I sent this out in an e-mail a few years ago, so some of you may have already seen it. But I wanted to post it here since there are many new friends on FB, some of whom may need some encouragement (or just a good laugh) in this season!
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Saturday, December 8, 2007, I woke up just after 7. In that season of our lives this was early for a weekend; but despite it being Saturday, I decided to go ahead and get up. At that time, Jesse usually slept in on Saturday mornings as long as he needed to since during the week he typically didn’t get enough rest. However, even he would have agreed that he shouldn’t sleep much past 8:30 or 9 since it would throw his sleep schedule off too much and sometimes cause him to end up battling a headache.
Around a month earlier, I had refrained from waking him one morning for a while, but eventually caved in to the pressure to awaken him for the sake of what was on the agenda for the day. Regrettably, on that occasion I unwittingly interrupted a dream he was having that we REALLY wanted to know the outcome of. We were needing specific direction from the Lord, and Jesse was having a dream that we were in a church service where many were receiving prophecy. We were just about to be called out to receive a prophetic word when I woke him! When he told me the dream, I urged him to try to go back to sleep to hear the prophecy, but much to our dismay, it was too late.
Since that occasion, I’d been living in reverent fear of waking him up on weekends. Weekdays are a different story ~ the Lord knows when the alarm clock is going to go off in order to give him a dream in time, but the Lord can’t necessarily count on a person (such as me) to always hear Him clearly and be obedient not to interrupt a dream in progress when there is no alarm clock involved. So having previously learned my lesson the hard way, this Saturday I resisted the urge to get him up, and the time continued to roll by. I was thoroughly enjoying my quiet time with the Lord and before I knew it, it was 8:00…8:30…9:00 a.m.
At 9:00 I decided to start cleaning the kitchen, thinking perhaps some of the noise would help Jesse slowly transition out of dreamland into consciousness. As I cleaned I prayed, “Lord, You know all we have to do today. You know how much time each thing will take. Please determine and direct our steps, order our day, plan our schedule, and help us accomplish everything that needs to be done. You know I don’t want to wake Jesse up in case You’re speaking to him…and oh, by the way, PLEASE be speaking to him!” Then I prayed one of my all-time favorite prayers God gave me years ago when I had determined not to become the stereotypical nagging wife. This prayer had become a regular around my house, “Lord, I am NOT his mother, but You are His Father! Please .. (fill in the blank… but on this occasion the request was).. get YOUR SON out of bed.” In the past this prayer had produced miraculous results, but this morning, after I had prayed it, another thought came to my heart which caused me to add to this tried and true prayer.
Around 2002 we had discovered an excellent marriage enrichment series, which is, up to this point, our favorite of all the ones we’ve heard. In it (Marriage on the Rock), Jimmy Evans talks about the passage in I Corinthians 7:4 where Paul says that the wife’s body does not belong to her alone, but also to the husband, and the husband’s body also belongs to the wife. He then very humorously points out that the wife usually wants the husband’s body for very different reasons than the husband wants the wife’s. Hopefully, the latter needs no further explanation; but regarding the former, he states that the wife typically wants the husband’s body to help around the house, help with the kids, etc. That morning, as I continued to clean, taking note that it was now 9:30, that teaching from years ago came back to my heart. The Lord had also taught us in 2002 how to stand on His Word in prayer. So I laughingly, yet earnestly, silently made a new request that I believe God put on my heart that day ~ “Lord, You said that Jesse’s body is also my body…so, I need MY BODY to get up! Lord, Please get MY BODY out of bed!”
A minute later I heard Jesse stirring. As he came out of the bedroom I delightedly thanked the Lord for His quick response. Moments later he arrived in the kitchen for breakfast, and while he was eating he said, “When I woke up this morning, the first thought that came to my mind was, ‘How can my body, YOUR body, serve you (Laura) today?’ and I felt like I was supposed to ask you that question.”
WOW, JESUS! Though Jesse has always been very considerate and helpful throughout our many years of marriage, he had NEVER asked me that question, and I had never prayed that specific prayer! I was gloriously giddy at God’s awesome goodness and shared with Jesse what I’d been praying right before he woke! God is SO funny and wonderful! How precious a Father He is!
This example shows many ways that God was communicating with us ~ through a dream, bringing to my remembrance a Scripture and a past teaching, and by His Spirit speaking to Jesse’s heart.
May we be encouraged that the Lord hears every cry of our hearts and every word we pray ~ there’s nothing that’s too small to bring before Him. Though we don’t always SEE His answers as quickly as this one, we can rest in knowing that He’s on the case. May we continue standing on His promises in faith and patience until we see all the answers to our prayers!
Copyright © Laura Jewell Tyree, December 2007 (excerpt from first Holy Spirit book)
Ask and it will be given to you; seek and you will find; knock and the door will be opened to you. For EVERYONE who asks receives; he who seeks finds; and to him who knocks, the door will be opened. Which of you, if his son asks for bread, will give him a stone? Or if he asks for a fish, will give him a snake? If you, then, though you are evil, know how to give good gifts to your children, HOW MUCH MORE will your Father in heaven give GOOD GIFTS to those who ask him! Matthew 7:7-11
What, then, shall we say in response to this? If God is for us, who can be against us? He who did not spare his own Son, but gave him up for us all—how will he not also, along with him, GRACIOUSLY give us ALL THINGS? Romans 8:31-32
Have faith in God, (or have the faith of God)” Jesus answered. “I tell you the truth, if ANYONE (or whoever) says to this mountain, ‘Go, throw yourself into the sea,’ and does not doubt in his heart but believes that what he says will happen, it will be done for him. Therefore I tell you, whatever you ask for in prayer, BELIEVE THAT YOU HAVE RECEIVED IT, and it will be yours. And when you stand praying, if you hold anything against anyone, forgive him, so that your Father in heaven may forgive you your sins. Mark 11:22-25
Dear friends, if our hearts do not condemn us, we have confidence before God and receive from him anything we ask, because we obey his commands and do what pleases him. And this is his command: to believe in the name of his Son, Jesus Christ, and to love one another as he commanded us. I John 3:21-23
I write these things to you who believe in the name of the Son of God so that you may know that you have eternal life. This is the confidence we have in approaching God: that if we ask anything according to his will, he hears us. And if we know that he hears us—whatever we ask—we know that we have what we asked of him. I John 5:13-15
