Have you tried everything?

This story is from a sermon preached by a priest in my church. I don't remember which of the priests it was, but this is a thought-provoking story about God's fatherly love for us.

Once, a man bought his son a model train set as a gift. The lad was overjoyed with his new gift. The trains ran on batteries, and when running, the light on the engine lit and smoke came out from the chimney. It even had stations and signals. The boy spent many hours happily playing with the train set, rearranging the tracks in different layouts and making the train start and stop at the stations.

One day, the engine stopped working. The boy was heartbroken. He decided to fix the engine. He brought out his geometry set and tried to repair the engine with his scale, compass, pencil and other instruments. The father was watching his futile attempts. The boy then brought a box of tools and tinkered around with the screwdriver and pliers, but to no avail. By now, the boy was almost in tears.

The man then asked him "Son, did you try using everything you have to repair the train?"

The boy replied "Yes, dad"

"Have you really tried everything?"

"Yes", the boy replied again.

The father then tenderly put his arm around his son and asked him:

"Did you try using me?"

Like the little boy, so many times in our lives, we try to solve our problems ourselves, without asking help from God, our loving and caring Father. God is always ready to help us and will always do what is best for us, if only we trust in Him.