“Wait a minute, Andy!” Kenny ordered his friend, digging one hand into his jeans’ pocket and then hiding something behind his back. “Wanna see what I got? Com’on behind the barn... I don’t want the girls to see.”
The two boys quietly disappeared behind the barn while their sisters continued to play.
“What ya got, Kenny?” whispered Andy, elated that Kenny would share a secret with him. “Why don’t you want the girls to see?”
“Oh, you know now girls are... you’ve got four sisters,” Kenny said. “Thank goodness I’ve only got one!”
Andy laughed and waited to see Kenny’s treasure. “Wow, where’d you get it from?” he exclaimed as he turned over in his hand a shiny new pocketknife, complete with all the various blades and gadgets.
“You know Tiger, Mr. Ritchie’s little dog, don’t you?”
Andy nodded. All the children in the area knew who Tiger was, and they all liked the little beagle.
“Well, Mr. Ritchie told me that Tiger was lost. He said he suspected that Tiger had chased a rabbit down a hole somewhere in the fields and had gotten stuck, and no one had been able to find him anywhere. I told Mr. Ritchie I’d try to find him. He didn’t think I’d be able to, but said I could certainly try. ‘If you do find him, Kenny,’ he said, ‘I’ll give you a nice reward.’ "
“And did you find Tiger?” questioned Andy.
“Yeah, I did. That’s how I got the knife,” explained Kenny. “I started around the first field calling, ‘Tiger, Tiger,’ and then I’d stop to listen every once in a while. But he wasn’t there, so I went around the next field and the next doing the same thing. Then one time when I stopped to listen I heard a funny little yelp and when I called his name again, I heard the yelp again. I followed the sound as best I could and finally found a hole partway hidden by some bushes, and there was poor ol’ Tiger’s tail sticking out. He sure was stuck down that rabbit hole. I tried digging him loose with my bare hands, but the ground was too hard. So I found a stick in the bushes and used that to dig out some of the dirt until I could get a hand in to dig some more. Pretty soon he came wiggling out backwards. I was still sittin’ on the ground and he licked me over and was so excited to see me. I scooped him up and carried him back to Mr. Ritchie. He could hardly say anything, he was so surprised and pleased to have Tiger back. He told me to come by the next day, and when I did he gave me this knife. Neat, huh?”
“Yeah,” agreed Andy, “and I’m sure glad you found Tiger before he suffocated down that hole, Kenny!”
A little disappointed that all of Andy’s interest seemed to have been transferred from the knife to Tiger, Kenny jumped up, put his knife in his pocket, and called Andy to follow him up the ladder.
“Let’s pounce on the girls and scare them!” he suggested.
Appearing suddenly among the girls who had built a house in the bales of hay, Kenny and Andy played “King of the Haystack” before finally leaving the girls and running across the field to play in the creek.
That night when Kenny’s dad came into his room to read the Bible and pray with him, Kenny looked for his knife to show his dad, but he couldn’t find it anywhere. It wasn’t in his jeans’ pocket or anywhere in his room. He must have lost it! He was so upset that he did not listen when his dad read and prayed. Even when he prayed that they might find the missing knife Kenny did not feel better. When his dad left the room Kenny buried his face in his pillow and cried.
Kenny only prayed and read his Bible because his parents made him, not because he wanted to. And so for days he continued to look for his knife, but he did not think to pray about it himself.
Several days later Andy saw him and hearing about his lost knife said, “Hey, you know my mom lost her wedding ring once and she asked Jesus to help her find it, and then she didn’t worry about it any more. A couple days later she found it! Why don’t you do the same thing about your knife?”
In bed that night Kenny thought about what Andy had said. A little voice seemed to say to him, “But you are not one of God’s children.” He knew the way to become one of God’s children was to accept the Lord Jesus Christ as his Saviour, but until now he had refused to do that. He remembered what his dad sometimes told him the Bible said. It was something like, “If I keep sin in my heart the Lord will not hear me” (Psa. 66:1818If I regard iniquity in my heart, the Lord will not hear me: (Psalm 66:18)). This bothered Kenny. For a long time he couldn’t get to sleep.
Finally he got out of bed and knelt down and told the Lord Jesus that he was a sinner and needed to be saved and asked Him to wash away all his sins. Feeling a big load gone, Kenny went to sleep. The next morning he told the Lord Jesus about his knife and asked Him to help him find it.
Kenny looked so happy that day that his parents wondered what had happened.
Often as each day passed Kenny would pray about his knife.
Then on the fifth day just as he was getting dressed, he heard his father calling him. Opening his bedroom door, he answered, and what he heard sent him racing down the stairs three at a time.
“Your pocketknife, Kenny! Here’s your pocketknife!”
“Where was it, Dad?” he asked, taking it from his dad. “I knew I’d get it back,” he added shyly.
“I started to load some hay bales from the barn and had cut about halfway down one of the piles when I found it. I thought it might be the one you lost.”
Kenny, with his face still full of excitement at having his knife back, explained, “I prayed about it, Dad, and asked Jesus to help me find it.”
“Kenny, does this mean you’ve asked the Lord Jesus to be your Saviour?”
“Yes, Dad, I took care of that first,” Kenny explained, and his father understood.
“Thank you Lord, for answering two prayers!” he exclaimed to the Lord as he gave Kenny a big hug.
ML-07/14/1985