Jan Johnson* knew an older woman who found the pastor annoying—so much so that she couldn’t stand to listen to his sermons. She wanted to change so, led by God, she started to attend the pastor’s weekly Bible study and offered to fix the coffee.

When I was a girl I read the Aesop fable about the Sun and the North Wind having a contest. The North Wind boasted that it had great strength. The Sun argued that there was greater power in gentleness. So they decided to have a contest.

Six times in John 14-16 Jesus invites us to ask.

One week Karen Mains came home disappointed. She had gladly spoken without receiving an honorarium for a friend who is the chaplain at a retirement center. “Oh, we’ll set up a book table,” her friend said thinking to compensate her in some way. So Karen hauled books for the book table. She enjoyed the women, had a great conversation, and sold four books—a total of $70.

At the close of World War II while living in India, Wesley Duewel got a cablegram from the United States saying that a missionary family was arriving on a ship in Calcutta. He was to meet them. At that time in India, authorities were not allowed to announce the arrival or departure of ships, so he did not know when the ship was coming.

A friend asked me if I had read the book The Five Love Languages—the book that says we each have unique preferences for how we want love to be expressed. I have not read that book, but I believe I discovered God’s love language.

Soon after Betty Norcross and her husband moved to a new pastorate, she discovered she was not needed. All the areas in which she was accustomed to working were well-staffed with dedicated, qualified people.

When God called Ling, a Chinese girl in the 1970’s, to be His messenger, she didn’t own a Bible. She simply walked from village to village sharing her faith. Whenever she came to a village that owned a Bible, she would memorize verses for her next message. But she longed to have her own; she knew the people she ministered to needed to hear and understand the Word.