Answered Prayer

God does not want to shroud Himself within clouds of  mystery, always seated only upon His throne. He is a very dear and personal God (Ps. 47:14) who is always very near to His children. I am reminded of an incident that took place many years ago to a simple housewife.

This woman was going through a lot of problems in her life and was very much  heartbroken. Many people were praying for her, but it seemed that her problems would not go away. One day, with a very heavy and broken heart, she went to her closet, knelt down beside a chair. Reclining her head on the seat, she cried her heart out to the Lord Jesus. As she was pouring out her woes to the Lord, she felt a very gentle Hand lovingly caressing her head. As the

Hand caressed her, she felt waves of peace flooding her soul. When she lifted up her head, she saw the Lord Jesus seated on the chair and realized that she had actually laid her head on His laps. The Lord Jesus then told her, “My daughter, weep not.” After saying those words, He disappeared. Soon after, the woman’s problems were solved, one after another.

The Lord God is He who hears prayers (Ps. 65:2) and desires to commune and communicate with His people.

Sadhu Sunder Singh and an Angel Corssing the River

When the Sadhu reached the foothills of Mount Kailash he chanced upon some nomads who were making their way around with their flocks. He asked them for directions to the nearest village in the locality. The nomads, fearing and disliking his presence in their midst, misguided him deliberately. They pointed this strange looking foreigner who looked anything but Tibetan to a dangerous forest path that led nowhere. A total stranger to the area, the Sadhu followed their ill advice to the letter and headed in the direction they indicated.

Miles slipped by without the sight of any village. Night was sweeping down like a thick blanket upon the whole Tibetan plateau. The Sadhu came to a halt before the bank of a river. There was no other way for him to turn to. Chills began running up and down his body as the howling cries of wild animals in the forest filled the frigid air. He made some bold attempts to cross the river but failed miserably. Settling himself down on the banks, the weary traveler was near to tears.

Resting his head on arms folded across knees drawn to his chest, the Sadhu began to weep. He felt the full weight of misery in his sorry predicament. After a little while, he thought he heard a man’s voice. Lifting his eyes he saw a man seated across the river and warming himself by a fire. This was strange. He did not see anyone in the vicinity when he first got to the bank. The man motioned to the Sadhu: “Don’t worry! I am coming to help you!” 

Sadhu Sundar Singh was so relieved. Someone in the local area, he thought, had come to help him. The Sadhu was amazed to note how fearlessly his rescuer swam across the swift flowing river. When the man reached the bewildered Sadhu, he said: “Sit tightly and still on my shoulder and do not fear!” The Sadhu carefully balanced himself on the stranger’s broad shoulders. The heroic good Samaritan, now saddled with the lanky Sadhu on his back, was about to challenge the fierce river once more.

Sitting astride those strong shoulders, the Sadhu marveled at the impossible sight. The river had proved too much for him. Yet this stranger was cutting across the river like knife on butter with him on his back. Such an impossible act could only be conceivable if the supernatural strength somehow came out of a heart of incredible kindness. Here was a local native who must have done such extraordinary acts of kindness and bravery many times over. The Sadhu thought to himself that as soon as they reached the other side of the bank he would share the gospel with the stranger.

Safely across, the stranger helped the Sadhu gently off his shoulders. Walking up the bank a few steps, the Sadhu turned around to thank the stranger. Alas! Wonder of wonders! The stranger was no longer there. Neither was the fire. The mysterious man and his fire had simply vanished! The Sadhu gasped in astonishment. He suddenly realized that God had sent His rescuing angel. Dropping to his knees, he quickly offered a prayer of thanksgiving to God.

Happiness in Giving Than Receiving

 

This story is about a beautiful, rich, expensively dressed lady who complained to her psychiatrist that, she felt, her whole life was empty and worthless; it had no meaning, after her husband passed away.

She became all alone in the big house. All these German Cars, House, Expensive Furniture, French Cutlery, French Perfume, Persian Carpet, Imported Piano are just useless objects to her.

After a long thinking, she decided to do something about it.

Then next question was what to do now. So the lady went to visit a counselor to seek permanent and long-lasting happiness.

The counsellor called over an old lady who cleaned the office floors. The counsellor then said to the rich lady "I'm going to ask Mary here to tell you how she found happiness. All I want you to do, is listen to her."

So the old cleaning lady put down her broom and sat on a chair and told her story: "Well, my husband died of malaria and three months later my only son was killed in a car accident. I had nobody... I had nothing left. I couldn't sleep, I couldn’t eat, I never smiled at anyone, I even thought of taking my own life.

Then one evening, a little kitten followed me home from work. Somehow I felt sorry for that kitten. It was cold outside, so I decided to let the kitten in.

I got it some milk, and the kitten licked the plate clean. Then it purred and rubbed against my leg and for the first time, in months, I smiled.

Then I stopped to think, if helping a little kitten could make me smile, may be doing something for people could make me happier.

So the next day I baked some biscuits and took them to a neighbor who was sick in bed. Every day I tried to do something nice for someone. It made me so happy to see them happy.

Today, I don’t know of anybody who sleeps and eats better than I do. I’ve found happiness, by giving it to others."

When the rich lady heard that, she cried. She had everything that money could buy, but she had lost the things which money cannot buy.

The beauty of life does not depend on how happy you are; it depends on how happy others can be because of you.

Later that lady became a President of a Philanthropic Organization, in Dallas, Texas. Now the lady is busy serving people and finding eternal happiness".

Success Story - Soichiro Honda

Soichiro Honda was a mechanic at a garage. His job was to tune cars to prepare them for races. Honda founded Tōkai Seiki, a piston rings manufacturing company in 1937.

This company won a contract to supply piston rings to an established automobile company – Toyota. But soon after, he lost the contract due to the poor quality of the products.

He took time out to better understand Toyota's quality control processes, and by 1941, Honda was able to mass produce piston rings acceptable to Toyota.

Toyota took a 40% stake in his company, but Honda was demoted from president to senior managing director. Tōkai Seiki's manufacturing plants were destroyed in US bomb attacks in 1944. Honda sold the salvageable remains of the company to Toyota and used the proceeds to found the Honda Technical Research Institute in October 1946.

He worked with a staff of 12 men in a 172-square-foot shack.

They built and sold improvised motorized bicycles by building their own copy of Tohatsu engines, and supplying these to customers to attach to their bicycles.

Honda Motor Company grew in a short time to become the world's largest manufacturer of motorcycles by 1964.


Honda thereafter entered into mini pick-up trucks & finally into the car segment and today is a serious competitor to Toyota.

It's easy to look at these companies and think, "I could never do something like this." Of course, all of these companies took decades to get where they are today.

But they had an idea and they believed in it and most importantly, they started.

Charity Wrapped in Dignity

She asked him, "How much are you selling the eggs for?"

 
The old seller replied to her, "Rs.5/- for one egg, Madam."

She said to him, "I will take 6 eggs for Rs.25/- or I will leave."


The old seller replied, "Come take them at the price you want. May God  bless us, and maybe this is a good beginning because I have not yet sold to anyone."

She took it and walked away feeling she has won. She got into her fancy car and went to pick her friend, and invited her to a restaurant. 

She and her friend sat down and ordered what they like. They ate a little and left a lot of what they ordered.

Then she went to pay the bill. The bill was Rs.1,200/-. She gave him Rs. 1,300/- and said to the owner of the restaurant: "Keep the change."

This story may seem normal to the owner of the restaurant. But it is very painful for the eggs' seller.

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 Flash

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 Why do we always show that we have the power when we buy from the needy and the poor? And we are generous with those who do not need our generosity ?

Every time a poor child comes to me to sell something simple, I remember a tweet from the son of a rich man who said, "After every prayer my father used to buy simple goods for very expensive prices, even though he did not need them. Sometimes he used to pay more for them. I used to get concerned by this act and I told him about it. Then my father told me: 'It is a charity wrapped with dignity, my son.'"

Compare these two stories of social hypocrisy.

The first one is disappointing and the second one is inspiring.

May God enlighten us

The Miracle of Creation.

One Sunday morning a wealthy man sat in his balcony enjoying sunshine and his coffee when a little ant caught his eye which was  going from one side to the other side of the balcony carrying a big leaf several times more than its size. The man watched it for more than an hour.
 

He saw that the ant faced many impediments during its journey,  took a diversion and then continued towards destination.

At one point the tiny creature came across a crack in the floor. 

 

It paused for a little while, analyzed and then laid the huge leaf over the crack, walked over the leaf, picked the leaf on the other side then continued its journey.

The man was captivated by the cleverness of the ant, one of God's tiniest creatures. 

 

The incident left the man in awe and forced him to contemplate over  the miracle of Creation.

 

It showed the greatness of the Creator. In front of his eyes there was this tiny creature of God, lacking in size yet equipped with a brain to analyze, contemplate, reason, explore, discover and  overcome. Along with all these capabilities, the man also noticed that this tiny creature shared some human shortcomings.

 

The man saw about an hour later the creature had reached its destination – a tiny hole in the floor which was an entrance to its underground dwelling. 

 

And it was at this point that the ant's shortcoming that it shared with the man was revealed. How could the ant carry into the tiny hole the large leaf that it had managed to carefully bring to the destination?
It simply couldn't!

 

So the tiny creature, after all the painstaking and hard work and exercising great skills,overcoming all the difficulties along the way, just left behind the
large leaf and went home empty-handed.

 

The ant had not thought about the end before it began its challenging journey and in the end the large leaf was nothing more than a burden to it. The creature had no option, but to leave it behind to reach its destination.
 

The man learned a great lesson that day.

Isn't that the truth about our lives?
 

We worry about our family, we worry about our job, we worry about how to earn more money, we worry about where we should live –  5 bedroom or 6 bedroom house, what kind of vehicle to buy – a Mercedes or BMW or a Porsche, what kind of dresses to wear,  all sorts of things, only to abandon all these things when we reach our destination –  The Grave.

 

We don't realize in our life's journey that these are just burdens that we are carrying with utmost care and fear of losing them, only to find that at the end they are useless and we can't take them with us.

It Is Never Late to Learn

The Taj hotel group had invited Mr. Masai Imai from Japan to hold a workshop for its staff.

The staff were very skeptical - the hotel is doing excellent business, this person from Japan has no exposure to hotel industry - what exactly is he going to teach?

But everybody gathered as planned for the workshop in the conference hall sharp at 9 am.

Mr. Masai was introduced to them - a not so impressive personality, nor the English all that good; spoke as if he was first formulating each sentence in Japanese and then translating it into rather clumsy English.

"Good morning! 

Let's start work. 

I am told this is a workshop; but I see neither work nor shop. 

So let's proceed where work is happening. 

Let's start with the first room on the first floor."

Mr. Masai, followed by the senior management, the participants, the video camera crew trouped out of the conference room and proceeded to the destination.

That happened to be the laundry room of the hotel.

Mr. Masai entered the room and stood at the window, "beautiful view!" he said.

The staff knew it; they need not invite a Japanese consultant to tell them this! 

"A room with such a beautiful view is being wasted as a laundry room. 

Shift the laundry to the basement and convert this into a guest room."

Aa Haa! 

Now nobody had ever thought about that!

The manager said, "Yes, it can be done."

"Then let's do it," Mr. Masai said.

"Yes sir, I will make a note of this and we will include it in the report on the workshop that will be prepared." Manager

"Excuse me, but there is nothing to note down in this. 

Let's just do it, just now." Mr. Masai.

"Just now?" Manager

"Yes, decide on a room on the ground floor/basement and shift the stuff out of this room right away. 

It should take a couple of hours, right?" asked Mr. Masai.

"Yes." Manager.

"Let's come back here just before lunch. 

By then all this stuff will have got shifted out and the room must be ready with the carpets, furniture etc. and from today you can start earning the few thousand that you charge your customers for a night."

"Ok, Sir." The manager had no option.

The next destination was the pantry. 

The group entered. 

At the entrance were two huge sinks full of plates to be washed.

Mr. Masai removed his jacket and started washing the plates.

"Sir, Please, what are you doing?" the manager didn't know what to say and what to do.

"Why, I am washing the plates", Mr. Masai.

"But sir, there is staff here to do that." Manager Mr. Masai continued washing, "I think sink is for washing plates, there are stands here to keep the plates and the plates should go into the stands."

All the officials wondered - did they require a consultant to tell them this?

After finishing the job, Mr. Masai asked, "How many plates do you have?'

"Plenty, so that there should never be any shortage." answered the Manager.

Mr. Masai said, "We have a word in Japanese -'Muda'. 

Muda means delay, Muda means unnecessary spending. 

One lesson to be learned in this workshop is to avoid both. 

If you have plenty of plates, there will be delay in cleaning them up. 

The first step to correct this situation is to remove all the excess plates."

"Yes, we will say this in the report." Manager.

"No, wasting our time in writing the report is again an instance of 'Muda'. 

We must pack the extra plates in a box right away and send these to whichever other section of Taj requires these. 

Throughout the workshop now we will find out where all we find this 'Muda' hidden."

And then at every spot and session, the staff eagerly awaited to find out Muda and learn how to avoid it.

On the last day, Mr. Masai told a story.

"A Japanese and an American, both fond of hunting, met in a jungle. 

They entered deep jungle and suddenly realized that they had run out of bullets. 

Just then they heard a lion roaring. 

Both started running. 

But the Japanese took a short break to put on his sports shoes. 

The American said, "What are you doing? 

We must first get to the car."

The Japanese responded, "No. I only have to ensure that I remain ahead of you."

All the participants engrossed in listening to the story, realized suddenly that the lion would stop after getting his victim!

"The lesson is: 

competition in today's world is so fierce, that it is important to stay ahead of other, even by just a couple of steps. 

And you have such a huge and naturally well endowed country. 

If you remember to curtail your production expenditure and give the best quality always, you will be miles ahead as compared to so many other countries in the world.", concluded Mr. Masai.

It is never late to learn.....