"What have you seen the Lord doing here?" She smiled and let out her breath...

Where his identification badge had read Islam, it now read Christian.

"You're fired."
"You cannot live here."
"You're not our son."

"You are My son."

Weeks passed and he could not find work. A month... his children hungered, those unbelieving looked on in mockery, his brethren prayed. Another month. Bills unpaid, phones cut off, unsaved wife weeping and scathing, himself waiting.

Third month progressing, the men of his church - few in number - journed to the countryside, to the gently rolling hills of green where shepherds roam and distant mountaintops watch on. There a single higher hill, a tomb perhaps, rising above all around it, and the men climbed. Heavy hearts, lips moving silently, minds wondering, yet trusting that their Sovereign was, indeed. Atop the green, as near touching the sky as able, they simply looked up. Arms out, reaching, grasping. One fell to his knees, one lay prostrate, one standing head bowed. Eyes closed; eyes searching; eyes crying. Hearts begging. "Abba. This man is Your son. He has been faithful. And he needs a job."

Within two weeks he was hired. The man hiring had been asked to fill an entirely new crew, and he chose all men connected to him in some way: friends, family, past co-workers. All trusted and familiar. Except the Christian.

"How did you get this job?" the others asked him. "You aren't related; we don't know you; we've never heard of you... How are you even here?"

"I prayed," he said. "And my God heard and answered."

Amen.


John Owen:

"Mortification from a self-strength, carried on by ways of self-invention, unto the end of a self-righteousness is the soul and substance of all false religion." So it is with Islam...

What is the object of our affections? What is the vigor of that affection?

"Lord, make me love Thee as I ought to love..."