He was down to two pairs of shoes and one of them was a pair of hiking boots. One day, he discovered that his hiking boots were gone. At the time, he was living with a family who had taken him in out of pure love. His monthly salary was about three hundred dollars less than his monthly bills. It was pretty bad. The four-year-old daughter of this family, Tina, came to Randy and sat on his lap and said, "Have you prayed to Jesus that you'll get your boots back and that God will take care of your problems with money? Mom and Dad said that's why you're sad today."

When a four-year-old asks you to pray to Jesus, says Randy, you just do it! So Tina and her mom and Randy Rowland prayed together, and Tina prayed that God would bring his boots back. Only a few minutes later, a huge dog walked into the yard with Randy's boots, tied together at the laces, hanging out of his mouth. The dog dropped them on the porch and walked away. It was the neighbor's dog that lived up the road in this rural area. He had somehow found Randy's boots, picked them up, and brought them back to where they belonged and then gone on about his business. Randy Rowland adds, "I told you it was a story that isn't easy to believe . . . but it happened."

I have no doubt that it happened. How it happened is another thing. Was it merely a happy coincidence or was it a direct answer to prayer? We will never know, but I suspect all of us have experienced such events in our lives. We may have interpreted them to mean that God was very close to us--that we were in the center of God's will. Of course, we must be careful here. There is no way of knowing such things for sure. People have done foolish things--sometimes horrible things--because they interpreted an event as a sign of God's favor. How do we know God's will for our lives? The closer we are to God and God's word the more clearly we will understand God.

Ron Newhouse