It is a good thing when a Christian feels he will not choose his work but will take the work God chooses for him. For your work week, then, let your prayer be shaped by that surrender. You ask for a productive, stress-free, and peaceful week, and these are not trifles to bring before the throne. Yet, we must further note that this is plain from the work itself. The doctrine is clear, the work of the Holy Spirit is not intended in any degree to lull our minds into sloth, but wherever the Holy Spirit works He makes men work. So, pray for the Spirit's aid in your labor, but resolve also to labor, striving. We can only pray to God to establish the work of our hands. There must be real work and it must be two-handed work, we must throw our whole strength into it. I cannot expect God to establish that work over which I have trifled. Work, then, as one who must work the works of Him that sent you, while it is day. The limitation of time sounds very weightily. The night comes when no man can work. So let your daily toil be true work done in the truth of God, and then you may bring it before God and say, “Establish the work of our hands for us; yes, establish the work of our hands.” And if there is any glory, any praise resulting from the work, be careful to lay it all at the Redeemer's feet.
As for your friend's daughter, you pray that her time in rehab will be successful and that she will be drug and alcohol free for the remaining time of her life. This is a cry for true deliverance, and we have good ground for hope. No earthly power can bring real freedom to the soul, it is grace and grace alone that brings it by the blood of the covenant. You are prisoners to your sins, but you are prisoners of hope, for you are within reach of One who sets free from sin. The Lord Jesus Christ saves His people from their sins. Turn away then, in your intercession, from all human feebleness to His strength. Does the case seem sinful and hopeless? Then turn away from her sinfulness to His blood, the blood of the covenant which washes black sinners whiter than driven snow. The Lord is so omnipotent that He can work results tantamount to miracles without, in the slightest degree, suspending any of His laws. That is one of the glories of God's grace, and when there is nothing else good in the person, yet if there is a cry lifted up from the heart, the Lord deigns full often to send relief from trouble. Pray, then, with confidence in this certified success, for it is He who now says from the right hand of God, “I say unto you, Ask, and it shall be given you.” And let her be furnished with abundant help from the flock, from the threshing floor, and from the winepress, that she may go out into liberty not empty, but with a fresh start in life, given without grudging. May she know that blessed freedom which is freedom indeed. The healing virtue flows from our Divine Master perpetually, and many souls have been born to God on the day when all hope seemed to end. So do not cease to cry to the enthroned Priest with the golden girdle, for the night comes when no man can work, but while it is day, He is still the Light of the world.