El McMeen shares about an unusual way that God speaks

El McMeen

Sometimes we think about life as a roll of the dice, don't we? Since gambling odds are never very good, we tend to think that way when the dice come up "snake eyes" - or some other unlucky combination.

Well, consider this!

The numbers 7 and 11 are lucky numbers, right? Not being much of a gambler, I don't know all the details, but I know that these numbers mean good things for the gambler. You get one or both; you win.

Here's where things get interesting for me. Over the years, I have begun to notice that in times of stress the numbers 7 and/or 11 have begun to appear to me. They have shown up in a variety of fascinating ways - divine reassurance and comfort.

When I feel pressured, and look around for the numbers, they aren't there. I can't conjure them up when I want them. They always come as a surprise! I kid you not.

For example, in literally scores of instances when I have been apprehensive about something, I've glanced at the clock, and the time has been 7:11...or 11:11...or 7:07...or 11:07.

There are 1,440 minutes in the day. The chances of looking up and seeing some 7/11 time represent roughly .006--or, in words, point 6 percent. Talk about odds!

Was I somehow "programming" myself so that I would instinctively look at the clock at certain times of the day? That may sound plausible, but consider the following.

I was scheduled to give a guitar concert in Denver, Colorado a few years ago. I arrived there exhausted. Perhaps worse, my guitar didn't take well at all to the dry air out there. In the hotel room the night before the concert, I was struggling. I practiced my pieces, and was desperately adjusting the guitar setup so that the darned thing wouldn't buzz. In the middle of this, I glanced at the clock in the hotel room. It said 7:11. Boy, did that calm me down. The concert went very well the next day.

Now, if my body somehow programmed me to look at the clock then, it was pretty smart to factor in the two-hour time difference between NJ and Denver! I don't think so.

Or consider this: one time I was extremely apprehensive about the quality of some recording I had done. I was listening to the demo CD on a portable disc player. I glanced at the player, and it showed the elapsed time as 7:11! Think of the odds. In that case, if I had looked at the player one SECOND later, it would have shown 7:12, since the 11 represented seconds not minutes. How about that--pretty amazing, no?

Another time I was worried about something while I was listening to the Discman. I glanced at the player. It showed that I was listening to Track 7, and that 11 seconds had elapsed in the track--7-11 again!

This 7-11 phenomenon goes beyond time. A number of years ago, on very short notice, I was asked to go to Maine, and address a major client on a complicated legal issue.
As I was sweating things out in my hotel room, I noticed my room number --117. The numbers 11 and 7 to the rescue!

But there's more: I was booked to do a guitar concert at perhaps the premier club on the West Coast--with the unlikely name of the Freight and Salvage, in Berkeley, California. I worried about that show night and day for three weeks before I did it. As it turned out, it went well. Only when I got home after the show, and started to recover my strength, did I notice that the club's address in Berkeley was...1111 Addison Street!

Just one more of these...on more than one occasion in church, when I have been in a troubled state of mind, the Scripture lesson has been chapter 7, starting at verse 7 or 11, or chapter 11, verse 7 or 11. One of my favorite miracles of Jesus turns out to begin at Luke 7:11 - the raising of the son of the widow of Nain.

Have you experienced something similar? I bet you have. We tend to think of God in Old Testament terms of power and force, or New Testament terms of love and comfort...but He also clearly has a sense of humor! After all, if He didn't, how could WE have one? And what better way to manifest it to us humble, flawed human beings than at times when we need comfort and support?

After I wrote all of this, I mused with my son Jon about whether I had jinxed myself and never would see 7-11 again. Putting this issue out of my mind and needing some information for tax purposes, I began to rummage through some closing papers from 1975 on our previous home. As my eye was casually running through a mortgage statement from back then, I handed the paper to my son, and asked him to look at my monthly obligation for mortgage and real estate taxes. We both roared with delight; the number was $711.