While I was serving as a full time missionary for the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints in Seattle, WA, I was helping a young woman prepare for baptism. We have closets in our church buildings that have varying sizes of white out fits for people to wear when they are baptized. We were planning on meeting her at the church so that she could find a size that worked for her. We pulled up to the empty church parking lot and went inside. The closet I needed to get into happened to be locked. I totally didn’t expect that. My companion (as missionaries, we serve in pairs) and I started calling everyone in the ward (congregation) to try to find someone who had a key and was available to help us out. We called for 20 minutes. Nobody was around. Our appointment was in just a few minutes and we were out of time.
We decided to kneel down in the empty foyer and ask God for help. We explained that we needed this closet unlocked to help this sister prepare for her baptism. We asked that God would help us unlock the door. We said amen and then looked at each other. What now? We stood up in the foyer and literally expected some sort of miracle or something. We jumped when the door to the chapel suddenly opened. It was the bishop (a volunteer minister/leader of a congregation) from the other ward. He asked, “Elders, do you need my help?” We were dumb founded. When we picked our jaws up off the floor we told him about our locked closet and we began walking to it with the key in hand. On our way to the closet, he told us how he had been walking to his car after finishing up some work in his office when he had the prompting or thought to go check the foyer. He quickly protested the thought knowing that he was the only one in the building and that all the doors were locked to his knowledge. The thought came again to go check the foyer. Recognizing this time that it was not his thoughts but God’s, he dutifully turned around, went back into the building, walked straight through the chapel to the foyer to find two very stunned missionaries. We then told him about our prayer.
I testify that we all had a sure knowledge that God was close, that he loved us, cared about our desires, and used the hands of others to help us open locked doors.
I challenge you to pray to your Heavenly Father in the name of Christ. I promise that as you do, you will come closer to God, and he will draw nearer to you.
What is Prayer?
