“They have rejected our request.” I wrote a message to my colleagues in the office immediately our meeting came to an end.

Everybody back in the office was prayerfully waiting for the outcome of the meeting regarding some dues that needed to be paid to us. We had been praying for it for quite some time and personally I had gotten assurance from the LORD that we would be paid. I was therefore full of the questions when the well representative meeting failed to agree. The meeting was an appeal to a response we had received rejecting our request.

I didn’t have any spiritual answer to meet any of my colleagues who we had agreed would be backing our meeting with prayers. On reaching the office I dropped my documents on my desk and rushed to the nearest church to pour my heart to the LORD. “God what happened? ……….” I talked and talked to empty my disappointment to my Father.

“I want when I answer you, it will be clear to everybody that it is I who did it.” I heard clearly. I was overjoyed to hear from the LORD and I rose from my knees to go to communicate the same to a sister we had been praying with in the office.

“We must continue telling God about it.” We agreed with her.

Time went by without the office discussing the issue. Then time came for the monitoring & evaluation team to visit. It was while they were doing their work that I overheard one member of the team asking about the progress of the payment. The sister we had made an agreement with sister answer him, “We are still praying about.”

“If you refused the money when we gave it to you, do you think God is the one who will give you?” He asked. This charged me like David when he heard Goliath mock the Israelites.

“Did you hear that God?” I asked as I vowed to pray more about this. “Now LORD, it is no longer about money but You being exalted in al this issue. How could that man say that? ….” I remember that evening when I reached my house I mobilized some few brethren to stand for the cause of God in that issue. Later, I decided to ask everybody in the office to participate in prayers. I wrote each, from the senior most to the junior most, an sms; “Pray for this payment like you are the only one praying.”

As we continued in prayer reminding each other as it occurred to our mind, I wondered how the help would come but wasn’t that God’s business? Then one day, one of us suggested that we write a third appeal tasking me with that responsibility.

“You know very well, Margaret, that they were very clear about this”. My boss reminded me the obvious.

“We have been praying about this. Please just let us write one more time………” I tried to convince him.

He seemed not very convinced but to get me off his back he said, “Then draft a letter for my signature.” That is the nod I needed and therefore went ahead writing the same issues we were very familiar with.

We came to learn later that when the letter was received, the recipient was so irritated that she decided to put this matter to rest once and for all times. She decided to table this to the highest office where when the decision was made; there would be no more room for appeal. She gave the chronology of the whole issue and various correspondences and being the key person with her views and that of other keys persons, she skewed the discussion towards rejection.

The highest office approved our payment to her surprise. Everybody acknowledged that it was the hand of God.

Brethren, prayer is a journey and we need to spend time with God to get to know His mind and the way forward on the issues at hand. Jesus spent time with God and like Him, we can’t afford not to make consultations with our Father.

“And when He had sent the multitude away, He went up to the mountain by Himself to pray….” Mathew 14:23

I was a beneficiary in the above prayer need alright but a time came when it was no longer about my need but God being seen as He had said. It is beautiful when we reach a point in our prayer request when, like in the issue of Hannah, God becomes a beneficiary of our need. Such a time can only be reached in prayer not in advance otherwise it becomes religion as in bribing God or trying to arm twist Him which not health for any relationship. Hannah was in prayer and the Holy Spirit must have ministered to her because God was truly in need of a priest at that point in time.

“Then she made a vow and said, `O LORD of hosts, if You will indeed look on the affliction of Your maidservant and remember me and not forget Your maidservant, but will give Your maidservant a male child, then I will give him to the LORD all the days of his life, …” 1st Samuel 1:11

Brethren, there are very many issues around us that God would like birthed through prayers. Prayer is equivalent to the battles portrayed in the old covenant. We need to seek Him for direction of the prayer so that like David we move with God not out of what we see and imagine. Yes co-working with God in prayer.

“So David inquired of the LORD, saying, `Shall I pursue this troop? Shall I overtake them?”And the LORD answered him, ‘Pursue, for you shall surely overtake them and without fail recover all.” 1st Samuel 30:8

May the LORD God help us to stay tuned to Him at all times in the confidence our LORD and Savior, Jesus Christ

Mumbi Vickie Ngangu margieephtfcp@yahoo.com