Powerful and Effective Prayer
Therefore confess your sins to each other and pray for each other so that you may be healed. The prayer of a righteous person is powerful and effective.
James 5:16
This is the confidence we have in approaching God: that if we ask anything according to his will, he hears us. And if we know that he hears us—whatever we ask—we know that we have what we asked of him.
1 John 5:14
You’d think it was my husband’s first day of kindergarten, the way I followed him out of the house this morning, asking if he had his keys, his phone, his breakfast, and if he needed some water to take with him. I then stood on the walk by the front porch and waved at him as he drove away. No, this was not his first day of kindergarten; it was his first day at a new job after having been out of work for a little more than three months, due to the economic downturn from the COVID pandemic
My husband is a civil engineer and has been one for almost 30 years. He loves his work. He was at his last employer for about 18 months and before that, he was at CPS Energy for most of his career. Since having been laid off, he has applied for numerous civil engineering jobs but was able to land only two interviews—for the first company, he made it to the second-round interview, only to not hear from them at all. When he followed up with them after a good amount of time, he was told that they instituted a hiring freeze and that the postings were taken down.
When he landed a job interview for a company last week, I initiated a prayer chain of sorts—I texted our prayer group, some friends from my Emmaus group, my work team, and a few errant believers whom I’d met through work. I asked for folks to pray for God’s will to be done—not necessarily that he would get the job, but that regardless of how things played out, His will would be accomplished. Don’s interview was for 1:00 PM on a Wednesday. Buoyed by the prayers of my friends, though perhaps not fully acknowledged by my husband who doesn’t seem to be in the same point on his spiritual walk as I am, he went to the in-person interview, face mask and everything. The interview went all right; he felt that they were looking at the person they hired to bring clients with him or her. Since Don’s projects were with the US military or other government agencies, he didn’t really have clients to bring with. He was a bit bummed by that.
After the interview, he went to visit a friend named Raymond, a wonderful guy that Don had worked with before who owned his own engineering firm; I’d even worked with him at USAA. Our families exchanged Christmas cards every year, and he has been a wonderful friend and mentor to Don. When Raymond told Don that Don’s prior employer had just hired two engineers, Don was supremely disappointed—his boss had told him after they had laid him off that he would work really hard to bring him back on when things started looking up. In Don’s eyes, I’m sure the whole day was a bust and the kernel of hope he had from getting the opportunity to interview turned into a boulder of disappointment and doubt.
Later that evening, Don got a phone call from Raymond. He put it on speakerphone when I came into the room, one so that I could say hi to Raymond, but more importantly so that I could hear what Raymond was saying. Raymond told Don that his engineering firm needed someone to work residential projects and that while Don’s experience was more on commercial building projects, if Don was willing to be trained by one of Raymond’s employees, Raymond would be happy to offer him a job. Raymond and the other two owners run their company in such a way as to offer great benefits and opportunity to do quality work in a supportive environment, so it was a wonderful gift being offered!
After Don hung up the phone in shock and humility, I started dancing and hollering praises to the Lord, telling Don that the Lord had come through and that the prayers of all of those who were praying had had their impact! When we called his mom to tell her the good news, I was whooping it up. When we called his dad to tell him the news, I was declaring His praises and grinning from ear to ear. When Don talked to his brother about it and commented that the job seemed to come from out of the blue, I corrected him and declared that it was a God thing through everyone’s prayers! I couldn’t contain that excitement and praise as I shared the news with our prayer group, and was met with an outpouring of the same declarations of praise for our mighty God!
An even cooler, mind-boggling aspect of the prayers of my Christian brothers and sisters is that Wayne shared that when he prayed for Don that morning, he asked God to give him favor and to give him the job, but more specifically, that Don would see and know that it was through the prayers of all those who were praying for him, that he got the job. I am confident that Don was blown away by how all of this came to be, and he acknowledges that God was at work.
This whole thing, from layoff to employment, has been a great witness opportunity, one that I did not want to blow. I’m confident that it’s due to the prayers of many of you all that have helped in that, and I am eternally grateful! To God be all the glory!!
Prayer Requests
· For our nation to repent and return to the Lord
· For those suffering from the impacts of COVID—the ill, the healthcare workers, medical researchers, those laid off and unemployed
· For those struggling with the impacts and implications of this “new normal”
· For us to have compassion on those who are struggling, those who are lost, and those who need to know the love of Jesus
We each have the opportunity to participate in praying for our brothers and sisters in Christ. Each time we do, we are blessed to be instruments of His love and grace. To God be all the glory!
Quotes
“If you can no longer understand what’s happening, ask God to open the eyes of your heart so that you will see a better perspective.”
“Pray, not until God hears you, but until you listen to God.”