We Ought Always to Pray and Not Give Up

One of our clients has been in business for more than thirty years. They started as a mail-order company, and then, as the internet took off, they became e-commerce.

An e-commerce store needs a computer system, and this client’s system had become outdated. And then more outdated. And then ridiculously outdated.

They tried repeatedly to update, but options repeatedly fell through.

This went on for years.

When they hired Workplace Prayer, they had been working on updating the system (again) for a year and a half, and the project felt horribly stalled.

At some point, though, the right managers moved to key positions. Clarity began—gradually—to emerge from the chaos.

After another year and a half, we suddenly received a 21-second movie: all the company managers and executives gathered around the office printer, waiting to see the first order as it printed out. And when it did, everyone cheered.

Hundreds of miles away, I started sobbing, because we had been praying for this for so very long.

It was a horrible slog for all the staff on the ground. So much work.

So often I wish that prayer was an immediate switch, like: “Oh, we prayed, and now everything’s easy!”

And sometimes that happens.

But sometimes it’s like: “Now we prayed, and we have to make really hard decisions. And we don’t know for sure what the right answer is. And we don’t know how long it’s going to take.”

And in the midst of the swirl, God remains present.

Lord, you tell us that we ought always to pray and not give up. Even though sometimes it feels like giving up would be a good option, even though sometimes everything feels awful, even though sometimes it takes three years for the computer system to print out the first order—at some point the breakthrough comes.

So, Lord, for anyone who is facing something that is entrenched and awful, I’m asking that you would send a breakthrough.

And until then, may we live in the reality that we ought always to pray and not give up.

Amen.

I wish I could guarantee some form of result.

Instead, I can only guarantee that we faithfully pray. The results remain up to God.

Dear family, be firmly fixed, unshakable, always full to overflowing with the Lord’s work,

Amy Joy

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