In 2014, 35-year-old Asia Ford, a Kentucky mother with three children, began experiencing serious health problems because she was overweight.  She knew she needed to do something so she decided to start losing weight.  She lost 217 pounds!

She decided it was time for her to run a 10K race.  She entered.  Coming down the final stretch, she began crying because she was afraid she was about to pass out.  At that time Louisville Police Lt. Aubrey Gregory came up beside her and started encouraging her.  He kept telling her that she could do it.  It changed her whole attitude.

Asia completed the race.  She said, “I asked, ‘God, please let me take a few more steps.’  Right when I said that, God brought this man.  He gave me the encouragement to do it.”

Isn’t it great that in a time of need God puts somebody in our path as an answer to prayer?   The problem is a lot of people are in need and praying for help, and God has somebody picked out, but that person doesn’t respond.

One of the rapidly growing sports today is women’s fast pitch softball.  I like it because the players don’t waste time between pitches.  It is a fast game.

Last year Florida Southern College, an excellent Methodist school, was playing Eckerd College.  Florida Southern was leading, but then the batter for Eckerd hit a game-winning homerun.  As the batter started rounding the bases, all of a sudden she started crying and limping badly.  Would you believe that her opponents came out and gave her a hand in completing the trip around the bases?

The pitcher for Florida Southern, Chelsea Oglevie, said, “It wasn’t until she got to the middle of first and second base that I realized she was sobbing.  We helped her. All I knew is we were doing the right thing.”

What if more people did the right thing?  In the heat of competition, Chelsea helped out the opponent who had just hit her pitch for the game-winning homerun.  I don’t know softball rules, so I don’t know what would have happened if the batter had simply fallen between first and second and couldn’t complete the bases.  Chelsea didn’t even ask that question – “she just did the right thing.”

When World War I came a young traveling Scottish preacher named Oswald volunteered to go as a YMCA chaplain to the troops.  He offered a daily teaching for them.  In 1917, he died after an emergency appendectomy.  He was only 41 years old.

His wife, Gertrude, could take dictation at over 150 words per minute.  She listened to his devotional thoughts, and each day wrote down all of his teachings.  After he died, she started typing out all those notes that she had taken.  She put them into a little book which today is one of the most famous devotional books.  That young preacher was Oswald Chambers, and his wife Gertrude put together My Utmost for His Highest.

Gertrude was there to perform a great service to her husband Oswald.  Sometimes you don’t even have to ask for someone to help you – God just puts somebody in that place.

God always puts somebody in place as an answer to a prayer need.  You might be that answer!