Humble yourselves, therefore under the mighty hand of God, that he may exalt you in due time: Casting all your care upon him; for he careth for you. –1 Peter 5:6-7

In the book, A 2nd Helping of Chicken Soup for the Soul, Jack Canfield and Mark Hansen use an illustration to talk about answered prayer.

The story goes that Pastor John Ramsey was used to receiving a rose boutonniere to wear on his jacket each Sunday. After services one day, a little boy came up to him and asked if he could have the rose he was wearing.

Ramsey knew it would go in the trash when he got home, so he gladly offered it to the boy and asked why he wanted it.

The boy replied, “I’m going to give it to my granny. My parents divorced last year. I was living with my mom, but she got married again and wanted me to live with my dad. I lived with him for a while, but he said I couldn’t stay, so he sent me to live with my grandmother. She is so good to me—she cooks, takes care of me, and loves me—so I want to give her the rose.”

Pastor Ramsey stood staring at the boy with tears in his eyes. He pointed to the large vase full of fresh flowers sitting at the altar and said, “Take those to your granny because she deserves the very best. That little flower isn’t enough.”

The boy’s eyes lit up and he shouted, “What a good day! I asked for one flower, but got a beautiful bouquet instead!”

When we come to God with our prayers, we aren’t much different than the pastor and boy in this illustration. Oftentimes, we don’t notice that when we bring our pain or hurt to the Lord seeking a small remedy, He points us to a greater solution and comfort and asks us to take that instead.  —-from Senior Living

   “And Isaac went out to meditate in the fields at eventide” (Gen. 24:63).

      We should be better Christians if we were more alone; we should do more if we attempted less, and spent more time in retirement, and quiet waiting upon God. The world is too much with us; we are afflicted with the idea that we are doing nothing unless we are fussily running to and fro; we do not believe in “the calm retreat, the silent shade.” As a people, we are of a very practical turn of mind; “we believe,” as someone has said, “in having all our irons in the fire, and consider the time not spent between the anvil and the fire as lost, or much the same as lost.” Yet no time is more profitably spent than that which is set apart for quiet musing, for talking with God, for looking up to Heaven. We cannot have too many of these open spaces in life, hours in which the soul is left accessible to any sweet thought or influence it may please God to send.

      “Reverie (day dreaming),” it has been said, “is the Sunday of the mind.” Let us often in these days give our mind a “Sunday,” in which it will do no manner of work but simply lie still, and look upward, and spread itself out before the Lord like Gideon’s fleece, to be soaked and moistened with the dews of Heaven. Let there be intervals when we shall do nothing, think nothing, plan nothing, but just lay ourselves on the green lap of nature and “rest awhile.”

      Time so spent is not lost time. The fisherman cannot be said to be losing time when he is mending his nets, nor the mower when he takes a few minutes to sharpen his scythe at the top of the ridge. City men cannot do better than follow the example of Isaac, and, as often as they can, get away from the fret and fever of life into fields. Wearied with the heat and din, the noise and bustle, communion with nature is very grateful; it will have a calming, healing influence. A walk through the fields, a saunter by the seashore or across the daisy-sprinkled meadows, will purge your life from sordidness, and make the heart beat with new joy and hope.   —Mrs. Charles Cowman