A Christian widow lady, who worked hard for her livelihood, cashed a check at the bank and put the purse containing the money into her coat pocket. While mounting her bicycle, she unconsciously jerked her purse out of the pocket.
An errand boy belonging to one of the stores saw the purse fall, and picking it up, he squandered the contents on pleasures with his companions.
Great was the widow’s consternation on reaching her home to find the purse missing; she prayed earnestly that the money might be restored, and also put notices in the store windows about her loss, and gave her address. Although the errand boy saw these notices, he did not confess his sin.
As time went on and nothing was heard of the purse, it seemed that God was not going to answer the widow’s prayer.
At last nineteen years bad passed, dung, which the errand boy grew into a man, obtained a situation as assistant, married, and became the father of a little girl. He also learned that the Lord Jesus is the only Saviour for sinners, and therefore the Saviour for him.
Then the war broke out, and this young man was sent to the Front. While he was in one of the trenches, God brought to his mind the sin of the stolen money, and the soldier resolved to restore the sum, which he had so dishonestly acquired, to the rightful owner; he had never forgotten the lady’s address, which he had read in the notices in the windows so many years ago.
But Satan, that great enemy of souls, who is always on the watch tempt people, said to him,
“It isn’t necessary to return the money as you took it before your conversion; you had taken it after you were converted it would be a different matter.”
But God, of whom it is written that He, is faithful, “who will not suffer you to tempted above that ye are able; but will with the temptation also make a way to escape, that ye may be able to bear it.’ (1 Cor. 10:1313There hath no temptation taken you but such as is common to man: but God is faithful, who will not suffer you to be tempted above that ye are able; but will with the temptation also make a way to escape, that ye may be able to bear it. (1 Corinthians 10:13)), enabled this young man to resist the temptation of the father of lies. God preserved him through the terrible dangers of the war, and brought, him home in safety.
Not long after, there was a ring at widow’s door bell, and when it was all, answered, the young man asked to see the lady. When she appeared, he told his story, and handed her the sum of money, which he had stolen nineteen years previously.
Great as was the lady’s amazement a hearing the story, it was not greater than her thanksgiving to God for not only answering her prayer, but also for saving the soul of the one who had so injured her.
The interview ended by the lady handing back to the young man a liberal sum for him to use in work for the Lord.
Dear reader, we see how true the promise is,
God had not only cared for, and supplied all the widow’s needs during the nineteen years He kept her waiting for the answer to her prayer, but He gave her much more to thank Him for thin. would have been the case if lie had answered her prayer at the time she discovered the loss of her purse.
Reader, you may be far too respectable to take anything which does not belong to you, but, nevertheless, it is written in the Word of God,
“All we like sheep have gone astray; we have turned everyone to his own way,” but it is good to know that “the Lord hath laid on Him the iniquity of us all.” Isa. 53:66All we like sheep have gone astray; we have turned every one to his own way; and the Lord hath laid on him the iniquity of us all. (Isaiah 53:6).
ML 11/12/1939