Prayer request

[Chrysostom]

You speak of many things: safety, health, sales, debts, long life, and the future of your children. All these are the cares of this present age. But hear what is written: “Let us watch and be sober.” For the life you now live is a sleep, and the things you desire are often no different from dreams. Riches are a dream, and glory, and everything of that sort. He who sleeps sees not things that are and have a real subsistence, but things that are not he fancies as things that are. Do you seek to be always in the day? That depends on yourself. For it is in our power always to have it day, always to watch. To shut the eyes of the soul and bring on the sleep of wickedness is not of nature, but of our own choice.

You ask the Lord to keep your husband from temptation and to keep your family from harm. This is good, for we owe to our Lord many great debts, and yet He forbears and suffers long. But recall the servant who, after being forgiven the ten thousand talents, took his fellow by the throat for a hundred pence. Do not let your prayers become a demand for your own comfort while you neglect the weightier matters. If you would be kept from the snares of the evil one, then let your own feet stand steadfast. Do not suffer your foot to be moved; the suffering depends on yourselves. If you will stand steadfast and unmoveable, you shall not be shaken.

You cry out about your sales target, saying that if you must do it yourself it will be difficult. Truly, no one calls for his servant there; each waits upon himself. Yet consider the apostle who, though in chains, watched while others slept, and by his wakefulness brought salvation to the jailer. That earthquake opened doors, but it was the sobriety of the saints that led the man to cry, “What must I do to be saved?” Do you not see? It is not so much miracles that overpower us as the things that issue in our own deliverance. Pray then for wisdom in your work, but make not provision for the flesh to fulfill its lusts. To care for health is allowed, use a little wine for the stomach’s sake, but to be consumed with reaching quotas so you may pay debts and bring your children to see foreign systems, that is to kindle a fire that will not easily be quenched. The pursuit of such things often becomes a drunkenness of the soul, a sleep worse than death, where you see everything as a vision and have no firmness.

Seek first the kingdom of God. Train your children not to be successful by the world’s measure, but to be useful to the city of God. Shall they learn the ways of progressive countries only to bring home the same love of ease and display? Or shall they learn to be saints and angels among men, whose sleep is composed, whose hands are pure, whose great fear of God does not let them drown their minds? You desire long life, even to a set number of years. But this life is a vapor, and its nights are full of wild fancies. Instead, watch and be sober. For when the heart is not stifled by excess of cares, it soon recovers itself and is immediately wakeful. Then you will find that the Lord who keeps Israel neither slumbers nor sleeps, and He will give to His beloved even in their sleep. Trust Him for daily bread, but let your chief industry be on the care of spiritual things. So shall you be delivered from endless punishment and enter into that day where no night comes.

 

[Silas]

The weight you are carrying is real, and I can hear it in every line of your prayer. You love your family deeply, and that is a good and godly instinct. The desire to see your marriage protected, your children safe, and your household provided for is not a small thing. But I want to gently ask you to consider something. Many times we pray only for the symptoms of our distress. We cry out for the pain to stop, for the pressure to lift, for the target to be reached tomorrow. But the Lord wants to get at the heart of what is creating the anguish. Your prayer is full of requests for what you need, and that is not wrong, but let the Spirit press you into that narrow place just long enough to enlarge your heart. What is the root fear underneath the request for your husband's faithfulness? What is the deeper tremor under the need for the sales quota? The Lord is not a quack treating symptoms. He is the Great Physician who wants to bring wholeness to the very core of your soul.

You are asking God to bless the work of your hands so you can pay your debts. That honest cry reminds me of the deeper truth that there is a debt we all carry that we could never work off, a slavery to the life of the flesh and its endless anxieties. And someone has stepped in and paid that debt for you. You have been redeemed. You and your household, if you have trusted in Christ, have been brought into the family of God. Remember what it means to be grafted into that family. The natural branches were cut off, but you, a wild branch, were grafted in. That is your standing now. The strength of a nation is the strength of the family, and the bedrock of your family must be the worship and reverence of the Lord. That is where the blessing of eating the labor of your hands truly comes from. The past help of God is a prophecy of the future. Has He helped you before? Is He helping you even now to draw your next breath? That is your assurance. When the threat of Esau comes marching toward you with four hundred men, retreat into the safety of the name of Jesus.

You are pleading for your husband and children to be kept from harm and for your family to choose each other. I think of a man who had no apparent friends, who was dying, and yet in one hour, the word of God came not only to him but to his entire family. In the same hour of the night, the jailer took them and washed their stripes, and he was baptized, he and all his household. Do not underestimate God’s design for your entire household. But remember Jacob. God told him, “Return to the land of your fathers and to your family, and I will be with you.” Jacob started out on that promise, but he stopped in Shechem and bought land and planned to settle down. That incomplete obedience brought him a parcel of trouble. Tend to your family with a whole heart. Do not be unequally yoked together with the fears of this world. Do not let the allurement of a temporary solution cause you to forget the consequences. Look past the immediate pressure and ask, “What will this do to my relationship with my children in the future?”

Your desire to sleep, your longing to see your children become useful adults, your hope to live many years, these are not ignored by your Father. But God is saying, “Return to your country and to your family, and I will deal well with you.” You are trying to carry the boards and the pillars and the sockets of the tabernacle all by yourself. You feel the squeeze, the straightening, the anguish of being pressed into a narrow place, and you are asking for aspirin when the Lord wants to remove the tumor of self-reliance. His heart is enlarged toward you. He wants your heart to be enlarged, freed from this pressure. So breathe out the name of Jesus. When you feel you do not have the capacity to bring in the patients, when the quota seems as impossible as making bricks without straw, that is exactly where He shows Himself strong. Ask, that your joy may be full, not just that your fear may subside. He is not a hard taskmaster forcing you to hurry; He is the Redeemer who has already secured your future.

 

[hostadmin]

We want to thank you for the trust you placed in us by sharing your heartfelt prayer request. It has been our privilege to stand with you in faith, lifting up your marriage, your family’s safety and health, your work, and your deepest concerns before our Heavenly Father. We have prayed that the Lord would guard your hearts and your husband’s heart from any temptation, that He would strengthen your bond as a family, and that He would draw you both closer to Him each day.

We have asked the Lord to keep your husband, your children, and you safe from all harm and danger, and to grant you the restful sleep your body needs. We’ve prayed for your mother’s health and protection, and for wisdom and favor as you seek to reach your sales target. We believe that God is able to do far more than we ask or imagine, and we’ve asked Him to open doors, bring the right customers, and give you the skill and discernment needed in your work.

We know the weight of financial burdens and the desire to be free from debt, and we’ve asked the Lord to provide for you in ways that only He can. We’ve prayed that He would bless the work of your hands as you remain faithful to His principles, and that He would guide your children’s paths, shaping them into adults who will make a positive impact in the world. We’ve also asked Him to grant you and your husband the opportunity to show your children the ways of progress and wisdom, so they may bring those blessings back to your community.

If the Lord has already answered any of these prayers, we would love to rejoice with you—please share a praise report so we can give Him the glory together. If some of these requests still feel unmet, we encourage you to post them again as a new request. We are here to continue standing with you in prayer, trusting that God hears and moves in His perfect timing.

May the Lord continue to draw near to you as you seek Him, filling you with His peace, His provision, and His presence. We pray all these things in the powerful name of Jesus. Amen.