My mother texted me last week and attached a picture she had taken. This is what she sent:
I found this in Dad's wallet in March of 2022 after he was gone. This is a note he had carried in his wallet since 2007, written by me—a claim I had made to the Lord. I'm sure he had seen it many times when he regularly purged his wallet of stuff, but he never would throw it away. What I think is very interesting about the words on this request to the Lord are the words "power of darkness." And it was exterminated by the "power of light."
What is so incredibly remarkable about my mom's specific prayer on that ripped piece of paper is that the very statement that my dad prayed to receive salvation, some fourteen and a half years later, was "Jesus, be my light." Four simple, yet most sincere and eternally impactful, words.
(Almost a year after my dad had died, I wrote a blog about this moment and then posted it on January 28, 2023, the first anniversary of my dad's new birth in Christ. If you are praying and laboring for a lost loved one, click the button below. I pray my words encourage and compel you to keep on keeping on.)
When I responded to my mom regarding how significant this purposely saved note was, especially regarding the very words that materialized years later in my dad's salvation prayer, she texted back this reply:
You know it comes to my mind how Jesus reminds humanity that he knows when even a sparrow falls. He knows every prayer and every way we have expressed that prayer, and he answers that prayer expressly! The mainframe maintained in Heaven of every word spoken from his children's mouths, is kept in that eternal place. We can't even claim to comprehend God's order in the universe as it pertains to his children especially.
Amen! No, we can't, Mom!
Concerning His most beloved children crying out to Him in prayer, the Father is listening. Whether in our best Sunday clothing as we sit in a corporate church setting, or dressed in pajamas as we sit alone with the Word in the dark stillness of the day’s commencement. Whether boisterously spoken, spiritually warring while the mop glides across the kitchen floor, or written on a journal page, one among countless filled as the years pass. Whether gushed forth while driving down the road—beaten down, defeated—while tears roll down flushed cheeks, or spoken inaudibly within the confines of the mind, amidst the workplace's pressing obligations. Whether declared and dated on a scratch piece of paper and then tucked away in an unsaved husband's wallet. . .no matter the where, when, or how, as the days of seemingly-unanswered-prayer labor on, Heaven's preeminent mainframe is storing up Earth's petitioning words.
The Father, most assuredly, hears His children's prayers. And, most assuredly, He remembers. Every. Single. Word.
Yes, He certainly does! Doesn't He, Mom?
Today, September 4th—Labor Day 2023—would have been my dad's 84th birthday, if he were still alive on earth. And if there is one commendation I can say of him on this particular day, in light of this being the day that we honor the laborers of this nation, it's that my dad was not a lazy worker, far from it. He spent almost forty years laboring in the steel mills of Cleveland, Ohio so that his family was provisionally cared for as a family should be. He labored long and labored well so that my brothers and I could attend private Christian schools, and I could follow God's leading to a Christian college in Nashville, Tennessee, some 500-plus miles from home. Through the hot days of summer and the blistering temps of the mill, through the frigid nights of Lake Erie-impacted winters, Stanton Sifers went to work in the monotonous, hard-laboring environment of factory life, day in and day out.
Did he do so because being a steel worker was his life's ambition? Or because laboring in a noisy, dirty mill satisfied the deep longings of his heart? No, it was neither of these. It was because my dad was carved from a generation that knew how to sacrificially work and labor well, for the well-being of others.
So, on this Labor Day, I honor him and the labor he endured long for my family's benefit and provision.
But, additionally, I'm considering my mom. Not for the earthly work she did at different times outside the home, but for the heavenly work she was committed to throughout the passing days of our life. I'm thinking of the lengthy time she labored in prayer for an unsaved spouse (as well as so many other needs of my family and others). I'm thinking of all the people she didn't feel embarrassed to ask to pray for her husband, a lost soul in grave need of a Savior. I'm thinking of the still-dark, early-morning prayer times with Milford, one of her dear sisters in Christ, who came weekly to our home before heading to work so that she and my mom could intercede together. I'm thinking of all the verses circled, dated, written out, posted, claimed quietly, and cried aloud. Over and over, as the days, weeks, months, and years continued.
Like my dad, my mom was not a lazy worker. So, at this moment, I also honor her and the spiritual labor she endured for the heavenly provision and benefit of my earthly father, and so many more.
But, most significantly, on this Labor Day 2023, I'm thinking of my Lord and Savior who endured the greatest labor of all when He willingly laid down His life for the wellbeing of all who would believe and receive. I'm thinking of the words the writer of Hebrews penned: "For the joy set before him he endured the cross, scorning its shame, and sat down at the right hand of the throne of God. Consider him who endured such opposition from sinners, so that you will not grow weary and lose heart" (12:2).
I'm thinking of the hard work that Christ endured for the benefit and provision of humanity. He labored well so that we might not remain lost.
So, in the sacredness of this moment, as I sit here at my kitchen table, I fix my gaze toward Heaven and honor Him above all:
"Now to the King eternal, immortal, invisible, the only God, be honor and glory for ever and ever. Amen." (I Timothy 1:17)
Indeed, the privilege and power of prayer is a great labor of love.
The hard work, willed by a loving Creator and accomplished by a loving Savior, makes it possible for God's child to hopefully and boldly approach Heaven's throne room. Makes it possible to petition the Holy Spirit's intervention. Makes it possible to commune with an ever-listening Father, day or night, in joy or sorrow, triumph or tragedy, wellness or pain, good times or hardship, contentment or chaos, strength or weakness, in every high and low of life.
Because the greatest labor of love ever known to man was started and completed by Jesus, you and I have the sacred privilege as God's children to petition and intercede, via the labor of prayer, which is, truly, a labor of love for another’s benefit. Apart from the gift of eternal salvation, it's the greatest provisional blessing given to all who belong to Him.
Fellow sojourner, may we never be categorized as lazy laborers concerning this hefty honor, this most holy responsibility, that is ours.
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