Introduction: A lot of us might remember the acronym P-U-S-H, standing for Pray Until Something Happens! The other day, something happened to me to give a bit of a humorous slant or angle on that idea.

Text: Proverbs 3:13-14, KJV: 13 Happy is the man that findeth wisdom, and the man that getteth understanding. 14 For the merchandise of it is better than the merchandise of silver, and the gain thereof than fine gold.

After driving and completing some errands, I stopped at a certain retail store and made a couple of purchases. This particular store has different prices for different days; example, each item is #3.00 USD on Tuesday, a dollar less on Wednesday and only a dollar per item on Thursday. A good chance to find good deals, especially as we’re in the Christmas/Advent season.

I made my purchase, spoke with the cashier, and tried to leave.

You saw that right—I TRIED to leave.

What happened, you ask? I tried to PUSH the door open, feeling a little like Samson before he could flex those muscles and knock down the temple—just kidding, folks. I wondered, why won’t the door open?

And it was right there in front of me.

The instructions, quite clearly, said, PULL.

Somewhat embarrassed, I did PULL the door and left the store. Quickly, too, I may add! But then a thought came to me, namely, another way to use the letters for PULL.

You see, I needed to learn (okay, be reminded) to look at (also known as, read) the instructions. I could have pushed that door until the cashier took pity on me but there was no way that door was going to open until I learned and applied what I learned. Then, it worked and I could leave!

Our spiritual lives are like that, aren’t they? There is so much we can learn, so much our Lord wants to teach us, but until we are willing to let Him teach us, we’ll not learn much of anything.

Prayer certainly helps, too, so when it’s time to learn from the Lord, use some P-U-L-L and pray until the lesson’s learned!

BTW, if anyone has already used this acronym, I didn't intentionally copy or paste any of it.

Scripture quotations taken from the King James Version of the Bible (KJV).