On most mornings I spend about thirty minutes prayer walking a trail that winds through the woods and down to a lake near my home. Before heading out for this time of refreshing with the Lord, I usually ask my wife and son if they have any prayer requests or praise reports for me to bring before our Heavenly Father.

One morning I asked Jacob, who was eight at the time, the usual question. He noted, after briefly looking up from his coloring sheet, that he didn’t have any requests that day. I resisted the urge to say, “Maybe you should pray that you can keep your crayons within the lines!” and instead asked, “Do you have anything that I can thank God for this morning.”

Have you ever noticed that just when you think something is there for you…it isn’t? That morning, we had kind of a shock at the Brown house.

Many years ago, we put in an above ground pool in the back yard. It was about 4 1/2 feet deep and 24 feet round. In other words, it was a good size pool — holding about 15,000 gallons of water. Remember that fact. 15,000 gallons of water. That’s going to be important here shortly.

I’ll never forget the morning when God used a carton of chocolate milk to teach me about being a good steward.

Yes, a carton of chocolate milk.

It was a bright summer morning and my friend Phillip and I were set to play tennis as we had gotten into the habit of doing on most days.

Phillip dropped by my house that morning to pick me up for the quick drive to the courts in our hometown.

On this particular day, Phillip had purchased a carton of chocolate milk for his breakfast. (Yeah, I know, it’s not the healthiest of breakfasts, but we figured we’d work it off playing tennis.

It started shortly after my wife and I were married. One day, as I was backing out of the driveway, I saw her standing on the porch. She mouthed the words, “I love you.” Without really thinking about it, I lifted up two fingers as if to indicate, “I love you too (2).” The hand signal stuck.

After that, we would periodically hold up the two fingers to simply say, “I love you.” Whether we secretly flashed each other the sign while sitting next to each other at church or while we were standing in line at the grocery store or when one of us was headed for work, the simple signal became a show of love and adoration between us.

Then, on vacation a couple of years ago, the signal took on a new meaning.