Prayer and a custodian

How do you know if you’re supposed to pray for a particular school or for the entire educational system itself? A rule of thumb I go by is to pray about whatever grabs your attention or interest or even arouses your anger. John Osteen, the father of Joel Osteen, wrote a book called The Divine Flow, in which he taught believers to recognize the flow of compassion within them for someone and then to follow that flow with prayer and/or action.

If you see kids walking to school and sense a tug of compassion, pray for them. As you pass a school, if it catches your attention, pray for the students and staff there. If you feel outraged at some of the news stories you hear or read concerning the educational system today, then pray. Let your life become one of standing in the gap before God on behalf of others. It’s really simpler than we have made it out to be—you don’t have to pray for hours and hours; just pray when your attention is drawn toward the subject, whether your feelings are positive or negative about the issue. As you do this, you will develop greater sensitivity to the leading of the Holy Spirit, and you will increase in your capacity to pray. And fruit will start growing.

If you pray for a school, those who study or work there will be touched by God—whether you see it or not. You may be surprised in eternity at all the fruit that will be piled up because you prayed.

When you sense the Lord prompting you to pray for seemingly random people, don’t discount a single life for whom you pray; God wants to pull that person out of their sin and use them to His glory.

An old Pentecostal woman prayed without ceasing for her step-daughter Pat who worked as a custodian in my school district. Pat had been running from God and was living a life of full-throttle sin. She started cleaning in my building when she was near the end of her rope. Every time I worked late, we would talk as she swept, dusted, and vacuumed the room, and I could tell she was hungry for God. I shared the Word with her; she told me about her step-mom and how she knew she was praying for her. It wasn’t long until Pat received Jesus as her Lord, and the lifestyle changes happened immediately. Gone were the ungodly romantic interests, gone was the alcohol, and tobacco left a little bit later. Pat was an astonishingly authentic new creation, and staff members, who liked her to start with, were drawn to her all the more.

She confided in me after she was saved that she was desperate to be baptized in the Holy Spirit. Her step-mom had told her she needed the Holy Ghost to live a life of power. With her step-mom on the family end and me on the school end, we talked and prayed and shared with her all that we knew. Still nothing. I told her to relax; enjoy God, worship and praise Him as she went about her way, and she would be filled with the Holy Spirit when she least expected it, sweetly and completely, with biblical evidence.

Not too long after that, one night as Pat was alone, cleaning my classroom, another Spirit-filled teacher stopped in to visit. As she and Pat prayed, Pat started speaking in other tongues. She was filled with the Holy Spirit and has remained filled ever since. And in my opinion, Pat became one of the boldest witnesses of Jesus that school has ever seen. The lives of teachers, secretaries, cooks, administrators, parents, and other custodians that have been touched by this one woman is an amazing thing.

So pray. Pray however you are led, because God will touch lives through your prayers in unexpected, interconnected ways. And if you pray for schools, don’t limit God—those prayers just might be the fuel God uses to pull a key individual out of darkness and to use him or her to further His work in this hour.

Keep on praying!

Dorothy