Prayer is Powerful – Part 3 of 5

My husband and I have made it a habit of praying every morning with the kids, either before leaving the house or once we’re all in the car together. We also pray every night for each child, sometimes while they’re still awake or when they’re already sleeping. Part of our prayers includes asking God to give them good dreams.

When I was a small child, I remember many times waking up from nightmares. As I grew older, those nightmares became less frequent. As an adult, I almost forgot they ever existed, but one day they suddenly came back.

I began to notice that there was a pattern for when I had a good night or a bad night. It seemed that the night before I had to lead a youth group or Sunday school class, a nightmare would strike. The dreams would be so graphic and gruesome that I realized they couldn’t be from my own imagination.

I tried praying scripture promises from David’s psalms concerning peaceful sleep. I also anointed every room with oil, but nothing I did seemed to work. Finally, I tried another tactic. It was so simple that I was surprised to find that it worked. All I did was pray that God would put His angels around our home to protect our sleep. I continued to pray that prayer every night, and from then on the nightmares stopped.

Now, every morning and evening we ask God to place His angels around our family. It might sound tiresome to follow such a routine. I know that after a while I had to make peace with it. We never question the need to brush our teeth every day to keep cavities away. The experts say that twice a day is better than once. It’s the same with prayer. My husband and I have seen such an improvement as a result of praying preventative prayers that we’ve chosen to make it a lifestyle.

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Thankful in Times of Need - Part 2 of 4

Humans are creatures of habit. We like the security of the familiar, so the unfamiliar can be a scary place. Egypt was a familiar place to the Israelites. They had been in slavery for a few hundred years and were used to relying on their oppressor’s resources. Of course it was a place of terrible slavery, but at least they had access to plenty of food and water.

They could see, hear, feel, taste, and touch Egypt, but they couldn’t do the same with God. It made more sense to rely on man’s resources, even if it came from the hand of the Egyptians, rather than from the hand of God. You see, the idea of supernatural provision just didn’t make much sense to them. Since they didn’t believe that God would continue to look after them, they began to complain bitterly. Instead of having faith in the invisible God (who had demonstrated His abilities and favor toward them), they had fear of the visible desert.

Don’t we also find comfort in what’s familiar to us? There’s a strong sense of security in a steady job and income. Even if the pay is low, it’s better than the feeling of not knowing where and when the money will come from next. What if God asked us to give up that steady income, move from our home with our family, and go to a place that we’ve never seen? Before going out into the unknown, we would have had a certain amount of security and control over our lives. If that were taken away, all we would have left would be God and His love and mercy.

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