Just Shut Your Eyes and Pray!

November 2021

In the offices of his multimillion-dollar hobby and craft business, Hobby Lobby, David Green read the bad news: the bank was ready to foreclose on the product of years of his life and labor.

In 1986, Hobby Lobby wasn't the only business in trouble. The oil business in Oklahoma had gone bust, and the overextended banks were failing. Many business owners in Oklahoma City had already closed their doors in defeat and declared bankruptcy.

Although the foreclosure of the business was the worst thing he could imagine, Mr. Green came to see it as a defining moment in his spiritual life. “I know I prayed prior to that time, but that’s when I got really serious about it,” he said. The space beneath his desk became his prayer closet. He would crawl under his desk in his corporate office and seek God’s help regularly.

It was God’s response to those prayers for their business that the family believes pulled the company out from under looming bankruptcy and set it on its feet again. Hobby Lobby was projected to produce more than $1.5 billion in sales throughout 2006 and still operates very successfully today.

This is desiring-prayer answered.

Jesus speaks of our desiring, praying, believing and having the things for which we asked. See Mark 11:24. This is something practical. Here is something that really works. It is a formula to get results.

The Apostle John had something to say on this matter: This is the confidence that we have in him, that, if we ask anything according to his will, he hears us: And if we know that he hears us, whatsoever we ask, we know that we have the petitions that we desired of him (John 5:14-15).

John here teaches that, if we have sorted out our desires and assured ourselves that they are according to the will of God, we know that God hears us and that we have our desires met.

David and Cherie Rodway