Why didn’t I pray?
About six months after becoming a Christian, I decided to buy myself a modern translation of the Bible, that was the same as my youth group friends. I saved up my pocket money and one Saturday morning, caught the bus into town. I arrived at the Christian bookshop only to discover it was shut. The shop didn’t open on Saturdays. It hadn’t occurred to me to pray either before or after arriving at the closed shop. I was a young Christian and it hadn’t crossed my mind that God would be interested.
With no other reason to be in town and the bus home some time off, I wandered into a supermarket. Perhaps, I would buy a chocolate bar. I noticed on the wall opposite the cash registers at about eye level, a wire rack. It contained contemporary, paperback novels. To my great surprise, I noticed a lone Bible. The exact translation that I had planned to buy at the Christian bookshop. I picked it off the rack and confirmed it was the one I wanted. The price was as expected so I bought it.
You might imagine that I was excited about the way God had provided for me, but no, I left the supermarket thinking, “That was really weird.”
On my way home, the analytical part of my brain kicked in, but I couldn’t think of any explanation except that God had orchestrated this odd occurrence, but how?
Did he create a Bible out of nothing and put it on the shelf? This seemed unlikely.
Did God create a mistake in the ordering or delivery of the book? It’s quite a bizarre mistake to confuse a thick Bible for a much thinner contemporary novel. Yet the more puzzling question was why? Why did God care about an insignificant teenage girl who caught a bus into town to buy a Bible?
Why would God answer a prayer, I didn’t pray?
I didn’t grow up in an emotionally close family and I found the experience disconcerting, almost creepy. Why was God so interested in me? I didn’t understand the personal nature of God.
I was happy for God to know about me, but not so comfortable with God knowing the personal details of my life. He knew I was going to town to buy a Bible. He knew the shop would be shut. He knew I would go to that supermarket, but I didn’t even know that. I felt God was getting a bit too involved in my life, a bit too close. It was unnerving.
These days I know God’s intentions towards me are good and I can trust his interventions in my life. He loves me and wants to bless me with good things, like a Bible in a supermarket.
Links from my blogging friends who have also written about prayer:
A Van, A Drama, A Prayer by Nola Lorraine
Great is Your Faithfulness, O Lord by Virginia Wright
What We Really Need by Dienece Darling
It’s amazing how those unexpected answers come, even when we haven’t prayed. I’m sure that Bible blessed you, and here you are blessing others with that story all these years later.
Yes, God is paying attention to us, even when we aren’t paying attention to him!
An interesting look into an early believer’s response to God working in their life. Thank you.
My response to how God works in my life has changed significantly over time, which is good!
Thanks for reminding us by sharing this story. God knows what we need, when we need it and how we are going to get it. He teaches us many things in ways we sometimes don’t understand at first but when we look back, down the corridor of time, we can see all of His wisdom and His love in everything He has done in our life.
I hadn’t thought about this incident for years but it’s been good to reflect and see God’s hand on my life. Thanks for your comment.