The Avon Ring
One summer during my college years, I spent several afternoons scrounging around a red-brick incinerator in my grandparents' barnyard. My grandfather had died, and my family was cleaning out the house so my grandmother could move to a smaller place. We toted decades worth of old clothing, newspapers, and trash to the incinerator. Scraps of paper and ash fluttered onto muddy ground pockmarked with the hoof prints of my grandfather's Black Angus cows. Prickly patches of weeds snagged ashes that had escaped the fire.
As I was flinging a piece of trash, my ring flew off. It was an Avon ring—not particularly expensive as rings go—but special to me because my mother had given it to me for my high school graduation. My mom, my grandmother, and I searched the ground to no avail. A week later I returned and tied my grandfather's horseshoe-sized magnet to a rope and dragged it around the area. Still nothing. I gave up, figuring the ring had been incinerated.
A few weeks later as I was reading the Bible, I ran across a verse that captured my attention. It said: "…whosoever shall say unto this mountain, Be thou removed, and be thou cast into the sea; and shall not doubt in his heart,… he shall have whatsoever he saith." I pondered the verse and memorized it.
That afternoon, I visited the farm again. While walking through the barnyard, I halted at the brick burner. I recalled the verse, thought of the ring, closed my eyes and prayed, "All right, Lord, I believe that whatsoever I pray will come to pass. I believe that the ring will appear now." I opened my eyes, looked down, and there it was.
I felt as if a bolt of lightning had struck the ground. This was the first time I had ever connected a 2,000-year-old verse to the next literal step in my pathway. God's words were alive! In a single instant, I had been given a key to unlock all the promises in the Bible.
I rarely test God in such a brazen way, but that morning, I'd done it so swiftly that my request was as uncluttered as an innocent child's prayer. He never bans us from asking, especially if we are asking in the innocent way a young child would ask a father. If a mountain is in my way, He says there will be a way to move it. If the sea stands between Him and me, He says, "Come." If a bonfire lies between me and a treasured ring, He says, "Ask and ye shall receive."
However, I must always remember that it's not the mountain or the ring that's important. It's the Person it spotlights. It's the Creator to whom it genuflects. God answers according to His own will for His own glory. His answer is usually "no" or "let Me show you a better way." But how sweet the days when nature itself bows before my simple call to an Almighty Father! I'm thankful that God still moves mountains today.
And Jesus answering saith unto them, Have faith in God. For verily I say unto you, That whosoever shall say unto this mountain, Be thou removed, and be thou cast into the sea; and shall not doubt in his heart, but shall believe that those things which he saith shall come to pass; he shall have whatsoever he saith. (Mark 11:22-23 KJV)