To a business man, it was a call to surrender what you would call
business tact. I had to rise up there and then, and proclaim in the
midst of the commercial city of Glasgow, that from that moment I was to
live by faith, and depend on God for money, wisdom and strength. From
that time forward I would ask no man for money, but trust God for
everything. That £2000 was the first direct answer to prayer for money.
He gave me the utmost of my asking, and I felt that I would need to give
Him the utmost of the power I pledged.
We rented a common workshop in Renfrew Lane--it was very difficult to
get a suitable place--to lodge the children in, and that little place
was the first National Home for Orphans in Scotland, and from it has
sprung what the visitor may see to-day amongst the Renfrewshire hills.
One day, I remember, two boys came in, and we had everything to clothe
them with except a jacket for one of them. The matron, a very godly
woman, said, "We must just pray that God will send what is needed," and
we prayed that He would. That night a large parcel of clothing came from
Dumbarton, and in it was a jacket that fitted the boy as if it had been
made for him. That was a small thing, of course, but if you don't see
God in the gift of a pair of stockings you won't see Him in a gift of
£10,000.
We had thirty children in that Home, and we kept praying that the Lord
would open a place for us somewhere in the country. A friend called on
me and offered to sub-let Cessnock House, with three acres of ground
about it. Cessnock Dock has now absorbed the place, and as it was just
the very spot we wanted, we accepted. We had room for a hundred boys,
and with the help of God we prospered. We had resolved formerly that we
would send children to Canada, but it took £10 per head to send them,
and we were determined not to get into debt. We had only a few pounds in
hand when we took the house in Govan Road, and it took £200 to alter it.
But every night we prayed that the Lord would send money to pay for the
alterations. Sums varying from 5s. to £5 came in, but when the bills
came to be paid we were short £100. A friend not far from one of my
places of business sent for me, and when I called, he said, "How are you
getting on at Cessnock?" I said we were getting on nicely, and that we
had got £100 towards the alterations. He gave me £100, to my
astonishment, for I knew that he could not afford so much, but he said a
relative who died in England had left him a fortune, and the money was
to help me in the work God had given me to do. In that answer you see
how God works mysteriously to accomplish His purpose and help those who
put their trust in Him.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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