My Father was a a kind gentle man who taught me to forgive. It was said of him by many that he had the patience of Job. And there are only two or three times I can ever recall his being angry. One of those times was when someone began cutting his fences and thus letting the cows out. At first being the patient man he was he simply checked his fences every day and repaired them. After a year of this he got a little riled and started sitting in the bushes with a shotgun across his lap. He only wanted to scare them away, he said. He would sit there, he said, and pray that the Lord would help his old eyes see who was cutting his fence.
This went on for awhile, and them one day I called Mom and asked how things were going. She told me about him waiting in the bushes with his shotgun. In fear that he would accidentally shoot someone or himself, I started praying that the Lord would protect him by not allowing him to see anyone to shoot and also help him understand why he shouldn't be shooting at them.
The next time he grabbed his shotgun and headed for the bushes.he prayed as always that the Lord would open his old eyes that he could see the person cutting his fences. He said this soft warm feeling came into his chest and he heard a voice that said, "What you ask, you will not receive because you ask amiss."
He said, "Thy will oh Lord be done." He took the gun immediately to the house and put it away. That night as he read his scriptures he started where he left off in the book of James fourth chapter. and when he got to the third verse he read, "Ye ask, and receive not, because ye ask amiss, that ye may consume it upon your lust." He was humbled then and prayed to the Lord that he would soften the heart of the person cutting his fence that he might see fit to stop harassing a poor old man. The fence cutting stopped immediately.
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