Story of guy who prayed for a quarter and received it

[_DarkHelmet]

There was a conference talk by a guy that was riding his bike home and was in the mood for some chicken that a restaurant was selling for 29 cents. He only had a nickel in his pocket so he prayed for a quarter. He faithfully rode his bike to the restaurant and a shiny quarter was waiting for him on the street and he was able to buy his chicken. I was thinking of ways this story could be altered depending on the point he wanted to make.

If he wanted the lesson to be on honesty, the story could be he found a quarter in the street while riding his bike. Knowing that someone must have dropped the quarter, he turned it in to the nearby restaurant and told them someone dropped it and may come looking for it.

If the lesson was on charity, the story could be how he bought the chicken, but saw a little orphan boy sitting in the gutter so he gave the chicken to him.

If the lesson was on tithing, the story could be that he found a quarter, but since he always paid tithing first, it left him with only 27.5 cents, and he couldn't buy the chicken, but it was OK because when he got home, his wife had a chicken dinner waiting for him, all because he chose to pay tithing first.

[_just me]

HAHAHA! I'm sorry. You are so right. And that is such a terrible story!

Another version would be that he didn't find a quarter because God was teaching his patience or that the Lord's time is not our time.

[_krose]

Hilarious. The tithing option is your best one.

His point about why God would waste energy answering such an insignificant prayer was creative (it was important to God because it was important to his beloved child at the time).

While the anecdote explains why God might nudge a football just inside the goal posts, I'm just not sure how it explains all the people who suffer horrible, painful death or disfigurement while praying to be saved.

[_Some Schmo]

There was a conference talk by a guy that was riding his bike home and was in the mood for some chicken that a restaurant was selling for 29 cents. He only had a nickel in his pocket so he prayed for a quarter. He faithfully rode his bike to the restaurant and a shiny quarter was waiting for him on the street and he was able to buy his chicken.

Always the hits and never the misses.

I wonder why we never hear the countless stories of the prayers that go unanswered. Actually, I don't wonder about that at all. The reason is obvious.

[_Phillip]

Well, if the guy in the story was a member of the church who was faithfully keeping his covenants then that would explain it. 'The Lord is bound' you know. Prayers by the righteous elect get through the white noise coming from the rest of us. That is an important lesson for Conference goers to learn.

[_Some Schmo]

I think the biggest leap of faith in this story is believing you can get a chicken dinner for 29 cents.

[_stemelbow]

I was annoyed by this story too.

There was quite an emphasis on God will hear your prayers and will care about petty little things because He cares so much about you. I don't' know if I get that. To spend your time praying for things like this just seems selfish. Why would God care about that? this doesn't work for me at all.

I'm in the young men's in our ward. I love these young fellas to death. Anyway, one day we teamed up with the young women and had an Olympics evening in which we did all sorts of outdoorsy sporty stuff. I had as good a time as any. After we were done we enjoyed some drinks and snacks and one kid lost his phone in the grass. We searched for a good 5 or 10 minutes and no one found it. Then a young women's leader piped up thinking this is a great opportunity to teach these kids saying "let's pray to find it and God will help us". I was just like, "God will care where his cell phone is more than a starving kid elsewhere, or what?" They prayed and sure enough within a minute of hte prayer it was found. But I maintain the thing would have been found anyway. It was in the grass, on an open field. She didn't teach the kids anything but the notion that God will care about your concerns but not about others. That ain't right.

[_kairos]

Or the guy never found a quarter, went into the diner anyway and begged for some chicken lying that he was homeless and without any money. the manager didn't buy the story but told the guy he could dumpster dive in the back and get the left over chicken if he could find it- and he did because he was so hungry -ruining his 500 dollar suit in the process, came home smelling like dumpster chicken told his wife he fell off his bike into a sewer pipe which she did not buy and then he got sick went to hospital where he vomited his guts our from the bad chicken and then he told his wife the truth but she filed for divorce anyway and he went back to the chicken diner and shot the manager for screwing up his life but when he was sentenced to life in prison he gave his bike to an orphan who immediately sold it and bought some crack and died of an overdose and ..........

just saying