Similar Experiences by Personal Friends

When a child of God has any personal experience of joy or of sorrow, of trial or of encouragement, that seems peculiar and exceptional, he is likely to find that others — more, perhaps, than he has imagined — have had similar, if not the same, experiences, and that he is by no means solitary in his opportunity of learning the lessons which God would thus teach him. Whatever encouragement God gives to any child of his to call upon him in his need, according to God’s invitation and promise, every other child of God in like need can have from God if he will rightly claim it.

This, indeed, is the chief reason for my recording these illustrative answers to prayer that have come within my range of

personal experience, or the experience of 105 those personally known tome. I

answers to prayer that have been accorded to me in the years of my Christian life — nor yet, indeed, even the most remarkable of them, — but I have selected a few of those most likely to be of help to God’s children - who read this record..

I have often given to younger disciples s illustrations of my way of prayingtoGod for special help, and of God’s way of giving 4 help to me in answer to the prayer of need and of trust. This I have done to encourage or strengthen their faith; and at times they have come back to tell me, joyfully, of God’s dealings with them, in response to. their prayers, as tenderly and lovingly as I had urged them to expect.

An illustration of this was in the case of an earnest young Christian disciple whom I had been privileged to lead to the Master when we were first together in a health resort in East Florida, soon after the Civil

War. The special duties and privileges of 106 the child of God were quite new to him when he entered that service, and he was glad to hear every word of suggestion or counsel that I gave him in that line. This matter of special answer to particular prayers in things of our ordinary life seemed -to him at first almost too wonderful and too good to be true. Yet he listened to and pondered all that I said on that subject, and wished that he could verify it in his own experience.

One summer, he was in the White Mountains. In his wandering among the hills, one day, he lost a valuable diamond stud. Missing it when he returned to the hotel, he regretted its loss, but its finding seemed out of the question. At this juncture, my teachings on the subject of special prayer came to him with fresh force. He realized that he could not by himself hope to find the missing stud among the loose stones on the rough mountain side, where he had been wandering that afternoon, as

he might have hoped to had he lost it on 107

Ullustrative Hnswers to Prayer —

an ordinary highway. Yet God could direct him to it wherever it was, if that, indeed, were God’s way.

Kneeling before God, he stated the case as a young disciple. He told God that he realized that, of himself, he was helpless in such a search, but that he was going to attempt it, and he asked God’s guidance in it. If, indeed, he found the stud, he would accept this as indicating that God approved his faith in such a matter. It was not merely the diamond stud that he sought to recover, it was encouragement to his faith through God’s help, In that spirit he clambered again the mountain side.

His eye of sense, quickened by the light of faith, was alert and watchful as he went again over the rough path in the direction of his former wanderings. Soon the glistening of the diamond among the stones of the mountain path attracted his attention, and he came back to his hotel to thank God for his guidance, and with renewed

and increased faith as more precious than 108 a thousand diamonds. As I watched him in the subsequent years, I could bear witness to this, as he encouraged others to a like faith in God.

Another illustration of willingness to trust God utterly was given to me by a friend and co-worker in Boston, when I was in charge of the New England Sunday-school missionary field. In his boyhood his godly mother, with two children dependent on her, had small means of support, and at times she did not know where her next day’s sustenance was to be found. Yet her faith in God never failed or faltered. She trusted him fully for herself and hers, whatever her circumstances were.

One evening, there came a call on her for help to a needy neighbor. She was sure that that appeal was one to which God would have her respond. She had, at that time, only fifty cents in the world, with two children to care for; but she had that, and God knew it, and yet this appeal as from him had come to her for what she Ulustrative Answers to Prayer

had, and she would not refuse it. Her children had been already fed for the day. They needed nothing more till to-morrow. Like the widow of Zarephath, when Elijah, God’s prophet, asked from her bread that seemed needed for her hungry child, this widow gave at God’s call.

She gave her last fifty cents to the poor neighbor, who was to her as a messenger of God. Then she committed herself and hers trustfully to God, nothing doubting. As if to honor and approve her faith, that same evening a ring was heard at her door-bell. Going to the door, she found no one there, but an unaddressed envelope was found under the door, containing five dollars, which she took as a fresh gift from God, and thanked him for it most gratefully. That was the only like experience in her Christian life; yet this was enough to strengthen her faith, and the faith of her

two sons, who were reared in God’s service.

IIo