A small congregation in the foothills of the Great Smokies built a new sanctuary
on a piece of land willed to them by a church member. Ten days before the new
church was to open, the local building inspector informed the pastor that the
parking lot was inadequate for the size of the building.
Until the church doubled the size of the parking lot, they would not be able to
use the new sanctuary. Unfortunately, the church with its undersized parking lot
had used every inch of their land except for the mountain against which it had
been built. In order to build more parking spaces, they would have to move the
mountain out of the back yard. Undaunted, the pastor announced the next Sunday
morning that he would meet that evening with all members who had "mountain
moving faith." They would hold a prayer session asking God to remove the
mountain from the back yard and to somehow provide enough money to have it paved
and painted before the scheduled opening dedication service the following week.
At the appointed time, 24 of the congregation's 300 members assembled for
prayer. They prayed for nearly three hours. At ten o'clock the pastor said the
final "Amen". "We'll open next Sunday as scheduled," he assured everyone. "God
has never let us down before, and I believe He will be faithful this time too."
The next morning as he was working in his study there came a loud knock at his
door. When he called "come in", a rough looking construction foreman appeared,
removing his hard hat as he entered. "Excuse me, Reverend. I'm from Acme
Construction Company over in the next county. We're building a huge new shopping
mall over there and we need some fill dirt. Would you be willing to sell us a
chunk of that mountain behind the church? We'll pay you for the dirt we remove
and pave all the exposed area free of charge, if we can have it right away. We
can't do anything else until we get the dirt in and allow it to settle
properly."
The little church was dedicated the next Sunday as originally planned and there
were far more members with "mountain moving faith" on opening Sunday than there
had been the previous week!
Would you have shown up for that prayer meeting? Some people say faith comes
from miracles. But others know: MIRACLES COME FROM FAITH!
Author unknown. If anyone has a proprietary interest in this story please
authenticate and I will be happy to credit, or remove, as the circumstances
dictate.
Wit & Wisdom - June 4, 1998
The Illustrator: This daily newsletter is dedicated to encouraging
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