Prayer Transformed My Workplace
We often look at our lives in Christ and our work lives as two separate and distinct things. But what would happen if we just took the simple step in faith to start praying for our office and our co-workers? Our friend M shares a incredible story of how God directly and immediately answered her prayers and transformed her workplace in a way no one could have ever expected.
My company is in the consulting industry. We service both private and public clients. Since banks have been more stringent with their lending standards, business to private clients have suffered as they no longer have the funds to pay for our services. Our public clients, like cities, are cutting back on their spending for our services too because they are suffering from budget shortfall from fallen property values, and lower sales tax revenues (people are spending less because they have less to spend). We are living in a period of great economic difficulties. So it should come as no surprise that I started praying because that’s all that I can do to maintain my sanity.
My company has been struggling since the start of the recession. We had painful layoffs of up to 50% of our workforce. Our remaining staff members had their bonuses eliminated and endured salary cuts as high as 30%. We have been operating in “survival mode”, where our focus has been turned away from growth to only doing those things to stabilize our balance sheets from further losses. Morale has been so low that some staff members have prepared themselves for layoffs by having their personal belongings packed in boxes, ready for further “pink slips” handouts. Fearful and frustrated, I began asking God to pour out his blessings on us.
I believe one of our worse periods was 4th quarter of 2009 when we suffered 3 consecutive months of financial losses. I remembered praying during that time for God’s grace and divine blessings to take us out of our unprofitable state. In January of 2010 my company reported a profit. The revenues booked for that month was enough to offset 3 months (October through December 2009) worth of financial losses. For the first time in over a year, our spirits were lifted and we started to be hopeful about the future. I knew in my heart this was an act of God because this spectacular sales performance was extremely difficult and wouldn’t have been humanly possibly for my struggling company to achieve on its own.
As I continued praying for work, God put it on my heart to pray specifically for one of my bosses, a Senior VP and a believer. We openly shared our faith two years ago but since then we haven’t talked much about it. I wanted talk about God again but the opportunity never came up. Rather than impose one, I prayed God would provide another chance for us to share. I decided I would pray for just for him so that I could see clearly God answering my prayers. I prayed for months that God would increase his glory through my Christian boss by making him one of the top sales people in all of our offices, both domestic and global, and that when people turn to him in awe and he would give all glory to Jesus.
Sure enough within a few months my boss became the number one performer in the company with record high sales levels that are only seen when the economy is at its peak. The company had expected profits to come from other business lines and markets since his business sales were in industries and markets that have performed poorly in past recessions. However, in this recession his performance has been an unexplainable anomaly because almost all of his major sales came from struggling industries that mostly operated in deteriorating markets. Other people in sales, even those operating in better performing industries and markets, can’t produce sales at my boss’s level. Even sales people in his specific industry and market can’t match his numbers.
God was so good. I couldn’t believe what I was seeing even though I had asked for all those things. God’s faithfulness continued further and he provided me an opportunity to share about my faith. My boss came up to me one day and asked about work. As he was getting ready to leave he turned back to me and asked how I was doing spiritually. I knew immediately this was God’s sign for me to share. I told him how I had been praying for him and how his stellar sales performance was because of God’s grace. My boss began praising God and shared how he suspected God was responsible for his good fortune and how he believes prayer is foundational for the survival and growth of any company. He asked me to continue praying for and proceeded to give me a list of requests. He asked for specific prayer on a big project he had been struggling with where there some legal issues with the client and he wanted me to pray for God to resolve those issues in a way that would allow our company to begin work on this project immediately.
I prayed and within a few weeks we found out the head of that client’s company recently resigned and the new person who replaced him would like to continue working with us on less stringent terms. My boss and I were both dumbfounded. I remembered shutting the door to his office so we could both praise God out loud. We couldn’t believe how fast God was transforming our troubled company. Although we’re are still struggling, these recent “miracles” have given us hope for the future.
Looking backing I wished I had spent more time in prayer. During the last year and half I have spent considerable time and energy complaining about the company and feeling sorry for myself because of the struggle we experienced from the recession. It took me a long time before I started praying because I didn’t believe God could minister change at a secular place. But God corrected me and showed me that the company I worked for is under his authority too (2kings 19:15). Rather than sit around and curse at the things I see wrong, God has shown me he wants me to cry out to him. He has taught me to speak blessings and love over all the things that have cause me stress and pain because life and death begins with the things we choose to say. “The tongue has the power of life and death, and those who love it will eat its fruit” (Proverbs 18:21). My world was in chaos and God began healing it when I stopped complaining and began praying for blessings.
