Stories About God's Providence and Answered Prayer

TAKEN FROM "LOVE AND DUTY"
By George Douglas "G. D." Watson

In Chapter 11 of "Love and Duty," by G. D. Watson, are several excerpts from which the following lines were taken:

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One of the most beautiful statements in the Bible of God's special dominion in the affairs of life, is where the prophet says, "The eyes of the Lord run to and fro throughout the whole earth, to show Himself strong in the behalf of them whose heart is perfect toward Him," (2 Chron. 16:9). Let us notice these items which form a part of the special providence under which we are living every moment.

This providence acts with lightning speed. The word "run" shows the swiftness of His care, either in retribution, or in rewards, or special deliverance.

I have known instances where souls have been actually frightened at the speed of God's help. In a meeting I conducted many years ago, a man who had long been seeking for some evidence of God's favor, offered a little prayer for a friend that sat by him in the meeting and said in his heart, "Lord, if you will make my friend at my side give up using tobacco, I will accept that as sufficient evidence that you forgive my sins."

In a moment the other man arose, and said he had just received a divine conviction that he must quit the use of tobacco, and would do so from that moment. The man that offered the prayer turned pale, and said he was frightened at the nearness of God and speedy answer to his prayer. This is true in multiplied cases that God's eyes run swiftly.

The providence of God is universal, which is expressed by the words: "the whole earth." Very frequently we come across incidents which prove that God at every moment is surrounding the whole world with an unseen network of special provision and making means to ends fit in and dovetail with each other, with such accuracy as to astonish our poor faith with the reality that His eyes do run throughout the whole earth.

Many years ago a young Swedish woman came to New York to get employment, leaving a very godly praying mother in Sweden. The girl walked the streets of New York for three days hunting a position, only to be turned away from a hundred homes with many a rough word from unkind servants where she happened to call.

Almost in despair, she called at the home of a wealthy family late in the afternoon.. the lady of the house felt led to talk a little with the girl, and the hand that holds the world touched her heart, and she gave the girl employment.

At that moment, in Sweden, the mother of the girl, who had been in an agony of prayer, felt an instantaneous relief from distress, and was filled with peace in the assurance that her child was cared for, for sure enough she had found one of the best homes in all the city.

When Brother Houlding went to China, he found a man who had been praying for eighteen years that God would send a missionary to his people; and when Brother Houlding stopped to think of it, he was surprised to find that just eighteen years previous he received his call to be a missionary in China.

God's providences never go in halves, just as men never make a half a pair of scissors, but they make one blade the supplement of the other, and all the works and ways of God supplement each other, and fit into each other, even though outwardly they may be separated for hundreds or thousands of miles, and also they may be separated in duration hundreds or thousands of years. The whole world is but a whispering gallery for the Holy Spirit, and the threads that twine around us are often delicately tied fast to persons or events in far distant lands or in distant ages.