Life From A Buried Seed

A couple of examples came to mind recently of people who bore unexpected fruit after their death:

"At a conference in Mildway in June 1876, Andrew Bonar met Constance Bullen, with whom [Robert] M'Cheyne had been well acquainted when eighteen years of age. His conversion then made little impression on her and neither did the poem which he dedicated to her at that time. Her attention was focused rather on worldly pleasures, and the sad Robert gave expression to his emotions in a poem: 'She chose the world.' She had preserved a lock of hair together with a verse of poetry that he had written for her. Her heart was touched, however, at the news of his death, and shortly afterwards she decided to follow the narrow way. Her former friend could not witness this experience; she was 'as one born out of due time,' Robert being merely instrumental in leading her to the Lord." (L.J. Van Valen, Constrained By His Love [Scotland: Christian Focus, 2002], 440)

"George Mueller, the British pastor who loved orphans and lived by faith in a most remarkable way, prayed daily for some people for fifty-two years. He never saw their conversion, but his biographer tells us that a couple of them were converted at his funeral…there are examples where prayer worked but the people praying didn't know it." (John Piper)