Inside Story for Friday 26th of January 2024

By Joe Peola

Margaret and her husband, Levana, were sitting one morning in their living room in Perth, Australia, after returning the previous night from a trip to Papua New Guinea, located some 2,000 miles (4,500 kilometers) away.

Margaret was reflecting quietly on her father’s parting words at the airport. After praying with her, he had said, “Margaret, Jesus is coming back very soon. When you arrive at your home in Perth, my God will be at your door the next day.”

Not far from Margaret and Levana’s home, literature evangelist Jo Laing and several friends were praying at a Seventh-day Adventist church. They were praying for divine appointments as they prepared to head out for a day of canvassing.

A couple hours later, Jo knocked on the door of Margaret and Levana’s home. The home looked no different from the other houses on the street.

Levana opened the door and politely looked through the cookbook that Jo showed him. But he didn’t express any real interest in the book. Then Jo gave him a copy of Ellen White’s The Great Controversy and began telling him about it.

Levana flipped through several pages and called to his wife.

“Do we have this book?” he asked.

Margaret came to the door and confirmed that they did have the book. She turned to Jo and explained that she was a former Seventh-day Adventist. The words tumbled from her mouth.

“We just came home from Papua New Guinea last night,” she said. “The last thing that my dad said to me was that he would be praying for God to show up at my house.”

It was a hot day in Perth—109.5 degrees Fahrenheit (43 degrees Celsius). But Jo felt goosebumps on her arms. She and Margaret looked at each other with big smiles and marveled at how God had answered the prayer of Margaret’s father.

“Wouldn’t it be great if I could come to your church and share this story?” Margaret said.

“It would,” Jo agreed, and the two exchanged phone numbers.

A few weeks later, Margaret stood with tears in her eyes at Bickley Seventh-day Adventist Church and told her story of how God had found a lost, straying lamb.

God used a woman with a copy of The Great Controversy in Australia to answer a father’s passionate prayer in Papua New Guinea.

Join the Seventh-day Adventist world church in the mass promotion and distribution of The Great Controversy in 2023 and 2024. Visit greatcontroversyproject.org for more information or ask your pastor.