Intrusions: When God Shows Up In Your Life Unexpectedly

By Kenneth R. Overman

When was the last time you felt God's touch?

Every Christian believes in miracles, but few recognize how God performs them in their own life today. Through a series of profound experiences in exotic locales with colorful characters, the author's astonishing life journey demonstrates how God performs miracles in both the mundane and extraordinary moments.

Starting with an encounter on a small boat in the South Pacific as a teenager to a near mishap on an oil rig in the Red Sea, to a miraculous adoption in Europe and business successes and failures, Ken has lived it all and shares the wisdom gained through trusting Him.

In every account you'll see how our loving Father directs, encourages, and sometimes teaches a painful lesson. As a bonus, you'll learn a time-tested way to know if you're on the right path with God.

Written with disarming vulnerability and backed by solid scripture, this uplifting testimony will inspire you to view your life in a new, exciting way.

• Language: English
• Publisher: CrossLink Publishing
• Release date: Jun 1, 2021
• ISBN: 9781393186939

Book preview

Praise for Intrusions

"In Intrusions, Mr. Overman peels back the veneer so many of us adopt in order to survive our fears, insecurities, and emotional hurts and disappointments. What he discovered was a powerful truth: that God is always with us, loves us, and will go to great lengths to get our attention when we aren’t listening. A soulful scare, a pain-filled incident, a wrecked life – God will work with it all. Overman’s profound experiences with the Lord’s intrusions into his life are what led him to a journey that is purposeful, genuine, and provides peace. What this author wants for us is the same thing–to recognize those times for what they are–our loving Father getting our attention and offering us joy and freedom through our acceptance of His way for us."

N. L. Quantrano - Co-author, Amazing Grace Trucking series, Author of Between the Lines

Ken has the ability to make you feel at home with his writing. Something everyone can relate to.

David Yates - Co-Director of Dolphin Tale I and II, Former CEO of Ironman Triathlon Company, and Clearwater Marine Aquarium - Clearwater, FL

Together with the miracle of salvation and frequent interventions in his life, Ken received the gift of clearly communicating a message of a life lived on the edge that is transparent, engaging, and exciting. Ken’s saga rekindles the excitement and joy of abundant life in Christ!

Ralph A Miler, US Navy Fighter Pilot, President of RAM Aviation, Associate, Professor Entrepreneurship at Regent University - Virginia Beach, VA 

"Compelling stories.  Captivating writing.  Disarming vulnerability. These are the hallmarks of Ken Overman’s latest book, Intrusions – When God Shows Up in Your Life Unexpectedly. This book is a wildly exciting life story that begins as hippie travel log filled with exotic locales and colorful characters.  It becomes a deep-dive into authentic Christian spirituality … think James Michener’s The Drifters meets Josh McDowell’s More Than a Carpenter and you’ll get the picture. If you’re a looking for uplifting, faith-filled, epic story that will inspire you to expectantly seek evermore from your own life adventure, this book is for you!"

Brett Pyle - Transformational Speaker & CEO Coach, Author of Your Extraordinary Why – Living a Successful Life of Significance - San Diego, CA

"Intrusions is a great book and a terrific account of God’s powerful Intrusions in Ken’s life. Read it for pleasure, share it to bless."

Buck Jacobs, Founder and Chairman Emeritus, The C12 Group - San Antonio, TX

"My friend Ken Overman writes with a skill that engages my heart and my imagination.  His adventurous life story of Intrusions – When God Shows Up in Your Life Unexpectedly, is a captivating and inspiring testimony of the loving faithfulness of our relentless Heavenly Father."

Stu Krogman, Retired Pastor of Hope Ministries, CrossRoads Evangelical Missionary Church, Red Deer, Alberta, CA

Ken’s writing is inspirational and compelling.  His words are alive with compassion, faith and truth.

Susan D. Brandenburg, award-winning author and

biographer - Jacksonville, FL

"With Intrusions, Ken Overman offers a compelling and heartfelt narrative documenting his personal faith journey. His writing touches the heart and the soul as he shares with remarkable candor the life-changing moments of a life well lived."

Victor DiGenti, Award-winning Novelist, Biographer & Publisher - Ponte Vedra Beach, FL

"If you want a powerful renewal of God’s blessings your life, then read and experience Intrusions, When God Shows Up in Your Life Unexpectedly!"

H. Skip Weitzen, Award-Winning Author of Infopreneurs and Hypergrowth

I couldn’t put Ken’s book down! I kept reading and believing how God intruded in his life exactly when he needed guidance the most. Thank you, Ken, for allowing me to see God’s blessings and intrusions in my own life.

Sam Peluso – Former Merrill Lynch executive, Author, Fat Cats: Observations of a 44-Year Wall Street Executive

Ken’s new book is very wise, from the heart, and inspirational. I highly recommend it, and you will not be disappointed.

H. L. (Buddy) Eidel, Founder and Chairman Emeritus, Tri-City Electrical Contractors, Inc.

Ken’s excerpts of his life are engaging, and his raw vulnerability drew me into a place of introspection to recall God’s Intrusions in my own life.

Todd Szakacs, Investment Advisor, Credential Asset Management Inc., Alberta, Canada

"Intrusions – When God Shows Up in Your Life Unexpectedly arrives at a time when all of us are desperate for positive news. The author convinces us that when we least expect them and most need them, miracles do happen."

Judith K. White, Author, The Amsterdam Trilogy and The Carving

"Ken’s talent for writing my book, Bucking the Trend has proven to be a very valuable and inspiring read for our young employees as well to many friends. Intrusions will be no less inspiring. I thank you for this and all you do."

Buck Autrey, Retired CEO and Chairman Emeritus, Miller Electric Company - Florida

Kenneth continues to use his God given gift to illustrate the Lords intervention in our lives in a clear, powerful, understandable way.

Wendell Nordby – Founder and Chairman Emeritus, Nordby Construction – Santa Rosa, CA

For Karen,

My Divine Intruder

Contents

Praise for Intrusions

Before You Read On…

Into the Abyss

Double Dose

Tanked

Clarification

Beginnings

She’s Next

Capsize!

The Plucky Irishman

A Chance Meeting

Meet Tara

A Classy Time Out

Not Your Ordinary Attorney

One More

Special Delivery

The Miracle of Fatherhood

Smuggling Bibles

Another Paradise

A New Track

I Don’t Believe in Luck

Morning Star

The Body Pitches In

The Shadow of Death

Help through the Night

A Hard Lesson on Priorities

Junkyard Epiphany

The Sun Always Rises

When There Are No Intrusions

Moving On

The Other Side of the Mountain

About the Author

Other books by Kenneth R. Overman

Before You Read On…

You don’t have to worry. I’m not going to tell you a pack of lies to make me look good. I’m just going to tell you what happened.

—Nicolas Cage, Lord of War

Humor me for a moment. Imagine I’m the blind man in John 9 that Jesus healed on the Sabbath. He was just a poor beggar, and when he asked for healing the Lord put mud in his eyes and told him to wash in the pool of Siloam. He obeyed and was instantly healed. Later on, when a group of Pharisees asked how he gained his sight, he simply told them what happened. But they didn’t believe him and kept asking the same question until the frustrated man could only reply, One thing I do know; I was blind but now I see!

When it comes to relating dramatic events like healing or salvation, most agree that an eyewitness account is the best way to convince a skeptic. I’m sure others who heard that man’s story believed him even if the Pharisees did not.

Ever since Jesus opened my eyes of faith one night on a beach in southern Spain, I’ve told many others about my experience. Most of them didn’t believe me, but I eventually learned it’s the Holy Spirit that does the convincing, not me. Like the blind man, all I can do is relate what happened. But for me, the miracle of faith that led to salvation was just the beginning.

Miracles of God happen all the time in the life of every believer, but tragically they go unnoticed because we aren’t paying attention. We’re so busy that we fail to look at and listen to what God is doing all around us. I suffered from the same blindness until the day God did something really big in my life, and that’s when I realized how often our Father intrudes in the lives of His children, whether we ask Him to or not. That’s what this book is all about.

The following pages contain accounts of several miracles that happened to me over many years. Some are big, obvious, and amazing, while others are small and seemingly of little consequence. However, once I began to map all the things God has done in my life, I realized that every one of them had a purpose, and that purpose was His divine will, not mine.

Writing this book was not my idea. I recently spent a weekend with Buck Jacobs, founder and chairman emeritus of the C-12 Group, a respected international Christian business mentoring and teaching organization. As a friend and mentor, Buck has read most of my books, so he knows my story. One morning after prayer on his veranda, he suggested I write about the times God tangibly intervened in my affairs. He said the miracles I have experienced are proof that God is just as active today in the lives of Christians as He ever was.

Every believer believes in miracles, Buck said, but very few are aware of just how much God does for them every day.

With those marching orders, I pulled the more notable miracles from four of my books, placed them in chronological order, and the result is Intrusions.

In the following pages, you’ll read about miracles that happened while I worked in, lived in, or visited numerous countries on three continents. I’ve been blessed with an unusual life, and the evidence is a drawer-full of expired passports containing visas for all 108 countries I visited. I was a busy guy, and with all that exposure, it’s quite possible that God had to pull me out of the fire now and then.

But here’s the best part: once a believer becomes aware of God’s loving intrusions, life gets far more interesting. After studying the Bible for over forty years, it’s my belief that He never intended the Christian life to be boxed-in, stifling, or boring. Instead, it should be creative, exciting, inspiring, and surprising—like the way you felt when you were first saved. The excitement begins when you discover God’s fingerprints on you and around you. Put another way, it starts when you begin to pay attention.

If you haven’t witnessed some of God’s miracles in your life, or if you’re a new Christian, take heart. God’s loving intrusions happen to you all the time. It’s a fact, whether you’re a Boomer, Gen X, or a Millennial. All you have to do is look around.

I hope these accounts will inspire you to realize what your loving Father has done in your own life. After all, God is in the miracle business just as much now as He ever was.

—Ken Overman

July 2020

- 1 -

Into the Abyss

…What no eye has seen, what no ear has heard, and what no human mind has conceived—the things God has prepared for those who love Him.

—1 Corinthians 2:9

Late August 1965

Sharks are rarely seen in the middle of the Pacific Ocean. The only exception is the large migration of Great Whites between April and June. That’s when they leave the fertile coastlines of California and Hawaii to congregate in what is called The Great White Café, a section of the ocean midway between the two coasts. I was not aware of that when I jumped into the water in that precise location. First, a bit of backstory.

***

The Trans-Pacific Newport Beach to Honolulu yacht race had just finished, and over a hundred sailboats of various sizes waited in the Alawai Yacht Harbor for crews to sail them back to Southern California. My friend Bob Witte and I had graduated from high school and spent the summer bumming around the islands. Burned out and broke, we had to get back to Long Beach for fall college classes. We were experienced sailors, so we walked the docks of the marina asking captains and owners if they needed a crew. One of them said yes.

His name was Jim, and he needed two more bodies to round out the crew of the Jo Too, a thirty-six-foot wooden sloop. A week later, I packed a few rocks in my suitcase and ceremonially tossed it into the harbor (suitcases weren’t allowed due to space restrictions), and then climbed on board. Jim said the trip would take a few weeks to traverse the 2,250 miles to King Harbor, California.

And by the way, he smiled, that’s the longest stretch of ocean between any two points of land in the entire world. Still want to go?

Dumb question, I thought. The statement made the voyage all the more exciting.

We left the island of Oahu in late August and sailed south to Lahaina, Maui, for a brief stop before heading west. A week and a half later, I would encounter what I recall as the first tangible intrusion in my life by a greater power. It happened on a particularly hot day when Jim informed me I needed a bath.

We were near the end of the Doldrums—the high-pressure area in the mid-Pacific notorious for glassy seas and no wind. I decided to forego using a bucket to wash myself and took a plunge in the ocean instead. We let Jo Too drift while Bob took the shark watch position on top of the coach roof. Up there, he could scan the sea for anything suspicious, like a dorsal fin. Although we were behind the curve of the Great White migration schedule, Captain Jim always believed one might be lurking below the surface waiting for a dangling hand or leg.

I stripped down and dove into the clear, refreshing water. Grabbing the trailing line, I let the boat’s slow forward motion pull me. The cool, salty bath excited every nerve of my body. Overcome with the sense of total freedom, I had an idea.

Keep an eye out, Bob! I yelled.

When he nodded, I let go of the line and breast stroked about five minutes away from the boat. With barely a puff of wind and no perceptible current, there was little chance of being left behind. I did it for sheer experience, to allow myself to be vulnerable to anything around or below me. Looking to every point on the horizon, I beheld an eternity of water and sky. There was nothing else anywhere to be seen.

When I saw Jo Too in the distance, so tiny, helpless, and at the mercy of the elements, I shuddered with both fear and excitement. I reflected on the delicate craft made with pieces of wood and canvas, glued and fastened together. That was all we had. It bobbed in the water like a toy, literally thousands of miles from anywhere.

I looked down at my naked body. My arms and trunk were pale and delicate in the luminescent water. Like our boat, I was fragile and subject to destruction at the whim of nature. I looked back and saw Bob on the coach roof waving his arms and shouting, but I ignored him.

I took a deep breath, doubled my body, and spiked a dive. I went straight down, pumping hard with my legs and feet to go as deep as possible. When the pressure began to hurt my eardrums, I paused, opened my eyes, and sculled with my hands and feet to maintain my position. I was suspended in a vast, cool, liquid world.

I slowed my movements to a minimum to be as still as possible. I wanted to remain there, to feel the absence of gravity as if I were in a womb. In the stillness, an excitement grew in the pit of my stomach like I was in a free fall. I heard the blood pump through my ears and felt my heartbeat quicken as it used up precious oxygen. I looked all around. Radiant streaks of light reflecting from the surface penetrated far into the deep where they converged and disappeared into a solid, black mass.

It was an abyss: thousands of feet of dark, lonely water straight down. It would be a suitable grave, I thought, where a body could never be found. Just a few breaths of air separate me from death. I imagined I hovered above the door to hell.

I held the air in my lungs as long as I could to absorb the moment. Suddenly, without warning or invitation, I was struck with stark, cold fear. The realization of the fragility of life seized my being. It forced its way into my soul as if Death itself was pulling me down.

The water suddenly turned cold and my body shook. I pumped to the surface and burst into the warm, brilliant sunlight, gasping for