The Fresh Egg of Friendship

Back in the last century there was a missionary named Mary Geegh. She was from Holland, Michigan and she served in India for nearly 40 years from the 1920s-1960s.

Mary wrote a wonderful little booklet called God Guides. It is a collection of short accounts of the goings-on in the village she was living, teaching and serving in.

Most importantly, she shares anecdotal accounts of relationships and changes in the people of the village as they begin to employ what Mary calls ‘listening prayer’. She learned this technique from D.L. Scudder, a missionary who traveled through her area and made remarkable headway helping the people of the village solve conflict and make life changing decisions.

One Small Step

Mary begins by telling the story of a fellow teacher at her school whom she doesn’t get along with. The woman has 10 children and is always taking time off work due to illness. Mary is resentful she is not carrying her weight.

So, she prays using this special listening prayer method. Which consists of taking your problem to God in prayer, waiting…being still, as long as it takes…then listening to what God has to say about it…Usually with a thought in your mind or a feeling or prompting in your heart about what to do. 

Then, most importantly, you are to obey what God is prompting you to do. Mary prefaces the story with her prayer to God that she will begin to employ this listening prayer, and promising him to obey whatever it is He puts in her mind and heart to do, to fix the problem.

A Chicken’s Sign

So one morning she asks for God to guide her in how to dissolve the critical feeling she has towards her colleague. She has an immediate thought come to her mind: “Take her a fresh egg.” 

Well, she is taken aback. She knows this is not a thought of her own, clearly. Then Mary wonders who in the world would give her that kind of idea?!  Like… maybe bringing her a dozen eggs would seem somewhat normal, but one egg?? I’ll just look crazy, she thinks. So, she blows it off and goes to work.

Now, the missionaries that serve her village all live in small homes that are completely open and accessible to the public. So, when she comes home for lunch, she is a little surprised, but not entirely shocked, to see a chicken in her armchair! As it flies down off the chair, clucking,  Mary notices a freshly laid egg in the chair! Oh no, she thinks. This has never happened  before (or since).

So of course she harkens back to God’s guidance to her that morning “Take her a fresh egg.” In her heart she says to God ‘She’ll laugh at me’. She feels his response ‘Results are not your business. You promised to be obedient.’

So she takes the egg to her colleague’s house and luckily, a young son is outside, so she gives it to him and says ‘Please take this to your mother.’ She hightails it out of there.

Later that day the colleague comes to Mary’s home and says ‘why did you bring me that egg? It was so fresh and delicious.’ Mary tells her it was God’s guidance. And she replies, ‘That is just like God! He knows I had nothing to eat all day; there wasn’t enough food today so I went without. I felt so nourished and strengthened after eating the egg. Thank you!

And from that one encounter, Mary’s bitterness dissolved toward her co-worker and she began a true friendship with her and her family. The entire family adopted the listening prayer method.

The Ripple Effect

After this, there’s a truly miraculous story about that same family’s  two-month-old son who gets pneumonia. You really have to read it.

And what ensues really changes the the entire family, especially the father and the teenage son. The son goes on into ministry changing many, many lives in the area and the father puts together a group of men who rely on listening prayer and who go from village to village repairing broken relationships and dissolving  conflict by uniting warring factions. All from this one small act of obedience by Mary Geegh. The fresh egg.

It was in the submitting to, and the trusting and obeying God and the doing of the small seemingly silly thing. The ‘why-on-Earth-would-you-want-me-to-do-that?” thing. If  you trust God and if you believe he has what’s best for you in mind, then when you sense that he’s asking you to do something…. you do it.

Where might one small step of obedience lead?

Andy Stanley, pastor of North Point church in Atlanta, Georgia likes to say ‘It’s the doing that makes the difference.’ I relate to this because I can say I trust God and believe and have faith, but the real test is…will I Do what God is asking? Or is my faith all just lip service?

A Fresh Egg Experience

I find myself asking God, what is my ‘fresh egg?’ Is there something you need me to do that seems small or weird or insignificant, that will expand and ripple out to actually make a difference in someone’s life?

It is an interesting thing to ask God for – a fresh egg experience. A little scary too. It might take me out of my comfort zone. I have heard it said that you don’t need to be talented or experienced to be used by God. God is not looking for ability, he is looking for availabilty.

It is also put this way: ‘God doesn’t call the equipped, he equips the called’.  He will equip you if you are willing to do the doing part. God knows what needs to be done, but he is not here on earth anymore to do it. So he put us here, his followers, to do the hands-on part.

Be willing to do the small things that may not seem to make sense, and leave the supervising, the planning,  the orchestrating to God. He is much better at it than we are.

Give It a Go!

I encourage you to give listening prayer a try. You can put your own spin on it, but here are some suggestions:

-start with prayers of gratitude and praise.
-take some time to be still and quiet. 
-tell God your problem, or ask your question.
-be still…wait…listen.
-write down whatever ideas, thoughts or promptings come to your mind or heart.
-do your best to be obedient to what you feel God is saying to you.

Then just do it!

This takes practice. Prayer should always be a two way street, but we are often not used to listening when we pray.  Don’t be discouraged if you’re not sure if you received God’s guidance the first few times you try this. 

Ask God to help you hear his voice.

I have a couple of Mary Geegh’s booklets. If you would like me to send you one, please feel free to message me.