Faith Stories: A Direct and Immediate Answer to Prayer
And this is the confidence that we have toward him, that if we ask anything according to his will he hears us. And if we know that he hears us in whatever we ask, we know that we have the requests that we have asked of him. – 1 John 5:14-15
I’ve found that God doesn’t always answer my prayers immediately. Often the answer is “wait,” and that’s one of the hardest things for me. Recently at St. John’s I had an experience of a direct and immediate answer to prayer.
For The Walk Phase 2 groundbreaking service I worked with Danielle Blackwood, Pastor Jay and Tom Burch to record and produce a 9-minute video announcing the Burch Bell Tower and the donation of the actual bell from the Randy Thayer family. I’ve had no formal training in video, so it was all trial and error (a LOT of trial and even more error).
The Saturday before the service I came to church to be sure the video would play on the AV system set up in the sanctuary. After a bit of futzing – and my husband making a run to Walmart for a missing VGA to HDMI adapter – Pastor Jay and I got the video and its audio to work on one of the four computers we had at our disposal. I breathed a sigh of relief.
Our family got to church on Sunday morning and I went back to the sanctuary, hoping a quick set up and check would be all that was needed and I could head to Sunday school. That was not the case – there was no sound, and I was breaking out in anxiety sweat. We were trying different things, and my panic and anger were rising.
At least once Pastor Jay lifted his arms and asked God for his help. I pushed that as background noise while I worked, but I, too, was praying internally, pretty selfishly because I’d worked so hard on the video and wanted it to be shown! I had brought my other computers so walked to the car to get them to try them out.
As I was walking back, carrying the heavy bag with a scowl or other grumpy expression on my face, Troy Prevot saw me and asked what I was doing. I briefly explained the problem, mainly in a buzz off kind of way. He came with me to the sanctuary and within a few minutes had resolved the problem. (The issue was the computer thought the sound should go through the HDMI cable, but that was going to the projector that didn’t have speakers and the sound needed to go through the AV jack.)
Troy was an answer to our prayers. I didn’t know it or recognize it as such in the moment, and it was only later, after the anxiety was gone, replaced with relief, that I could see the experience as a faith story. We ask people “to record your experiences working with St. John’s ministries or other activities where you’ve experienced God’s presence.”
That’s exactly what I experienced – God’s presence and a direct and immediate answer to prayer. Thanks be to God for sending Troy!
Mari Walker