Abraham walked slowly through the village, his head lowered, watching the little clouds of dust kicked up by his bare feet. He passed old women sitting in front of their huts, their skinny black fingers molding pots from hunks of gray clay. Little children ran past him and disappeared into open doorways or behind the huts. Young wives chatted together noisily under the village’s only shade tree, one or another of them interrupting occasionally to call to her children. But Abraham scarcely noticed any of them. He had his own problems to worry about.
In just two weeks, school would begin at Malamulo Mission, nearly 120 km away. Abraham had already spent a year at the mission school, and now he wanted more than anything to go back for this coming school year. But he did not have a good pair of pants, a shirt, a blanket, or even the money needed for school fees. What could he do?
Just then Grandfather Mankwala shuffled by carrying a great load of bamboo on his shoulders. Abraham knew he was going to his hut to make mats to sell at the market. Mankwala had promised to give him a mat to take to school.
“I will give you a good one, my boy,” the old man had told him. “If I had money, I would give that to you too, but I have a hard time keeping food in my own and my old wife’s stomachs. I cannot hoe big gardens like I used to.”
“That is all right, Grandfather,” Abraham had assured the kind old grandfather. “I will be very happy with the mat that you give to me. It will keep my blanket clean, if God provides me one.”
But here he was, only a few days before the opening of school, and still without a blanket. Watching the retreating figure of old Mankwala, a thought came to Abraham. Mankwala prayed a lot. He was always saying, “I have been praying about . . . ” and in the mission period at Sabbath School, he often shared how the Lord answered His prayers.
Sometimes Abraham felt a little impatient. Why pray, when you can do something about it? But Abraham had tried all summer to do something about it, and nothing had worked.
He was not able to get a job on the tea plantations because they demanded he work on the Sabbath. A job on any farm meant the same thing. To get a job as a houseboy, he had to work seven days a week. The same went for a cookboy. He had even tried selling vegetables at the market, but the drought came and the garden dried up.
“Well, I tried everything and nothing has worked,” Abraham sighed. “Perhaps I should pray like old Mankwala.” He had said his prayers at night and in the morning as he was taught at school at the mission, but he never prayed for anything special. Slowly, Abraham turned off the pathway and into the bush. He would go far away from the village so he could talk aloud and concentrate on his praying, far from the ears of other curious listeners in the village. He came to a place he knew about, far off the beaten path, where a gigantic rock thrust up high out of the ground. Slipping behind it, Abraham knelt and began to concentrate on how to pray for particular things.
As he was about to pray, he remembered something Mankwala had always said about prayer. “You are purely wasting your time to pray if there is any meanness in your heart. If you have got anything hidden there, the Lord is sure to see it clearly. Then He cannot hear your prayer.”
Suddenly, Abraham jumped up. Last week he had taken a huge yellow papaya from the neighbour’s tree. He had sneaked off into the bush and ate every bit of it, even though he knew it was not his to take. One the way back to his hut, he had heard his neighbour talking to his father about the missing papaya. “It is not for me that I am sorry, but the old mother has no teeth, and she has been watching that soft papaya ripen all these weeks.”
Abraham had crept into his hut ashamed, and now he stood in the shadow of this mighty rock, realizing that a papaya was big enough to stand between him and God.
Abraham quickly retraced his steps until he got to his neighbour’s house. Then he remembered that some big papayas hung from the trees in the next village. He had a few pennies in his hut and he decided to go and buy one. Then he would not have a face of shame when he went to see his neighbour.
Two hours later he stood again in the shadow of the big rock. He had bought a papaya even bigger than the one he had stolen. He paid for it with his precious money that he had earned last week working in another neighbour’s garden. Now his neighbour graciously forgave him for stealing the papaya and the old grandmother was sitting on a mat in the warm sun enjoying the juicy yellow meat of the sweet ripe fruit.
Then Abraham remembered something else he had almost forgotten. Soon after he had returned from school at the beginning of the summer his father had asked him to help clear the garden. But he had not wanted to work just then. His legs were still weary from the long journey home from school, and he felt a little angry at being asked to work so soon. He had pretended to have a stomach ache and had lain all day on his mat, groaning whenever anyone came near. Somehow he could not pray until he had made things right with his father. Again Abraham turned and went back to the village.
By the time he returned to the rock an hour later, the shadows of night were beginning to fall. He would have to hurry his praying, and old Mankwala had told him many times not to pray in a hurry!
But how clear the sky seemed now between Abraham and God. He felt as if he could reach up and touch heaven itself. So he knelt happily by the rock and prayed for God to help him find a way to go to school. When he arose from his knees, he realized it was too late to cut across the bushes. At twilight the wild beasts were often abroad, hungry and bold. He decided to go out of his way to a seldom-used road that trucks took occasionally to carry wheat from the villages. This would be safer than the bush.
As he came near the road, he noticed what looked like a piece of dirty brown paper caught under the end of a big rock. Since no one in his village had even a square inch of paper from one year to the next, he decided to retrieve it. He pulled it from under the end of the rock and found it to be a long sodden brown envelope. The writing on it had blurred and he could only make out that it had been addressed to somewhere in the faraway Mozambique. Curious, he opened it. Inside, carefully folded, were three one-pound notes, unharmed, protected by the thick paper from mold and rot.
What a thrill for Abraham. “It is a wonder that the white ants have not found this,” he thought. “The God in heaven has saved it for me, yes, for me to go to school. And I would not have found it if I had not had so many things to make right before I prayed.” His two trips back to the village had taken just long enough so he had to come home on the road where he found the answer to his prayers.
With a light heart he started toward home. No longer did he shuffle slowly along the road, but he ran as fast as he could. He did not even have to look for the owner of the money, since trucks from many places in Mozambique came along the road during the wheat season and it would be impossible to find the right one. If there had been opportunity, Abraham surely would have returned the money to its rightful owner.
The next morning Abraham walked to the near-by store and bought himself a warm blanket and some clothing. After the purchases he had enough left over for school fees and spending money.
Abraham felt happier than he had all summer. He had raised his voice to the Lord and the Lord had answered his prayers.
Jesus said, “Therefore if thou bring thy gift to the altar, and there rememberest that thy brother hath ought against thee; Leave there thy gift before the altar, and go thy way; first be reconciled to thy brother, and then come and offer thy gift.” Matthew 5:23–24
“If we have in any manner defrauded or injured our brother, we should make restitution. If we have unwittingly borne false witness, if we have misstated his words, if we have injured his influence in any way, we should go to the ones with whom we have conversed about him, and take back all our injurious misstatements.” –Thoughts from the Mount of Blessing, p. 59. The next time you kneel down and pray, carefully think, as did Abraham, if there is some matter you need to reconcile with someone before you kneel before God. Then go and make things right with your brother or sister, and then you will be in harmony with God and can, “come boldly unto the throne of grace, that we may obtain mercy, and find grace to help in time of need.” Hebrews 4:16