“The Lost Wallet,” Liahona, April 2017
Latter-day Saint Voices
The Lost Wallet
Recently I moved to a new home and asked some Church members to help me with a project at my house. In the middle of the project, I left to buy some materials that we needed to finish. After we finished the project, I realized I didn’t have my wallet. I panicked because inside my wallet were all my personal documents along with money I had just received from a client that morning. I retraced my steps to where I’d made the purchases but didn’t have any luck. I went home and searched to see if I had dropped it somewhere, but I still didn’t find it. I began considering the possibility that I would have to acquire new copies of all the documents. Then before leaving my home, a friend asked, “Have you prayed yet?”
I immediately thought, “Of course I’ve prayed already!”
But in reality, I had not prayed with real intent. Instead, I wanted to force my will on Heavenly Father and somehow make it His duty to help me find my wallet. But then I remembered the scripture in Isaiah 55:8: “For my thoughts are not your thoughts, neither are your ways my ways, saith the Lord.”
On Sunday I went to church, and a member who had been with me the day before told me that he had prayed fervently to Heavenly Father that I might find my wallet. He said he had felt that I would find it. Later, as I sat down for my personal study, I began reading Receiving Answers to Our Prayers by Elder Gene R. Cook, emeritus member of the Seventy. The first page told a story with a problem identical to mine: Elder Cook’s son lost his wallet, so the family gathered together and prayed to the Lord that they would find it.
After reading that experience, I put what I learned into practice and gathered my wife and children together. We formed a circle, and each person offered a prayer, imploring the Lord to help us find the wallet if it were His will.
I had previously witnessed the power of prayer, but afterward, as I prayed in private, I asked Heavenly Father to answer our prayer in order to strengthen the faith of my wife and children.
The next day a man called me. He said he had found my wallet, including the money. I wept like a child because my prayer was answered and my family’s faith was strengthened.
I know that Heavenly Father, even with so many children to attend to, responds to each of us according to His time and in His way.