The story is told about a poor woman who lived across the tracks and wanted to join a very fashionable church. She talked to the pastor about it, but he sought to discourage her. He suggested she go home and think about it carefully for a week.
At the end of the week she came back. He said, “Go home and read your Bible for an hour every day this week. Then come back and tell me if you still feel you should join.” Although she wasn’t happy about this, she agreed to do it. The next week she was back, assuring the pastor she wanted to become a member of the church. In exasperation he said, “I have one more requirement. You pray every day this week and ask the Lord if he wants you to come into our fellowship.”
Unfortunately, the pastor did not see the woman for six months. He met her on the street one day and asked her what she had decided. She said, “Yeah, I did what you asked me to do. I went home and prayed. One day while I was praying, the Lord said to me, ‘Don’t worry about not getting into that church. I’ve been trying to get into it myself for the last twenty years!”
- Precept Austin