ARE YOU PRAYING FOR OTHERS AND YOURSELF?

Today I woke up very late.  But I realized I was struggling with a dream that was somehow long and very detailed.  Gosh, when I woke up, I thanked God it was a dream because to me it looked so real.  I could not really understand what I was dreaming about, as most of the people I was seeing in the dream majority of them are people that I do not talk to, others are relatives, others are very senior people serving in the Government and others were faces that I could not see and tell exactly who they really were.  This dream was like a long story being told in one book but had messages for different people.

But, when I started asking God all about this jumbled up dream though very detailed with all these characters with their different needs, I could not get what God wanted me to do with it.  Instead of getting disturbed about it I started praying in my heart asking God to interpret the dream for me.  I dream dreams and I love my dreams as some, God uses them to speak to me.  I will confess that God usually uses good dreams most of the time and not the bad ones.  This is not to scare you about my dreams because we dread bad dreams that really come to pass.  Actually when I get a bad dream I always wake up, pray about it and it ends there.  The dreams that God has used to speak to me to, always are not scary ones, though they are deep and detailed. Sometimes He can tell me instantly what the dream was all about and others He tells me about them much later as He confirms them to me at His own time.  When I talk about dreams I should make everyone reading this that, I am not a diviner, dream teller, or any other person that people relate with in relation to dreams.  I am just sharing a general story about a dream I had yesterday as I know we all dream and others do not dream.

This dream was so intense and when I was just praying in my heart about the dream, I was just going about my chores in the morning in preparation to go to work.  I started visualizing how I will have a nice and heavy breakfast after I made so sweet Mandazi for breakfast the previous night.  My mouth was salivating.  While I was just thinking about it, still praying in my heart, the Lord reminded me that today, I am supposed to be praying and fasting.  Oh my!   I remembered I had asked myself, how will remind myself that on Thursday (16^th April 2015) that I should be fasting?  Earlier on before this reminder, I wanted to put an alarm on my phone.  But I guess because of my busy days’ I forgot about it.    But then I was like, ‘Oh Holy Spirit thank you so much for reminding me about my praying and fasting today’ (16^th April 2015). This is because I had totally forgotten about it.  May be I would have remembered much later in the day when I had already eaten and I would have really felt bad for forgetting.   This reminded me that, that is the work of the Holy Spirit to remind, guide, direct and even tell us of what is expected of us on daily basis.    That is why He is our helper most of the time in all what we do.  I said again carnally as you know the things of Spirit and body really fight each other as in they do not agree most of the time.  I said in my heart, “oh no this fast should not have come such a day when I am so hungry and I needed to do justice to my well-made and delicious Mandazi’s.   Anyway, the struggle did not take long as the Lord gave me the energy to go on with my fast.  I took it positively and stopped thinking about the eating and focused more on the Holy Spirit so that He speaks to me.  Then He said, “Now that you are praying and fasting today, I want you to pray for all those people you saw in your dream.  Whether they are your friends, enemies, relatives or whatever they are.   Just make prayers for them.  I want you stand in their gaps as I want to do something new in their lives and I have called you as my servant to pray for them.  If you ignore then, I will not do it for them.”  I was like really?  Then, I called my elder son and told him the dream so that he can tell me what he thinks about the dream. 

I was shocked by my son’s thinking.  You would think we were thinking about the same thing.  What really shocked me are the verses that he quoted for me while we were talking.  I put them all down and all of them had the answers for my prayer in relationship to the dream.  The verses were Psalms 37:1-2, Psalms 37:5-6, Psalms 125:1, Psalms 127:1, Psalms 43:5, Nehemiah 1:11, Romans 8:1, Romans 8:6-8.   After we read all these verses together I asked my son, ‘how did you remember all these verses when I told you about the dream.’ He told me while he was in school there are some verses he was reading and took them so deeply and he remembers them so well and they really related with the dream    but he did not know he would use them one day.  I prophesied to his life that he will be a mighty servant of God as there is no way a 18 year old boy would quote all these verses if God was not in his life.  I could not hide my joy that I am happy that the Lord will use him so mightily.  Immediately I told him that, the Lord told me, ‘I made him remember all these verses that he had taken so deeply to minister to you as a way of confirming that I am with you and what I am telling you to do during this time you are praying it will come to pass’.  I started crying and asking God to direct me.  My son really encouraged me and told me that God also uses me so mightily and I should focus on Him.  We left it at that and I said I will take  time to pray and fast and take it very serious and do exactly what the Holy Spirit is telling me to do.  That is why I came up with this question,   ARE YOU PRAYING FOR OTHERS AND YOURSELF? 

Most of the time, when we are engaged in the many activities we are in, in this world, we do not hear the Spirit of God talking to us.   Imagine He had to bring me a dream in order to compel me to pray for my relatives, friends, enemies, leaders and those that I did now know.  Meaning, God is in control.  He will always help us and guide us through the Holy Spirit.  I would urge you today, as much as you are busy, make a prayer to some people you could not imagine of, situation, things or anything that the Holy Spirit will prompt you to pray for.  God will always listen to you and He will surely do what you will pray for.  Remember may be your prayer is what is going to turn around something about the people you are praying for, situation or anything that He compels you to pray about. 

May the Lord help you and give you peace of mind, soul and heart as you wait to hear from him.