For several months I had been working on my prayer life, grappling with the concept that God knows our needs no matter how we express them. One evening, arriving at church for a midweek meeting, I parked my car, turned off the ignition and reached into the glove compartment for my Bible. But it wasn’t there.
Now where have I left it? I wondered. I used to ask the Lord to help me locate things I had lost. Often he had answered.
“Lord, please show me where I’ve left my Bible.”
Suddenly a picture came to mind: my Bible, lying on the table in the vestibule of the church.
When I walked in, sure enough, there it was. I must have laid it down there while chatting after the Sunday morning service.
“Thank you, Lord!” I said, feeling that old familiar rush of excitement that comes with an immediate answer to prayer.
Just then our pastor’s wife came through the door from the sanctuary. “Linda, I see you’ve found your Bible,” she said.
“Yes,” I answered. “Right where I left it.”
“Well, no,” she said. “Actually you left it in the women’s lounge. So I put it there on the table for you.”
I smiled at the wisdom of God. He didn’t give me exactly what I had asked for; He gave me what I needed.