A poor old Christian Chinaman called Joe had a cousin, a Buddhist priest, who took pity on him, and used to call every dinnertime when he was near to leave him a bit of dinner, and Joe would always say,
“Grace be to the Lord Jesus because of His bounty,” and when he had eaten,
“Thanks to the Heavenly Father.” One day the cousin got rather cross, and said to Joe,
“Why do you always say those words?”
“‘Well,” said Joe, “because it is the Heavenly Father who gives it to me.”
“No, it is not,” said the Buddhist priest; “it is I who bring it. Wait until tomorrow, and then you will see if your dinner comes from your Heavenly Father, or from your cousin.”
Tomorrow came, and dinner-time, but the Buddhist priest did not come, and Joe had no dinner, so he went to his room and prayed aloud, something like this:
“Heavenly Father, my cousin said that it is not You that sends me my dinner. He says it is he that sends it, and, Heavenly Father, he has not come today, so I do not have any dinner.”
Hearing a noise outside, he paused. Then, rising from his knees, he went outside his house and saw a large bird with something in its beak, and another one fighting it, when flop came the meat into Joe’s yard.
“It is the grace of the Lord Jesus Christ,” he said. He put the meat into a pot, and was feeling very happy. While it, was cooking in came his cousin, in,
“Well, and where is your dinner?” he said.
“Look in the pot and see,” said Joe. He looked, and smelt it was something good.
“Where did you get it from?”
“The Heavenly Father sent it, and when He sends a dinner, He always sends a good one,” replied Joe, as his heart swelled with gratitude to the God of whom it is written,
“This must be a strange God that you worship. I worship idols, I pray to idols, but I never heard of such a wonderful answer to prayer. Your God must be a wonderful God. I would like to worship Him.”
He became interested in the Christian religion, was soon an anxious inquirer and eventually that Buddhist became a Christian. He was one of the martyrs who laid down their lives for the Lord Jesus Christ.
ML 04/08/1945