Serving Jesus
• A certain family in a Southern Baptist Church had been inactive for years.
• The family simply never went to church any more and every effort to get them to attend had failed.
• One day one of the sons, name John, was bitten by a rattlesnake.
The father immediately sent for the pastor that he might come and pray for John. The pastor went and this was his prayer:
“Oh wise and gracious Father, we thank You that You have in Your wisdom sent this rattlesnake to bite John in order to bring him to his senses. He has not been to church for years. It is doubtful if he has ever before in all his life felt the need of prayer. Now we pray that this will prove a valuable lesson for him, and that it will lead to his repentance.
“And we also pray, O father, that You would send another snake to bite Sam, and another to bite Jim, and another to bite the old man. We have been doing everything we could for many years, but all our efforts could not accomplish what this snake has done.
“We thus conclude that the only thing that will do this family any good is rattlesnakes. So, please, Lord, send them bigger and better rattlesnakes. Amen.”
Usually, it takes a big problem for God to get hold of people’s hearts and change them into the people he wants them to be