Читать книгу Beyond the Horizon - Harry A. Renfree - Страница 20

January 14

While on an overseas trip, I heard an intriguing story told to me by a proprietor of a tiny shop in Kowloon. He told me about a friend of his in northern India who had passed his academic examinations with flying colors and then accepted a good position in Calcutta, 36 hours by train from his home. On his first journey, the young man’s parents decided to accompany him.

Waiting to board the train, the young man became restless, pacing back and forth. Then he stopped to watch an elderly man squatting in a corner . . . apparently in quiet meditation. For a long time the old man didn’t move. Intrigued, the young man went over and said, “If you want to pray, why don’t you go to the God–House?”

“But God is everywhere,” was the simple reply.

So interested did the young man become with the praying person that when he finally looked around, the train was gone—with his parents on board. Bewildered, he berated the old man. “Why did you talk to me so long that I missed my train?”

“Do not fret, my son,” said the man. “All will be well.”

The youth didn’t think so as he was sending a wire to his parents to get off at the next city. But he did have cause for sober reflection when he later learned that a number of miles beyond the place his parents got off, a bridge was out. The speeding train had gone into a gorge, killing many. His plans and his life were changed because he stopped to watch a man pray.

His [God’s] eyes are on the ways of men; he sees their every step, says Job’s friend Elihu in the thirty–fourth chapter of Job. We dare not say that God is responsible for all that goes on in our world. Men build unsafe and poorly constructed bridges and buildings. These are simply facts of human life, as are other man–made tragedies.

The thirteenth chapter of Luke tells us that some in the crowd Jesus was addressing told Him of a group of Galileans in Jerusalem that had somehow run afoul of the Roman procurator, Pontius Pilate, the man who later sent Jesus to the Cross. Pilate ordered the execution of those Galileans. Those in the crowd who mentioned this story to Jesus thought their execution must have been due to some exceptional wickedness in their lives for God to allow such a tragedy to happen. “I tell you, no!” said Jesus; they were no more or less wicked than others of their compatriots at the time. He seemed to be saying, “Anyone can be killed . . . only God’s grace allows any to live.” Then he added this warning: “But unless you repent, you too will all perish.” [Jesus meant eternally.]

What about the youth who missed his train and saved his life while an elderly man prayed? We don’t know completely the mind of God. God does answer prayer, and a man was praying. Perhaps God had a special job for a special person along the way and this young man was marked to do it. We don’t know all the answers now, but some wonderful day we’ll understand.