Weekend Story-The Boulder

There was a lazy man who prayed every night to be successful.

One night, God answered.

“Every morning, rise before the sun. Bathe. Climb the hill behind your house. And push against the rock at the top with all your strength.”

A huge boulder stood at the summit.

The man thought he understood at once. If he could somehow push it down the other side, something must be waiting for him. A fortune perhaps. Or a sign.

So every morning he climbed, and he pushed.

The first week nearly broke him.

By the second month he could reach the top without stopping. By the sixth, he was there before sunrise.

People in the village began to notice.

One of them was a grain merchant who needed someone he could trust to open his warehouse each morning. He offered the man the work.

The man accepted. He was awake early anyway.

Within a year he was running the merchant’s second yard. Within two, he had started one of his own.

And still, every morning, he climbed the hill and pushed.

But the boulder had not moved.

One night, sitting in the comfortable house he now lived in, he prayed angrily.

“Two years. I have done everything you asked. That rock has not moved an inch. When will you make me successful?”

God said nothing.

The man waited for an answer.

Then he went to sleep in his good house, in his fine bed, still angry about a rock.