"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@PROTECTED