I am a Christian business owner, an electrical contractor to be exact. Last year I was approached by a dear friend who is a bivocational preacher at a local church. He asked if I could look at helping a small church with a building project. I told him that I would be glad to look at the project and do what I could to help.

I went and looked at the new building and found that it was a much larger project than I had anticipated, but I talked to the Pastor and the laypeople in charge of the project; I told them that I would oversee the electrical work and do the part that was beyond their technical ability.

After a short time I saw that it would be better if I and the one man I had working for me at the time did most of the work ourselves. We had a lot of other work to do besides this project, and I couldn’t see how we would be able to do it and keep up with our other obligations too. So I prayed that God would give me the insight to stay with this project and schedule our other work so that we could finish all that needed to be done.

As it turned out, God worked in me and my help so that we were able to do both things and not miss a single appointment that we had to keep the business going. I should interject that I had, at the very beginning of going into business, given God the keys to run it as He saw fit, so when I find myself in a perplexing situation I just look to the Boss and ask, "It is yours; what do you want me to do?" and He always works it out.

Well, we had finished the project for the church, and the new children’s center was dedicated. It was found that we had donated about $45,000 worth of material and time to the project, but we had at the same time increased our outside work so that not a penny was missed.

Now for the really good part. About a month after the building was finished, my friend who had asked me to participate in it called and told me to call a man that was looking for an electrical contractor to do some work for his company. I called him and we went to work doing electrical work for a company that builds communication buildings for the cellular, radio, and hazardous location fields. I now have seven employees and have gone from billing on average of $8,000 a month to billing on average of $8,000 to $10,000 a week.

And I have been able to expand to giving a lot of time to promote a local Crisis Pregnancy Center and helping to find new locations for American Family Radio, which I found through doing electrical work on their buildings at the plant.

In conclusion, by asking God to use me more I was praying Jabez’s prayer without knowing it, and God has blessed me beyond my wildest dreams and given me greater chances to serve Him more and in greater possibilities for greater harvests. I have turned in my cup that was overflowing for a #2 washtub so that I can catch more of what He has for me, and in hopes that He will ask me to turn it in for a much larger container. God is good all the time.

In Christ’s Abundant Love,   Mark

Prayer of Jabez is published by Multnomah, author: Dr. Bruce Wilkerson.   Content distributed by HisChurchatWork.org > used for non-profit teaching purpsoes only.

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