Brenda was a young woman who was invited to go rock climbing. Although she was scared to death, she went with her group to a tremendous granite cliff. In spite of her fear, she put on the gear, took a hold on the rope, and started up the face of that rock. Well, she got to a ledge where she could take a breather. As she was hanging on there, the safety rope snapped against Brenda’s eye and knocked out her contact lens.

Well, here she is on a rock ledge, with hundreds of feet below her and hundreds of feet above her. Of course, she looked and looked and looked, hoping it had landed on the ledge, but it just wasn’t there. Here she was, far from home, her sight now blurry. She was desperate and began to get upset, so she prayed to the Lord to help her to find it.

When she got to the top, a friend examined her eye and her clothing for the lens, but there was no contact lens to be found. She sat down, despondent, with the rest of the party, waiting for the rest of them to make it up the face of the cliff. She looked out across range after range of mountains, thinking of that Bible verse that says, “The eyes of the Lord run to and fro throughout the whole earth.”

She thought, “Lord, You can see all these mountains. You know every stone and leaf, and You know exactly where my contact lens is. Please help me.” Finally, they walked down the trail to the bottom. At the bottom there was a new party of climbers just starting up the face of the cliff.

One of them shouted out, “Hey, you guys! Anybody lose a contact lens?” Well, that would be startling enough, but you know why the climber saw it? An ant was moving slowly across the face of the rock, carrying it!

Brenda told me that her father is a cartoonist. When she told him the incredible story of the ant, the prayer, and the contact lens, he drew a picture of an ant lugging that contact lens with the words, “Lord, I don’t know why You want me to carry this thing. I can’t eat it, and it’s awfully heavy. But if this is what You want me to do, I’ll carry it for You.”

At the risk of being accused of being fatalistic, I think it would probably do some of us good to occasionally say, “God, I don’t know why you want me to carry this load. I can see no good in it and it’s awfully heavy. But, if you want me to carry it, I will.”

A man was sleeping at night in his cabin when suddenly his room filled with light and the Savior appeared. The Lord told the man he had work for him to do, and showed him a large rock in front of his cabin. The Lord explained that the man was to push against the rock with all his might.

This the man did, day after day. For many years he toiled from sun up to sun down, his shoulders set squarely against the cold, massive surface of the unmoving rock, pushing it with all his might. Each night the man returned to his cabin sore, and worn out, feeling that his whole day had been spent in vain.

Noticing that the man was showing signs of discouragement, the adversary decided to enter the picture by placing thoughts into the man’s weary mind. “You have been pushing against this rock for a long time, and it hasn’t budged. Why kill yourself over this? You are never going to move it.” Thus giving the man the impression that the task was impossible and that he was a failure. These troubling thoughts discouraged and disheartened the man. “Why kill myself over this?” I’ll just put in my time, giving just the minimum effort and that will be good enough.

And that is what he planned to do until one day he decided to make it a matter of prayer and take his thoughts to the Lord. “Lord” he said, “I have labored long and hard in your service, putting all my strength to do that which you have asked. Yet, after all this time, I have not even been able to budge that rock. What is wrong? Why am I failing?”

The Lord responded compassionately, “My friend, When I asked you to serve me and you accepted, I told you that your task was to push against the rock with all your strength, which you have done. Never once did I mention to you that I expected you to move it. Your task was to push. And now you come to me with your strength spent, thinking that you have failed. But, is that really so?”

“Look at yourself. Your arms are strong and muscled, your back sinewy and brown, your hands are callused from constant pressure, and your legs have become massive and hard. Through opposition you have grown much and your abilities now surpass that which you used to have. Yet you haven’t moved the rock. But your calling was to be obedient and to push and to exercise your faith and trust in my wisdom. This you have done. I, my friend, will now move the rock.”

At times, when we hear a word from God, we tend to use our own intellect to decipher what He wants, when actually what God wants is simple obedience and Faith in Him…

By all means exercise the faith that moves mountains, but know that it is still God who moves them.

There was once a man who didn’t believe in God, and  he didn’t hesitate to let others know how he felt about religion and religious holidays. His wife, however, did believe, and she raised their children to also have  faith in God and Jesus, despite his disparaging comments.

One snowy Eve, his wife was taking their children  to service in the farm community in which they lived.

They were to talk about Jesus’ birth. She asked him  to come, but he refused.

“That story is nonsense!” he said. “Why would God  lower Himself to come to Earth as a man?

That’s ridiculous!”

So she and the children left, and he stayed home.

A while later, the winds grew stronger and the snow  turned into a blizzard. As the man looked out the window, all he saw was a  blinding snowstorm. He sat down to relax before the fire for the evening.  Then he heard a loud thump.

Something had hit the window. He looked out, but  couldn’t see more than a few feet.

When the snow let up a little, he ventured outside  to see what could have been beating on his window.

In the field near his house he saw a flock of wild  geese. Apparently they had been flying south for the winter when they got  caught in the snowstorm and couldn’t go on. They were lost and stranded on  his farm, with no food or shelter. They just flapped their wings and flew around  the field in low circles, blindly and aimlessly. A couple of them had flown into his window, it seemed.

The man felt sorry for the geese and wanted  to help them. The barn would be a great place for them to stay, he thought.It’s warm and safe; surely they could  spend the night and wait out the storm.

So he walked  over to the barn and opened the doors wide, then watched and waited, hoping they  would notice the open barn and go inside. But the geese just fluttered  around aimlessly and didn’t seem to notice the barn or realize that it could  mean for them.

The man tried  to get their attention, but that just seemed to scare them, and they moved  further away.

He went into  the house and came with some bread, broke it up, and made a bread crumb trail  leading to the barn. They still didn’t catch on.

Now he was  getting frustrated. He got behind them and tried to shoo them toward the barn,  but they only got more scared and scattered in every direction except toward the  barn.

Nothing he did  could get them to go into the barn where they would be warm and safe.

“Why don’t  they follow me?!” he exclaimed.

“Can’t they  see this is the only place where they can survive the storm?”

He thought for  a moment and realized that they just wouldn’t follow a human “If only I were a  goose, then I could save them,” he said out loud.

Then he had an  idea. He went into barn, got one of his own geese, and carried it in his arms as  he circled around behind the flock of wild geese.

He then  released it. His goose flew through the flock and straight into the barn -and  one-by-one, the other geese followed it to safety.

He stood  silently for a moment as the words he had spoken a few minutes earlier replayed  in his mind: “If only I were a goose, then I could save them!” Then he  thought about what he had said to his wife earlier. “Why would God want to be like us? That’s ridiculous!”

Suddenly it  all made sense. That is what God had done. We were like the geese-blind, lost,  perishing. God had His Son become like us so He could show us the way and  save us.

As the winds  and blinding snow died down, his soul became quiet and pondered this wonderful  thought. Suddenly he understood why Christ had come.

Years of doubt  and disbelief vanished with the passing storm. He fell to his knees in  the snow, and prayed his first prayer:

“Thank You,  God, for coming in human form to get me out of the storm!”

Tags: jesus, prayer, story