I want to share this event with you, my beloved friends. It was an amazingly shocking event. And the Lord loudly spoke to me. Some of you have already heard it.
Once i worked at IMPAC. It was a monitoring and control center for plants throughout North America. They oversaw many plants, both small and multimillion dollar plants. And thus it was in operations 24/7.
There were 4 of us per shift, including a shift supervisor. Basically, problem resolution, controls, monitoring, scheduled events, etc, occurred via us through our control station computers. Since most of it was visual, it was important to pay attention to the computer screen.
For example if a plant shut down, depending on the plant size it could take 30 minutes to 4 hours to start it back up. Depending on this, the company could loose from thousands of dollars to tens of thousands of dollars per hours. That's right, per HOUR. And needless to say the customer would loose multiples that amount.
So one day a call had come in from one of the customers requesting a plant shutdown the next day at 6 AM. I happen to take that call and scheduled a reminder for next morning. And discussed this with our shift supervisor. Since this was a gargantuan plant (one of those that took about 4 hours to start back up), i basically made sure to remember this requested event.
Next morning as i woke up, and was thinking about the important task ahead.
Arriving to work at about 5:30 AM, I had this plant in my mind not wanting to forget about this important customer request. And the rest of the team were slowly settling in also. However, to my horror, instead of being alert and ready, they relaxingly engaged in talking about football!
5:45 AM - they talked about football. And i thought, uh-oh i hope they stop soon.
5:50 - 5:57 AM - they still talked about football. I was getting impatient within, then anger began slowly rising within because i was sure they were going to miss the important scheduled event, and all other events, since they were all looking away from their computer screens.
6:00 AM - the scheduled reminder for the customer requested large plant shutdown pops up in all of our screens. But they are still talking about football. And my anger continued to rise within, it was boiling.
6:05 AM - still talking about football
6:10 AM - still talking about football ....
Now consider that this plant and customer operation was most likely a multimillion dollar deal. And at that time its operation depended solely upon us.
Let me stop for a moment as ask YOU: what would you have done in my place?
6:20 AM - They still talked about football. My anger boiled inside. All kinds of thoughts were going through my mind: "I cannot believe these guys. They are completely goofing off talking about football and at this very important moment, and not other!", "they are getting paid so much for their skills, and look at what's going on now!". "I can't believe this!" .... and so on.
And yet with all these judgements in my mind, somehow i did not interrupt their football conversation. They were engaged in such a way in their conversation that somehow prevented me from interrupting. And all those who know me know that I am not the shy type, and much less have problems interrupting a conversation when something important comes up.
6:25 - finally they stop talking about football. By then my anger had risen all the way to my head. Yet i was prevented from expressing it also, and simply said to my supervisor: "Remember the requested shutdown? we missed the deadline". And as coming out of a dream, he remembered and his eyes became big out of the surprise.
Me: "Would you like me to to call the customer to assure them? We should at the very least apologize, right?"
Supervisor: "Yes, yes.... please do that" as in a daze.
And i thought to myself, oh, he is in big trouble, and of course most likely does not want to face the customer. I'll do that for him. So i called the customer...
Customer: Hello?
Me: "I am calling from IMPAC. Just wanted to apologize for our delay.... ? Would you like us to go ahead and shut the plant down now?"
Customer: "What are you talking about?" - his voice seemed incredulous and angered at the same time.
Me: "The shut down request from yesterday...." I was getting a feeling that something was wrong.
Customer: "What do you mean?!" Clearly upset "I called to CANCEL that shutdown....!!" and the rest of what he said became inaudible to me.
Me: "I am so sorry for this inconvenience, there was a misunderstanding..." ... and managed to hang up.
At that moment i effectively realized how great God was.
Moral of the story: If we had gone ahead with the scheduled shut down, our team, our department, our company, and the customer would have been in big trouble. Because once this plant was shut down, it would have taken hours to start it back up. And who knows the tens of thousands of dollars lost, and the lawsuit that the shutdown would have caused.
God was protecting us all, besides the fact that He was addressing me.
It was the LORD who caused my team-mates to become distracted with the football conversation. It was His Holy Spirit that, in spite of my angered spirit, inhibited/totally restrained me from interrupting their football conversation. Because i most definitely would have interrupted and the plant would have been shutdown.
.... In our department, the computer systems documented almost everything automatically. So we able put the pieces together, and soon found out what happened. Since in the end nothing bad happened i do not think we told anyone. And as it turned out, there was a new crew member. Though he had many years of operational experience with plants, he unfortunately was not computer savvy, or knew how type well. Combined with the complex procedures, though he had received the cancellation call from the customer, not knowing what to do he most likely forgot about it (because of others things that came up), and in the process did not cancel the the automated shutdown request.
In all this God protected they new employee, our boss, my supervisor, our department, our company, our customer ....
In all this i knew God was speaking directly to me - and quite loudly at that (and with His sense of humor too), since none of my team mates, except for me, were believers. Now i know that He was letting me know that i was relying in my own understanding (which resulted in me getting so angry and passing judgement on my co-workers).
"Trust in the LORD with all your heart, And do not lean on your own understanding. In all your ways acknowledge Him, And He will make your paths straight. Do not be wise in your own eyes..." (Prov 3:5-7)
"Seek the LORD while He may be found; Call upon Him while He is near. Let the wicked forsake his way, And the unrighteous man his thoughts; And let him return to the LORD, And He will have compassion on him; And to our God, For He will abundantly pardon. For My thoughts are not your thoughts, Neither are your ways My ways, declares the LORD. For as the heavens are higher than the earth, So are My ways higher than your ways, And My thoughts than your thoughts". (Isaiah 55: 6-9)
When i shared this with my husband, he called the Lord, He is unbelievable. Because this event was such an unbelievable event. Who would have thought that He would intervene in such a way? And He can. The Lord can do whatever pleases Him, in whichever way He desires. Out of the so many ways He could have prevented this mistake, He chose to do it in this shocking way, my brothers and sisters.
Thus this incident has slowly changed my view and interpretation of events. When things seem to be going wrong, and my understanding and convictions yells "it is wrong, it is wrong", or my anxiety or worry rise up, there is yet another voice within that says, wait and see, for who knows what the Lord is up to.
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