Through your prayers
"...prepare me also a lodging: for I trust that through your prayers I shall be given unto you." Philemon 22
God is sovereign and has foreordained whatsoever comes to pass. To say that is not just Calvinistic clap-trap, it is the marrow of Scripture itself, for the apostle tells us that "we have obtained an inheritance, being predestinated according to the purpose of him who worketh all things after the counsel of his own will" (Eph. 1:11). All things, not just somethings. And, by the way, the immediate context is truly universal, for the apostle has just argued that under Christ all things will be gathered together under his Lordship, "both which are in heaven, and which are on earth; even in him" (10). Indeed, because of this reality, "we know that all things work together for good to them that love God, to them who are the called according to his purpose" (Rom. 8:28). Woe to the theological scribblers who deny the robustness of God's sovereignty because of the narrowness of their own minds to grasp its richness.
But neither must we fly off into the other ditch. God is sovereign, and in his sovereign rule over all things he uses means and instruments to accomplish his ends. Because of this, it is right to say that apart from these means and instruments the purposes would not come to pass. The instrument is nothing in itself, but when it is taken up in the eternal purposes of God, it becomes something mighty indeed.
Such is prayer. Prayer is one of those means by which God accomplishes his purposes, and because of this prayer is essential and necessary. We must not gainsay its usefulness because God is sovereign: in fact, it is because God is sovereign that we pray.
And so Paul says that he expects to be delivered from his incarceration through the prayers of God's servant, Philemon. Though Paul was held by the mighty power of Rome, Paul knew that God is greater and therefore that prayer to him is able to rescue him out of its hands.
Believer, pray today and keep praying (notice that Paul says prayers not just prayer), and see God work in mighty ways through your dependence upon him.