Sharing God’s love in the workplace!
By Scott Levesque
What an amazing day I had this past week sharing the love of Jesus!
10:00AM, I had a car inspection with my mechanic- I needed tires so he sends me down the street to a used tire place run by some nice Brazilian gentlemen.
We get to talking and one guy (Ramondo) asks what I do and then asks if I could troubleshoot their network and laptop so I say sure, and noticed the guy going for his laptop is limping pretty bad up the stairs….Compassion and the love of Jesus hits me and God prompts my heart telling me I need to pray for his knee! I ask the guy what happened, and he describes a forklift accident that crushed his knee a year ago.
So after they finished changing my tires, I finally see a good moment and asked if I could pray for his knee and Ramondo asks me if I’m serious with this weird look on his face. The office manager and two other guys are standing there also wondering and asking if I’m serious, and I said “yes I lay hands and pray often for others, especially when visiting mom in the nursing home”. The office manage (Clifford) looking at me with a bit of disbelief, asks me if I’m a Christian and I tell him yes, so I also ask if he is a believer in Jesus and he nods yes along with Ramondo. Once we establish we’re all Christians apparently it’s OK for me to pray now so Ramondo gladly says “yes please pray for me” and the guy immediately sits down and pulls up his pant leg!
I wasn’t expecting quite that much enthusiasm where I needed to see the scars on his knee, but hey he wanted to show me the seriousness of the injury so I ran with it!
So we pray once and I ask him to test it out and I asked how much better his knee felt – says it’s about 10% better, so I said OK let’s pray again for more healing!
As I pray more and more for the sick, one thing God seems to be showing me is that He will often use small increments of healing, to help us build our faith if we will step out to “trust Him“, He’ll keep moving that “line of faith” forward into new territory for us, if we are willing to continuing praying until we see greater/full healing. I used to get pretty discouraged when I didn’t see immediate results from prayer, but now I see how God has been showing that by testing results, and then in seeing even the littlest increments of healing He is actually saying, “If you are willing step out and pray, and test what I’ve done, then I will bless you with small steps of healing when you lack greater faith to believe in the full healing.” How cool is God??
When He showed me this, I was so moved I couldn’t hold back the tears. In this revelation, I actually see a caring Father’s love, showing us as His children, how to take small steps to take us to where He wants us to be/become with our faith. Honestly, I almost felt like God was helping me/us with training wheels until our faith is stronger! Oh such love He has for us!! If we will only step out, He will help us move that “line of faith forward” for each of us growing in our own faith!! God is such an amazing Abba!
Anyway, after praying a second time for Ramondo he says it feels about 20% better so we pray one more time and he says it now feels a whole lot better as he tests it one more time and moves the knee all around in a way he couldn’t do before! Praise Jesus the great healer!!
Then the office manager Clifford says he also has a bad knee and asks if I can pray for him. He takes me aside into the side room, we pray he receives healing and he gets up and says it feels completely better and then after walking into the office, he said he felt a lot of heat in his knee when Jesus healed it. Two for two….Amen!!
So there I am, the guy who is supposed to be full of faith stepping out asking Jesus to heal someone and what do I say to his comment? I respond like I’m surprised and I say “Really?” Duh! Thank God He is patient with me and patient building up my faith! Lol!
But of course now I quickly recover from my momentary lack of faith (double duh!), and I think “OK Lord, now we’re cooking with gas now!”
Continuing, a well dressed third man who can’t speak English is standing in the office signaling his lower back hurts, and he asks Clifford if I will pray for his back. I prayed three times in the name of Jesus and each time he said it felt better and better! Amen, Then he asks if I will pray for his heart condition, and then for his diabetes. We were all praying and giving thanks to Jesus right in the office….so cool!! When we finished praying, the peace of God visibly fills him and he has a big smile and gives me a “thumbs up”. Does it get any better than seeing God show up? … Yay God!
I’m so revved up now at this point, that I decide further share other some things God is doing through prayer in my life, to yet a fifth man who was helping me translate while praying for the last man. So I share some successful miracles of Jesus healing with him that I’ve seen at the nursing home in the past months, and he then translates the story for the man I just prayed for….there we were, all three of us smiling, nodding our heads to the goodness of God, and giving all the glory to Jesus, standing in the middle of the most unlikely place, a used tire business!
I think it’s just so cool that God can show up anywhere, anytime, if we just dare to step out in faith! How many opportunities do we miss with our brothers and sisters to praise God outside of church because we are so often too busy to step out? The lesson for me today is that He is ALWAYS faithful and shows up when invited!! Amen
My morning isn’t over yet! Sure, I’m running late now for my noontime web support session with a client, but somehow sharing the love of God seemed so much more important! Lol! It turned out my client wasn’t upset at all, and we just rescheduled for later in the afternoon. It’s all good with God I think:)
So then, filled with the joy of the Lord, I head back to my mechanics place and I can’t help but share with him all that happened at the other tire place. I’ve only been to see him once before so I don’t know him very well. He says he too is a believer and he starts telling me how he is always defending the faith to a part time worker who is a Jehovah’s Witness, and we go on to share some deeper revelations about scripture together. It was awesome!
Here is the greater truth, I never would have known my Brazilian mechanic was a Christian if I hadn’t shared what had happened at the tire place, yet because I did, we now share an unshakeable bond as brothers in Christ!
Actually, I never would have known the other four men were also believers if I hadn’t asked if I could pray for the first man when I was prompted by the Holy Spirit. Because I took a small step of faith in offering prayer, 6 of us were able to share our Christian faith yesterday, and build up the body by praising Jesus in the workplace, and maybe most important, we all we got to see God’s love through healing in the name of Jesus!! Amen! How cool is that? I have to say, it was very a good day for rejoicing in the Lord!
I have to wonder, how many opportunities we miss each day, when we hold back from reaching out to pray in Godly love?? To be honest, for the dozens of times I’ve stepped out in faith to pray for someone over the past 9 months, I have not had one single negative or discouraging experience. Maybe having all positive encounters isn’t the norm for some, but even if I had a few “bad responses”, I think all the good ones would far outweigh the bad ones.
You would think the fact they have all been so good, would automatically cause me to pray publicly for more people each day!! I may not be there yet, but I will get to that place where I’m ministering the love of Jesus EVERY day and EVERYWHERE I go, as part of my lifestyle!! I’ve seen so many people blessed over these past months; simply by praying, caring, and by loving them the way Jesus loved others, and I have to admit, the more I see the hungrier I become to see more and more of Jesus in my entire life, everyday, every minute!
My mechanic did end up asking me to pray for him as well and he was very eager to receive the blessings of God. We talked about his family and it turns out his wife is struggling with Lyme Disease so I’ll be returning next week to complete my car repairs and when I do, we plan to make a special trip to his home to pray for his wife in the name of Jesus!
I’ve had a lot of single positive encounters praying for others, but this is the second time in nine months where I spent the better part of 4 hours seeing the love of Jesus pour from my heart in such love and compassion, and God showed up big-time! None of it is me, the Holy Spirit is leading and teaching me about God’s real love for all of us, and all glory goes to Jesus not me!!
I’ve heard others who flow in this way all the time mention , “Love always wins” and if we approach with the right heart, God’s love never fails. Even when it may look bad outwardly, or we don;t see immediate healing, I believe people are still touched by the love of Jesus and it’s almost impossible to fail when we reach out with the power of Godly love!
God is so good and His love never fails!!!
Scott Levesque