the Lord and spent most of his life as a long-haul truck driver. That meant he had to be away from home a lot.

Sometimes, to make life easier for his wife, he would take his two daughters with him in the truck. One day as they were going down the highway, they had the CB radio on, tuned to the trucker’s channel, as required by his company. The CB chatter was filled with truckers using filthy language and telling the filthiest of stories, and Pat and the girls were getting more and more upset over what they were hearing.

Christ has changed Pat into one of the kindest people on earth, but back then he was a cocky, determined, strong-willed bouncer. Ready to take on the world. Ready to protect and defend his girls.

“Hey guys,” he spoke into the CB microphone. “Knock it off! Some of us have family in the cab. Listening to your language like this is unacceptable!”

“Listen man,” another trucker responded. “You want us to come and teach you a few things? Maybe you need to learn a few words.”

Pat got mad. “In fifteen minutes,” he shouted into the CB, “I’m gonna be at the intersection of Highway 12 and 32. Any of you guys who want to come and make something of it, you come! I’ll be there!”

These truckers, they know all the intersections and all the parking areas and they knew exactly where they would find my brother.

“I’ll be there in five minutes,” one trucker said. Another promised to join them, and all of a sudden 4 or 5 other guys had promised to meet Pat at the intersection and beat him up.

“Oh, no,” he thought. “What have I gotten myself into? What a stupid thing for me to say!”

Always a man of his word, he pulled into the intersection of 12 and 32 and prayed. “Lord, please forgive me for doing something this crazy.”

When he parked, he was all alone on the side of the road. Five minutes later a big semi rolled in and parked beside him. When the driver got out, shockingly, he was literally over seven feet tall, huge and muscular with a large beard and stocking cap. The man stood tall and walked over to Pat’s truck.

“Are you Pat?” he asked.

“Yes,” Pat mumbled, thinking, “Is the way my life is going to end?”

The man stuck out his hand, but Pat was afraid to take it. The guy might grab him and then punch his lights out! But he swallowed hard, and reached out warily to shake the trucker’s huge hand.

“Hi,” the big man smiled, “I’m Mitch. I heard the other truckers talking and figured you might need some help.”

Relieved, Pat stood close to Mitch and together, two truckers and two girls, waited at the promised intersection, waiting for the enemy to pull up and park.

Five minutes … truck after truck roared by.

Ninety minutes later … not one other truck had stopped!

When my brother tells the story he always adds, “That how important it is for us to place ourselves under the dominion of The One who can take care of our problems, The One who delivers us even from the half-witted things we sometimes do, The One who is here to save us.