Episode Transcript
It is all too often said that there are no miracles performed these days. Well, I'd like to challenge this idea with my story of when God didn't answer my prayer. Welcome to miracles in the 21st century.
I'm Dr. John Ashton. Some years ago our oldest child was about to start high school and we were living in Tasmania.
But most of our, my wife and I's families were on what we call the mainland living up in New South Wales and we decided we should move back to New South Wales at this particular time. It was a good time so that our oldest child could move then into high school at that change. And at the time I was in charge of science technician courses for technical and further education in Tasmania and a position came up at the Newcastle Technical College in the area of chemistry.
And I thought, well, that's a job I should be able to do. Matter of fact, I personally knew that the head of science course for technical further education in New South Wales as we would have interstate meetings and so forth, so I felt very confident that I should be able to get that job. But to make sure, I prayed.
I prayed very earnestly about it and I fasted and I remember flying up to Sydney for the interview and praying on the way. And at that time I was reading Frederic Farrar's book the Life of, of Christ. And Frederick Farrar was a great theologian in the 1800s, a dean at Oxford University.
And it's an amazing book, his book the Life of Christ, where he did a lot of historical. Examined the historical evidence for the accuracy of the biblical account of the life of Christ. And so I prayed and as I said, I'd fasted and I turned up to the interview and of course there were a lot of questions on chemistry and I had actually drawn up the syllabus, for example, for analytical chemistry for Tasmania and a number of the other areas of the different courses there as well.
And my mind went blank in the interview. I couldn't remember basic chemistry questions that they were asking me. It was so frustrating.
They'd asked me a question about something. I know, I know that answer, but I can't, I can't think of it. And I was giving sort of all these generalisations and when I went out of the interview I knew, yep, that was, that was not good.
That was totally good and I couldn't understand why is that? I know all this stuff, why is that happening? And anyway, in due course I got the letter. Yes, I was unsuccessful. I didn't get the job and it was a bit heartbreaking but we decided to still move up none the same.
We bought our house and we had a problem with. Well, we moved in just before Christmas and the house was about a year old and one of the relatives was a builder and he said, oh, I got some beautiful timber in this house, John, have you had it treated for white ants? So I rang the guy who built the house, he said, no, he never treated it for white ants. So we immediately engaged a white ant expert to a pest person to come in and treat the house for white ants.
And this person had just started up as a new operator and he only did it on weekends. He just came in one day a week on his day off to do the work. And we were talking one day and he asked me what I did for a living.
I said, well, I'm an unemployed chemist. And anyway, it turned out that he went to a wedding and at the wedding he was talking to a friend who worked at the Australasian Food Research Laboratories, which were nearby. And what had happened was the director of their laboratory there had been moved to another division of the organisation and they urgently needed a chief chemist because the laboratory was NATA registered, that is, registered with the national association of Testing Authorities.
So they needed a chartered chemist. And so the pest control person had talked to his friend, said, oh, I've been talking to this guy who's a chemist. So they contacted me and asked me if I would come in for an interview.
And of course, that time I remembered all my stuff and was awarded the position of chief chemist for the Australasian Food Research Laboratories. And the beauty of that was that it was only a few kilometres away and. And I've been there now for 36 years and no longer as chief chemist, but working in other university research areas now.
But when I look back now, I'm so thankful that God didn't answer that prayer, because a few years later, all the chemistry courses at the Newcastle Technical College were closed down as part of a major restructuring of TAFE in Australia. But of course God knew that I didn't know that. And so instead God opened the way for me to get a much better position.
So I praise the Lord for that. I'm Dr. John Ashton.
May God bless.
