Matthew Dow was a successful businessman who fell on hard financial times. He counselled with his pastor at the First Church in order to find help on how to move forward. Pastor Smith gave him some rather unusual counsel. He advised Matthew to take his Bible and go to the beach. Take a lawn chair recliner, lay down and open the Bible in your lap. Let the vesper sea breezes blow across the pages of your Bible until they come to a final resting place. Then look at that page for the message God has given. Somewhat skeptical, Matthew remembered only a week before that Pastor Smith had preached on the servant's rejoinder to Naaman about dipping seven times in Jordan. So he loaded up his Bible and his lawn chair and headed off to the beach to hopefully get a message from God.
Not long after this, Pastor Smith saw Matthew in town. He was driving a new car, dressed in a new suit, with all appearances of success once again. The pastor asked his parishioner how he was doing and whether he had taken his advice.
"Oh, yes," replied Matthew, "things are really looking up."
"What did God say?" queried the pastor.
Matthew explained, "Well, after the breezes died down and the pages stopped turning, I looked down and saw it..."
"Matthew, Chapter 11."
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