Plucked from the fire!
John Wesley lived a long, long time ago.  Perhaps you can remember your grandma, or even your great-grandma.  But John lived before they were even born.  His birthday was more than three hundred years ago!  And he had a lot of brothers and sisters.  Five?  Ten?  No, there were nineteen children in the family, and somehow his mother found time to teach them all at home!  What a crush around the lunch table!  Luckily, they lived in this nice house in the country, so there was plenty of space to play outside in the garden.
 
Of course, it was difficult to find a bedroom for everyone, and I think John lived in that room right up in the attic, with the window looking out of the garden.  And since there was no electricity, the children took a candle to see there way up the stairs when it was time to go to bed.  Now you always have to be very careful with candles, and one day someone may have been a bit careless, and one of the curtains caught fire.  Others said that some bad people who did not like John's father had deliberately set the house on fire.  Soon, the whole house was filled with smoke and flames.  What a panic!  Everyone rushed downstairs as fast as they could, and out into the garden.  With nineteen children running in all directions in the dark and the smoke, it was very difficult to see where everyone was.  Mrs. Wesley counted and recounted her children.  And then, to her horror, she realised that John was missing.  Just then, she saw his little face peeping anxiously out of that very high upstairs window.

There were no fire-trucks in those times.  Some men rushed round to a barn to find a ladder, but it wasn't long enough.  So one brave man climbed on the shoulders of another at the top of the ladder, and just managed to reach John, and pass him down to safety.  The fire made a great impression on everyone, but especially on John, who began to wonder why God had plucked him from the flames in this wonderful and miraculous way.  He decided that God must have had a special purpose in rescuing him, and he decided he would find out what that purpose was. 

And God did have a very special job for him to do, preaching to miners and poor people who had no jobs and were not welcome in the fancy churches in the towns.  So, he was able to teach them that the love of God was meant for everyone.
Not many of us are going to be rescued from a big fire like John was.  But God has something special for each one of us to do as we grow older, and by praying and coming to church, we are able to find out what it is!
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