{"id":6876,"date":"2015-09-01T03:23:58","date_gmt":"2015-09-01T03:23:58","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.firstofallpray.com\/?p=6876"},"modified":"2015-09-01T04:06:50","modified_gmt":"2015-09-01T04:06:50","slug":"trouble-averted","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/www.firstofallpray.com\/?p=6876","title":{"rendered":"Trouble averted"},"content":{"rendered":"

I don\u2019t have unusual leadings from the Holy Spirit on a daily basis. In fact, I don\u2019t seek for\u00a0spectacular leadings; but I do<\/em> endeavor to be available if He wants to drop something into my spirit as I go about my day. I know that He truly does<\/em> lead us; His leading is meant<\/em> to be part of a normal Christian life; and I do my best to be consistent in the Word and prayer so that I\u2019ll be ready and available to receive an assignment from\u00a0the Lord\u00a0when He decides to share something.<\/p>\n

A few years ago I was taking my customary daily walk around the neighborhood. I have a habit of quietly praying in the Spirit as I go, praying for my neighborhood or whatever else the Lord may drop in my heart.<\/p>\n

On this one particular morning, as I passed by\u00a0a house just three doors down from mine, it felt as if I was punched in the stomach. It didn\u2019t hurt, but it was a deep punch, nonetheless. A quiet groan came up from within me, Trouble! There\u2019s trouble in this home<\/em>. And so I prayed, listening for any further leads from the Holy Spirit. I didn\u2019t stop my walk to knock on their door; I kept going. I didn\u2019t know the aging biker couple who lived there; all I knew was that trouble had come to their home and that God wanted me to cover it in prayer.<\/p>\n

When God gives an assignment such as this, your job is to first of all, pray. Let Him use you by His Spirit to cover what He\u2019s shown you. In this case, I didn\u2019t feel led to go talk to them that day; so when I completed my walk, I left my prayer for them in the Lord\u2019s capable hands.<\/p>\n

Not more than five days later as I was returning home from an errand, I saw a news crew parked on my quiet street. I took my time turning into my driveway, rubber necking at the interview occurring between a Fox 2 News reporter and my neighbor in the front yard of his house\u2014the house of trouble for which I had prayed just four or five days earlier.<\/p>\n

That evening on TV there he was\u2014my neighbor with his long gray hair, leather vest, and biker tats\u2014standing in the yard three doors down from me. And he talked of trouble\u2014averted.<\/p>\n

His son lives with his grandson in rural Missouri. The then five year-old boy\u2019s mother had been barred from seeing him due to her history with substance abuse. The two \u201cmen\u201d were batching it together in their lakeside home when one morning, while the father was preoccupied in another part of the house, the boy\u2019s mother walked in and grabbed the little boy.<\/p>\n

Waiting outside in the car was her druggie boyfriend, and as soon as the little boy was deposited into the vehicle, they tore out of there.<\/p>\n

When my neighbor\u2019s son realized his five year-old was missing, he frantically called neighbors and friends in the area. No one had seen his child.<\/p>\n

After that, he reported the missing boy to the local sheriff and conveyed his suspicions about the child\u2019s mother. An Amber alert was issued along with a description of the vehicle that might have been used in the abduction.<\/p>\n

And what do you know? About three days after I was directed to pray about the trouble that had come to my neighbor\u2019s house, an officer saw a vehicle weaving erratically\u00a0down a two-lane rural highway in Oklahoma. He flashed his lights, and to his surprise, the car screeched to a stop and two people leaped out, disappearing into the woods. He was about to pursue them when he noticed a little passenger in the back seat\u2014my neighbor\u2019s five year-old grandson!<\/p>\n

He recognized the boy from the Amber alert, and the process to return him\u2014unharmed\u2014to his father, my neighbor\u2019s son, proceeded quickly and with great joy.<\/p>\n

A little less than a year ago I ran into my biker neighbor while he was doing landscaping in the front yard where he\u2019d been interviewed by Fox 2 a year or so before. It was time to tell him about the Holy Ghost head\u2019s up that led me to pray about the trouble that had come to his family. I could tell he wasn\u2019t sure what to make of it all, but his gruff exterior softened as he told me of the fear he, his wife, and their son had lived through before his grandson was rescued. I let him know that God obviously loved all of them quite a bit to have a stranger\u2014me\u2014pray for them in the middle of their trouble. And\u00a0God\u00a0answered those prayers\u2014his little\u00a0grandson was\u00a0safely reunited with them.<\/p>\n

May\u00a0all of us\u00a0grow in sensitivity, willingness,\u00a0and availability to be alert for the promptings of the Holy Spirit as He leads us to pray for those who may not know how to pray for themselves.<\/p>\n

It\u2019s a huge part of\u00a0our calling.<\/p>\n

Dorothy<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

I don\u2019t have unusual leadings from the Holy Spirit on a daily basis. In fact, I don\u2019t seek for\u00a0spectacular leadings; but I do endeavor to be available if He wants to drop something into my spirit as I go about my day. I know that He truly does lead us; His leading is meant to […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[232,1],"tags":[229],"class_list":["post-6876","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-holy-spirit-leading","category-prayerperspective","tag-holy-spirit-leading"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.firstofallpray.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6876","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.firstofallpray.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.firstofallpray.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.firstofallpray.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.firstofallpray.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=6876"}],"version-history":[{"count":8,"href":"http:\/\/www.firstofallpray.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6876\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":6884,"href":"http:\/\/www.firstofallpray.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6876\/revisions\/6884"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.firstofallpray.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=6876"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.firstofallpray.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=6876"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.firstofallpray.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=6876"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}