Once upon a time in Secondary school, when I was still in JSS 3 precisely, I happened to be one of the last to leave class that day when I observed a sick colleague lying down on the floor at a corner of the class. It was a boarding school but quite a long walk back to our dormitories which was popularly known as “second home”. We had to walk that distance before he could visit the school clinic. Since he complained he had no strength, I whispered a prayer and like a coincidence he admitted he got strength. About half way the journey, his complaint was he was feeling too cold to continue the journey; I whispered a prayer and like a coincidence the sun shown so bright and he admitted it gave him some warmth. It seemed like a coincidence but those prayers were borne out of hope and God responded. Don’t underestimate the result that can be gotten from simply whispering that prayer you feel awkward praying. It doesn’t matter if it has happened before or not. If you can pray it, then God can answer it; such was the case of Joshua when he changed the course of history – [Joshua 10: 12-14;]
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A man was riding in a Ford. Suddenly, something went haywire! He looked at the engine but saw nothing wrong. He checked other things in the car but found no fault; as he started losing hope, a car came in sight. He stopped the car and asked for help. Out of the Lincoln stepped a tall man. “Well what is the trouble?”, asked the friendly man. “I cannot get this Ford to move”, was the reply. The stranger made some adjustments beneath the hood and said, “Now start the car!” It started! The grateful man asked, “What is your name sir?” “My name,” answered the stranger, “is Henry Ford!”
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The one who made the Ford knew how to make it run. God made you and me. He knows therefore, how to run you and me. [When you say a situation or a person is hopeless, you are slamming the door in the face of God – Charles L. Allen] There is nothing the creator can’t fix as pertaining what he has created. God made you; even when fixing you is beyond you, it can never be beyond him.
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There comes a time in everyone’s life when troubles and difficulties seem to gang up. So it was for all the residents of one remote villages in inland China a very long time ago. They could feel the scourge of the sun that seemed as though one’s very breath would be stifled. In one of the houses of that village, a boy of two years of age, apparently sick to death lay in a room cold and humid. He had been utterly unconscious of his surroundings. The father and mother had watched helplessly with breaking hearts the little life of the most loved little boy flickering out. In mysterious but similar circumstances, three other children had been taken from the family; this only one that had been left now seems to be going the way of the earth. What a lovely baby he was; plump, round, full of fun, smiling with his winsome baby face. However, sickness has taken over this darling child, threatening to snuff out his little life as it had snuffed out the lives of the others.
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The search for healing led the family to a native doctor who gave the baby a vile concoction which had only made him worse. He had muttered incantations over him and had even heated the cruel iron to place on the tender flesh to burn out the evil spirit. The mother had cried out in protest at this, so the baby was spared that horror.
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She and the father sat beside the little one, dry-eyed and mute with grief. Suddenly a neighbor rushed in shouting, “There’s a Jesus medicine man here and he’s coming to see you now!” For the first time in days, the light of hope flashed in the mother’s face. She thought, “Perhaps, the Jesus man can cure our baby.” Just then, the sound of many voices reached her ears and the next moment, the Jesus man, accompanied by a crowd of people, entered the room.
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This medical missionary, from a city three days journey away, had visited their people a year before. He had helped many by relieving them of their suffering and had preached to them the “unsearchable reaches of Christ.” On this occasion, he was received with joy and was besieged by poor Chinese with divers’ kinds of sicknesses and diseases. Some told him of the grief-stricken parents and their child. The missionary at once said, “I will go and see what can be done.”
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Gently, he spoke to the sorrowing parents. The mother, clasping her hands in anguish, cried, “Oh! Jesus man, you can make our baby well?” The missionary realized that he needed ice to help the child, but they were three days journey from the city, the only place where ice could be obtained. The baby would be dead before they could make the trip there and return.
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“But when you were here before, you said that your God could do anything,” said the mother. “Yes,” answered the missionary. “I did say that.” “Then he can send us ice,” she insisted. “Ask him for it, and He will send it quick, and my baby will live.”
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The missionary was startled; indeed, he was utterly dumbfounded. How could he pray for ice when it seemed impossible to expect an answer? Almost in a daze, the missionary joined the parents on their knees. He opened his lips to pray. The words came haltingly at first, for, “what would these trusting ones say if no answer comes? And how could an answer possibly come?”, he thought. Nevertheless, he prayed. As he proceeded, a strange feeling of exaltation entered his soul. He forgot everything and concentrated on pleading with his heavenly father not only for the life of the little child, but that the on looking Chinese who knew not the true God might see the faith of the parents honoured. As they rose from their knees, there was an inexpressible look of peace on the face of the mother.
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Fifteen minutes elapsed, and suddenly it grew dark! Increasingly so it was until it seemed like night. The superstitious Chinese cried upon their gods for deliverance from the terror which the Jesus man had brought upon them by his prayer. Then the storm broke in an indescribable fury. It sounded as though thousands of pebbles were falling from the sky. The fear of the Chinese increased, but upon the doctor’s face came the look of joy. He hurried from the house to find the street covered with hailstones.
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The doctor rushed back into the house crying, “Give me a large dish! God has sent ice from the sky!” They gathered up the ice, the doctor applied ice packs, and gradually the fever left the little boy. The restless tossing and moaning ceased. The child was restored to health.
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Not for forty years has a hailstorm visited that part of China. It came just in time to honour the faith of that Chinese woman and truly, “God moves in mysterious ways His wonders to perform. He plants His footsteps in the sea and rides upon the storm.”
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Maybe your problem is only known to yourself and there is no medical terminology to describe it. Well, just like the case of the Chinese mother mentioned above, God wants you to trust him, regardless of whatever your problems may be [John 11:40;]
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