When I was the summer assistant at Peniel Bible Camp, the Lord was teaching me to pray and trust him to do great things. At the time, I must have been influenced by James 5:16-18, because I quickly learned the power of God through prayer. One day while I was mowing the grass with the tractor, I noticed the sky growing darker and the prospects of rain. So, with simple faith, I asked the Lord to withhold the rain until I had the tractor in the barn. Sure enough, as soon as I finished the mowing and had entered the barn, it rained. It rained real hard! And then I began to wonder if I should have asked God to hold back the rain until I had walked back to the house!

That practical lesson has stuck with me since that time. With many large trees surrounding our home, I’ve been mowing up the leaves every day to avoid a huge job at the end of the season. Today as I began that work, I pushed hard and worked through a mist of rain, but nothing to complain about. As I was finishing up the front yard, a man walking down the sidewalk, said, “Looks like you’re not going to beat the rain.” I hadn’t really asked God to hold back the rain, but was thankful for what he had alloweed me to accomplish to that point. So, I said, “The Lord has held back the downpour for me.” He looked down and then noted that his brother was getting the downpoor in another city nearby.

After that conversation, we went our separate ways, but the man got into his pickup truck and just sat there. I’m not sure why he was waiting, but maybe he was waiting to see if I would get wet. About 20 minutes later, I had finished all of the back yard and had put away the lawn mower. Soon after I entered the house—you guessed it—it began to rain. The Lord didn’t have to do that. But as with all of his children, he must have enjoyed helping me along. I wonder if the stranger saw what happened.