In his book, Be an Extraordinary Person in an Ordinary World, Rev. Robert H. Schuller tells the story behind a seed he received one day from Ansley Mueller, a farmer in Pleasant Plains, Ohio. “For years,” said Rev. Schuller, “I’ve been teaching the principle, ‘Any fool can count the seeds in an apple. Only God can count the apples in one seed.’” Well, Ansley Mueller had been listening to this principle, and he sent this letter with a soybean seed:

“It was 1977, Dr. Schuller, and I lost half my crop. It was a bad, bad year. It was so wet I couldn’t get half of it harvested and it didn’t develop. So, at the end of the year, in October, I would walk through the fields and try to pick up a bushel here and a piece there. Then, I saw standing by itself a most extraordinary, unusual looking soybean plant. I walked over and I was shocked by its size and its good looks. I went and carefully picked off the pods. There were 202 pods and I opened them and counted out 503 soybeans. I took them home.

I kept them in a pan all winter and they dried out. The next spring they just seemed special to me. In 1978 I took those 503 soybeans and I planted them in a little plot behind my house and when October came I harvested 32 pounds! Thirty-two pounds! I dried them out in the winter and in 1979 I took those thirty-two pounds and I planted them on one acre and when October came, I harvested. I had 2,409 pounds and I planted them on sixty-eight acres, which was all the land I had available. In October, just a year ago, I harvested twenty-one hundred bushels and cashed it out for fifteen thousand dollars! Now, Dr. Schuller, one plant, four years later, fifteen thousand dollars. Not too bad, is it? So Dr. Schuller, here’s your bean.

Be an Extraordinary Person in an Ordinary World, Rev. Robert H. Schuller