|
The Red Tricycle
It was a time of famine in India. Millions of refugees fled from the villages and
went to the city where missionary David Grant was living. The refugees were
living in tar paper shacks, under tarpaulins, and on the streets. There was no
money, no food. Some people felt that the only way to save their children was
to give them away to other familes.
In the middle of the night, someone laid a baby on the Grants’ doorstep. But
some hungry dogs got to the baby before the Grants found it. Seeing the mutilated
body of that one baby so traumatized David’s spirit, he was not able to
function that day.
Laying on the floor out of weariness and heart sickness, he questioned God.
How could he have missed that baby on his doorstep?
Distraught, he determined to quit and leave that tragic country. But before he
could fulfill that intent, God touched him and he was able to carry on.
Carry on. That’s all he did for months after finding the baby on his doorstep.
He preached without tears and ministered without emotion. He functioned
like a robot, feeling dead inside, like his heart was just a stone.
Many months later, David was preaching in another city on Christmas Eve
for a young pastor who had a wife and a three-year-old son. On the way to the
service, he looked in a store window and saw the first tricycle he had ever seen
in India.
He said to his wife Beth, “I’m going to buy that little tricycle for the pastor’s
son.”
Beth, the more practical member of the family, said, “They could probably use
the money instead.”
But undeterred and determined, David went into the store. He asked the clerk
the price. “Fifteen dollars,” she said.
Fifteen dollars? The pastor had to pay fifteen dollars a month in rent alone.
That was almost half his monthly income. But David bought the bike anyway.
A little while later, tricycle in hand, David and Beth walked into the pastor’s
tiny, one-room apartment. David sat the tricycle down on the floor. The little
boy screamed, “Mommy, my tricycle has come!” He ran over and jumped on
the shiny new bike.
Beth went over to the mother and said, “I’m sorry if this is not the thing to do.
But David insisted on buying this tricycle.”
With tears in her eyes, the mother said, “For a month, he’s been praying for a
tricycle. Every day during our prayer time he asks us, ‘Have you prayed for my
tricycle?’ A week ago he was in bed with a fever and looked up at me and said, ‘Mommy, Jesus appeared to me and said I would have a tricycle for Christmas.’”
The mother continued, “I thought it was the fever. I touched him, but the fever
was gone. I began to weep. I said, ‘Jesus, what are we going to do? We don’t
have any money.’ And then you walked through the door. That tricycle didn’t
come from you. It came from Jesus.”
Upon hearing that testimony, the stone in David’s chest burst into a million
pieces, and he began to weep. He felt the Lord speak to him and say, “You have
blamed Me for the death of that baby that was killed on the doorstep months
ago. You have said I do not hear the prayers of these children. But I wanted to
show you that I hear the prayers of every child, and I look for someone to be
my hand.”
God cares about every child in India. Remember to pray for the children, that
they will learn how much God loves them.
Information for this story was provided by missionary David Grant and is
used with permission from Assemblies of God World Missions.
©2007 The General Council of the Assemblies of God. All rights reserved. Permission granted to reproduce and adapt lesson components for exclusive use in the local church. Any other use requires written permission. |
