Prayer

This morning our faith group talked about God and prayer.  Who is God?  How does prayer work?  Jim gave a great example.  He quoted Mose Yoder, an Amish man in northeast Ohio.  Mose said "I don't know how prayer works, but I don't know how electricity works, either.  I am not going to sit in the dark before I figure it out."

We compared that to the Bible and the book of Acts.  One said ACTS stands for adoration, contrition, thanksgiving and supplication.  Another said God answers prayer.  Sometimes he says NO, sometimes he says SLOW, sometimes he says GROW and sometimes he says GO.  That made great sense to me.  I am often too quick to accept the answer NO.  I sometimes understand when he says SLOW, you are not ready.  Sometimes I understand GROW, often in fact, because I am always growing.  I have seen that all my life.  I love it when he says GO because I am always ready to proceed before he is!

Yesterday I gave my talk at NNTC on soybeans.  I explained that I was the pinch hitter and not the first chosen speaker.  I had nominated Kris Nichols to speak on soil biology.  She is ill, so I opened my presentation with prayer.  I asked God to heal Kris so she could speak next year.  I asked for Gods words to be spoken, not mine and that God's will be done, not mine.  My will often messes things up.

Thank you for answered prayer!  I asked you to say a little prayer for me yesterday at 9 AM and I felt the answer!  I can tell you from the way I felt and the way people listened and wrote, that was God speaking, not Ed Winkle.  My dear friend and NNTC committee member rushed up and said, Ed, that was the best presentation of the whole conference!  I was astonished.  I knew it wasn't bad but I did not know how well it was received.  Usually I get questions in the corner for an hour but yesterday was two hours before I said halt.  It was 11 o'clock and I had to clean out my room and check out.

LuAnn had the best picture of the entire conference of Keith's pods on stems.  We have never seen any thing like it, 31 pods on one raceme.  Usually we have 3-4 pods left on a node!  I can't upload that picture today and it should be my picture for this blog.  Maybe I can upload it elsewhere and post the link here.

My presentation flowed like water because I worked hard, I studied, I prayed and asked for intervention.  It worked.  I was immediately asked to do three more presentations in other states. One I had just presented at 3 years ago and they asked me how I learned that much in 3 years?

How is that for an answer to prayer?  What's your prayer for the day?

Ed Winkle