We have recently been learning and applying principles for co-creating with God, and praying with watchfulness. We have seen how God, who made us in His image, gave us the ability to create – to envision something and to produce it. And we do this best when we do it not independently of Him, but co-working with Him.
We see that this can shape how we pray, too. I believe that in one sense God is waiting for us to agree with Him in prayer so that He will act. In our workplace ministry setting, we apply the model that Jesus taught his disciples in Luke 10, to enter a house and first say: “Peace to this house”. Then where the disciple was welcomed, to stay there, eat with their host, and then heal the sick that were among them. In our setting, the house we enter may be a client’s business. While the first prayer we pray over that household may be quite general in nature – to pray a blessing of peace over it – as we get to know the client team, and they set a meal before us by placing an order with us, we learn about specific needs that we can direct targeted prayer at, agreeing with God for tangible outcomes.
As a team of workplace ministers we pray every day for the nations, communities, organisations and individuals who we work with and we plot the nations we are praying for on our prayer map. Early last year, we sensed the Lord placing the nation of Korea on our hearts. Two clients asked us about the possibility of carrying out consulting projects for teams based in South Korea – a nation that we had not worked in before. As always, when a client tells us about a new nation they would like to consider working with us in, we start to pray for that nation. We concluded that God was leading us to pray for South Korea, and as we prayed we made a note of specific areas of prayer on our prayer map.
A key area of prayer that emerged during this time was for unity between North and South Korea. Until then, I had not thought about this as an area of prayer focus for Korea, and I did not sense there was any hope of seeing North and South Korea reconciled. But the faith of my colleagues as we prayed encouraged me to stand in faith too and agree in prayer for unity in the nation of Korea.
As the client opportunity developed and we saw that we would be working on a public health project in South Korea, we started to strengthen our team’s capabilities to carry out research in the Korean market. Through a church connection in London we met Josh and Yuri, a Korean couple – a prayer leader and a professional – who were living in London. Josh and Yuri were able to work alongside our research team, bringing local language and cultural insights from Korea to our research work. We now had our hearts connected more deeply to the nation of Korea and as new members of our team of workplace ministers, Josh and Yuri were also able to bring further insights to guide our prayers for the nation.
Josh told us about a huge movement of believers in Korea praying for unity between North and South. This confirmed what was already on our hearts for the nation and showed us that the Lord was already way ahead of us, stirring His people to pray.
For the three months from March to May 2017, we prayed for Korea most days. As we studied data from Korea for our research and connected with the client team in Seoul through video calls, we continued to pray for reconciliation between North and South.
We are now aware that significant changes were taking place in South Korea at precisely that time in 2017, that would set the scene for the beginning of reconciliation between South and North. In May 2017, former human rights lawyer Moon Jae-in was elected president of South Korea and immediately started work on a policy of reconciliation. Since then the world has watched on as several summits, collaborations and talks have taken place between Moon Jae-in and North Korean leader Kim Jong-un, and in September 2018 the two leaders agreed to an “era of no war”, leading to media reports that “The future of the Korean peninsula has never looked brighter than it does now”.
There is a long way to go for Korea, but there is no doubt that something has changed. As we reflect back on those intense months of prayer for Korea during a key time for the nation in 2017, I sense we see co-creation at work – the Lord choosing to work with His people through prayer. If we believe that prayer changes things – and we do – then we have to believe that our prayers for Korea made a difference, along with those of millions of others.
The most amazing concept to me is the idea that the Lord was looking for believers faithful in prayer, to put Korea on their hearts so that they, along with millions of His followers worldwide, would pray for that nation so that He would hear and move. Yes He loves to work with us! We really had no idea what He was up to. His ways are not our ways.
Isaiah 55 sums this up:
1 “Come, all you who are thirsty,
come to the waters;
and you who have no money,
come, buy and eat!
Come, buy wine and milk
without money and without cost.
2 Why spend money on what is not bread,
and your labor on what does not satisfy?
Listen, listen to me, and eat what is good,
and you will delight in the richest of fare.
3 Give ear and come to me;
listen, that you may live.
I will make an everlasting covenant with you,
my faithful love promised to David.
4 See, I have made him a witness to the peoples,
a ruler and commander of the peoples.
5 Surely you will summon nations you know not,
and nations you do not know will come running to you,
because of the Lord your God,
the Holy One of Israel,
for he has endowed you with splendor.”
6 Seek the Lord while he may be found;
call on him while he is near.
7 Let the wicked forsake their ways
and the unrighteous their thoughts.
Let them turn to the Lord, and he will have mercy on them,
and to our God, for he will freely pardon.
8 “For my thoughts are not your thoughts,
neither are your ways my ways,”
declares the Lord.
9 “As the heavens are higher than the earth,
so are my ways higher than your ways
and my thoughts than your thoughts.
10 As the rain and the snow
come down from heaven,
and do not return to it
without watering the earth
and making it bud and flourish,
so that it yields seed for the sower and bread for the eater,
11 so is my word that goes out from my mouth:
It will not return to me empty,
but will accomplish what I desire
and achieve the purpose for which I sent it.
12 You will go out in joy
and be led forth in peace;
the mountains and hills
will burst into song before you,
and all the trees of the field
will clap their hands.
13 Instead of the thornbush will grow the juniper,
and instead of briers the myrtle will grow.
This will be for the Lord’s renown,
for an everlasting sign,
that will endure forever.”