His Reluctant Prayer Warrior

I had not planned on going to the Bible class with my husband at our community senior center. In fact, I did not even want to go. Yet I somehow made the decision that I would. Looking back, I now believe the Holy Spirit impressed me to go.

I also believe He impressed me with what to take: a printed sheet with a prayer on it. I made a copy of my prayer sheet in black ink and laid it on my bed.

Before leaving, however, I accidentally sat down on the prayer sheet, wrinkling it. I did not want to take a wrinkled copy. On my desk, I spotted a copy in color, so I grabbed that. Slipping my colorful prayer sheet into an envelope, I rushed out the door for Bible class. The teacher was about to start class when we entered the center. I slipped over to her, handed her the envelope, and invited her to open it. She did and then took out the colorful sheet with the prayer quotation on it. To my surprise, she read it aloud to the class! Then she began to expound on the content! Upon finishing, she said, “I was not supposed to be your teacher today.

The woman scheduled to present the lesson had an emergency and couldn’t be there. Being notified last minute, I didn’t know what I would present, but the Holy Spirit assured me I wouldn’t have to worry about that. God would have it under control.

He did. I started to read this aloud because the sheet was so pretty.” I was amazed. God had planned this all along. First, the Holy Spirit impressed me strongly to attend the class on that day. And what if I had not sat on the black-and-white copy and subsequently not exchanged it for the colored copy? It was the beautiful colors on the sheet that first caught the eye of the teacher and then engaged her enough so that she would share the content about prayer with the class! I am so humbled that God used me—a person who did not even want to go to class—to do His will. The first sentence on my prayer sheet read as follows: “Prayer is the answer to every problem in life. It puts us in tune with divine wisdom, which knows how to adjust everything perfectly.”* May God help us follow the Spirit’s lead!

Ruth Cantrell

* “Why Do I Worry About Anything When I Know That I Can Pray?,” Daily Word, June 1952, devotional for Wednesday, June 18, 1952.