Classical Conditioning . . .

This by the way is our friend Stacy's dog ZEUS!

You recall studying about Pavlov's dogs! Classical conditioning, conditioned reflex! You will then remember that when a bell was rung, or a certain other device was used to announce the arrival of food, that the dogs began to salivate even before the food was brought out. the dogs understood the signal and began to reflexively anticipate feeding time.

I am continually amazed how the Lord answers our prayers. Time after time He has come through at the very last second, I am not surprised, but yet I am. There was the time early on in our marriage that we needed a bathroom faucet to accomodate company coming that evening. We didn't have any money, yet that afternoon while we were driving the back roads of Washington State, there in the middle of the road way out in the middle of nowhere was a little box. I stopped, curious being that I am and got out of our car picked up the box and got back in the car, opened it and you guessed it. It was the needed faucet for our bathroom. There was another instance during that same time period that we needed a wheel bearing changed, again no money to put the car in the garage. That evening a friend showed up at our door and just said he was dropping in to say hi. I casually mentioned the dilemma with our car and he said he'd be glad to change it. I asked him how much he would charge and he responded, "ah just a good home-cooked meal." Three hours later we were sitting at the dinner table and our wheel was good as new. I could literally bore you to tears with stories like this all through out our lives.

But here's one that rates up near the top. Back in the summer of 95 Paula and I and the kids had just moved to Cleveland, TN to finish up our education at Lee University. We purged our moving van of all the boxes. Cooked up some dinner, hooked up the TV and settled down for the evening. The next day would be registration for our fall classes. As we laid down that night to go to sleep. The neighbor's dog parked right under our bedroom window and barked loudly all night. We did not get a wink of sleep. Anyhow that next morning we went to the school and got all registered. Later on that night after a very tiring day, we settled in for our second nights sleep in our new home. Five minutes after laying down, we began dozing off, and the dog started in again.

Now I'm at the point of desperation. We didn't sleep at all the previous night, and I couldn't face the possibility of another sleepless night, especially with classes beginning the next morning. I didn't just get out of bed, I JUMPED out of bed, marched over to the window where the dog was closest. I layed my hand on the wall and invoked the name of Jesus, reminding Him that He had once shut the mouth of the lion for Daniel, and if He did so for him, He shouldn't be any respector of persons and do the same for me. My words were quite literally, "Father shut this dog's mouth in the name of your son Jesus!" I then got back in bed, and Paula and I slept all night long, the dog didn't make a sound the rest of the night. The next morning I got up and Paula said I'm glad that dog let us sleep, I was curious so I went outside the house and went to where the dog was, and when I rounded the corner there he was. He began to bark at me, BUT absolutely no sound came from him, not even a raspy sound. It's like someone turned his volume down to zero. Those people lived next door for a couple of months and the dog never got his voice back.

So one would think with a history like this that I would not be surprised each time the Lord answers a prayer. But as I said, "I am continually amazed" at how the Lord hears and answers His children. Maybe I should be like Pavlov's dog so that when I pray I would hear a bell go off in my head and I would understand that God had heard me and an answer was quickly on the way.

For more than a week now the printer in my office has not worked, I even wrote my message last week in longhand. Once again this morning I tried in vain to print something on it and it just kept giving me messages that the printer was not installed so I reinstalled, and then it would say printer spooler is not running. And finally in desperation I typed the following words into the computer and hit print, "Please Jesus, heal this cpu/printer connexion." I like the spanish spelling of connection. No surprises here, it printed perfectly. My cpu and printer are once again on speaking terms. You see we can have what we ask for, all we have to do is ASK!

Ding ding ding, by now I should be conditioned to expect an answer. Oh what a mighty God we serve.