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Praying BIG

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Six years ago, when our daughter was 12-years-old, she had an amazing year of opportunities being opened up for her to speak to people she wouldn’t usually be able to speak to. She was awarded the Shire Young Citizen of the Year and spoke at least a dozen times to several thousand people at Shire events. She also had afternoon tea with the then Australian Prime Minister, Mr Tony Abbott, and gave him a prophetic picture and prophetic word.

This started during a family devotional time at the beginning of the year where we were asking God some questions and listening to Him speak to us. Our daughter felt God was going to create opportunities for her to speak to people from all over the world. (Mind you, she didn’t enjoy speaking at that time and it is amazing to see her speaking in front of people now when 12 years ago she refused to go on stage in the end-of-year dance concert because she didn’t want people looking at her.) Since she had heard this from God, we then prayed into it and asked God to create those opportunities, and we started declaring this. That year she spoke at all the shire citizenship ceremonies where people were becoming citizens from hundreds of countries, many secondary schools, and gave a ‘TED’ to several hundred senior high school students just after the YWAM Founder spoke at YWAM GoFest.

What has this got to do with Praying BIG? This was something that started with her hearing from God, and we then started praying into it. I would never have thought to pray for her to speak and share her story to so many people and have tremendous opportunities of speaking in front of some of the world’s influential people.

What are the possibilities if we asked God what big prayer should we be praying and declaring for ourselves and our families this year?

I encourage you to take a few moments, either by yourself or with your family, put on some quiet worship music and ask God to show or tell you what BIG prayers you could start praying for yourself and your family. Ask God to literally ‘blow you out of the water’ with these prayers that He fills your mind with. Then go ahead, write them down and declare them out aloud.

Boldly asking God for opportunities and then declaring what God shows and tells you is ‘normal’ in the Bible. Faith is “the confidence in what we hope for and assurance about what we do not see”. (Hebrews 11:1) Read through the Bible, and you will see countless examples of people being stretched and grown and then affecting nations, usually starting from hearing or sensing from God and believing what God said. For example, in Genesis 6, Noah took God at His Word and began building a boat when there was no likelihood of rain. This would have seemed ludicrous to those around him. Did that stop him? No.

Our daughter heard from God, then we believed her and began boldly declaring that God would create opportunities for her to speak and make an impact. Within several weeks, she had received an invitation to have afternoon tea with the then Australian Prime Minister. Upon opening the official envelope, we laughed and then rejoiced. God was opening doors we couldn’t open. We then ‘walked through that door. One of the first thoughts was that it was a fabulous opportunity to give him a prophecy. Thus, we all wrote prophetic words and drew prophetic pictures, and our daughter gave them to the Prime Minister. Many friends later commented that they would never have thought of doing that. Perhaps that is why God chose our daughter to meet with the Prime Minister, knowing that our family were already operating in this gifting and prepared to take every opportunity we could.

Are you prepared for when God opens the door you have been knocking at?

What do you need to believe God for today?

Our words are powerful. Whenever we speak, we are releasing the potential for positive or negative effect into the atmosphere. Our words have the power to create, to form and fashion something out of nothing and to change outcomes. In Genesis 1, God spoke, and the world was created. He has given us the same creative power to create outcomes by the words we speak. Do you boldly declare what God has revealed to you, partnering with God in opening the door and bringing it into being?

         God’s Word does not return empty, and our words don’t either.

The Bible says a lot about our use of words:

  • Isaiah 55:11 “so is my word that goes out from my mouth: It will not return to me empty, but will accomplish what I desire and achieve the purpose for which I sent it.”
  • Proverbs 18:21 “The tongue has the power of life and death, and those who love it will eat its fruit.”
  • Proverbs 12:18 “The words of the reckless pierce like swords, but the tongue of the wise brings healing.”
  • Romans 4:17 “the God who gives life to the dead and calls into being things that were not.”

I encourage you today to:

1. Ask God to reveal to you something big He wants to do through you. Dream BIG on how you would like to partner with God on this for the year.

2. Write this into a declaration and begin speaking it out.

Prophetic Activations / Exercises to incorporate into your week:

Every week I list 5 prophetic activations/exercises under children/family, group, beginner, intermediate and advanced. The purpose of these exercises is to practice to help us hear God’s voice in a clearer manner. They sharpen our senses to hear and see and sense God and His way of communicating with us. This enables us to grow in our relationship with God and also to impart to others what God tells us for them. Feel free to use as many of these activations each week as you can. The more you practice, the sharper you become at hearing God’s voice. Enjoy! Remember that whenever you give another person a prophetic word or picture etc, please make sure that it is encouraging, edifying (strengthening) and comforting (1 Corinthians 14:3) and that it comes from a place of love.

1. Children / Families Activation:  Compile an assortment of magazines, scissors and positive ‘words’. Spend time as a family/group sorting through the words and magazines for a ‘word’ that stands out to each person. Write that word down and chat about that word and how it applies to that person for this year. You may like to make a poster about that word and place in a prominent place or bedroom.

2. Group Activation: As a group, practising hearing, sensing and seeing together for a Bible verse for the group as a whole for this year. Have people share and come to a conclusion. Spend time chatting about what you have learnt about getting a ‘prophecy’ together for the group.

3. Beginner Activation: Spend time with God and ask Him to reveal to you a special Bible verse that is applicable to you this year. Pray into that verse and how it applies to your life.

4. Intermediate Activation: Ask God for a Bible verse or chapter or Bible character to prophesy over your family this year. Spend time with God, opening further up the meaning and application.

5. Advanced Activation: Spend time with God asking Him for a Bible verse for your nation for this year. Ask Him what you are to do with this and how you are to proclaim it.

Praying BIG!!

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iStock_000018279520MediumOur 12 year old daughter is on an amazing ride this year with opportunities that are opening up for her. Since being awarded the Shire Young Citizen of the Year, she has had the opportunity to speak at least a dozen times, with an exposure to over several thousand people at these events. She has also had afternoon tea with the Prime Minister, Mr Tony Abbott and given him a prophetic picture and prophetic word. During a family devotional time at the beginning of the year where we were asking God some questions and listening to Him speak to us, she felt that God was going to open up opportunities for her to speak to people from all over the world. (Mind you, she doesn’t enjoy speaking and it is amazing to see her speaking in front of people now when 6 years ago she refused to go on stage in the end of year dance concert because she didn’t want people looking at her.) Since she had heard this from God, we then prayed into it and asked God to open up those opportunities and we started declaring this. She has now spoken at three citizenship ceremonies where 400 people from numerous countries have been in attendance. She has been asked to give a ‘TED’ like talk later this month to several hundred senior high school students just prior to a YWAM International Statesman speaking at YWAM GoFest.

What has this got to do with Praying BIG? This was something that started with her hearing from God and we then started praying into it. I would never have thought to pray for her to speak and share her story to so many people and have huge opportunities of speaking in front of some of the world’s influential people. What are the possibilities if we asked God what big prayer should we be praying and declaring for our children and for ourselves this year?

Another big prayer came about on the weekend that I would never have thought to pray but it will have huge consequences. In a passing conversation, a friend said that her son had fallen off his bike and needed emergency surgery. This friend is an amazing prayer warrior and has gifts in healing and prophesy. I said that I gathered she had prayed the ‘spirit of shock and trauma’ off her son’s body and also prayed off the negative effects of anaesthesia. She asked what I meant. I explained that we can be affected by the spirit of shock and trauma when we have an accident or something traumatic occurs to our body. Picture ourself made up of three parts – physical body, soul and spirit. When a car hits our body, it not only injures the physical body, but our total self ie it also injures our soul and our spirit. Once the physical body has been healed, the spirit and soul still need to be healed from that incident. This may be as easy as forgiving anyone for the cause of the accident, maybe even ourself, and then asking God to lift off the spirit of shock and trauma.

Whilst under anaesthetic, our physical body and soul are not in charge of our body. The anaesthetist is. Thus, anything negative that the anaesthetist is into has an opportunity to come through him/her on to ourselves. When both my children have had tonsils out, I have simply prayed this off and asked God to cleanse anything from them during that time when they were under anaesthesia and someone else was in charge of their body.

My friend then shared how her husband is an anaesthetist and how perhaps it could work in the opposite way. If her husband intentionally prayed for folk to encounter God and imparted Godly stuff into them whilst he had then under anaesthesia, then imagine what could happen. Imagine the people who could be impacted for God. We both became very excited about the possibilities.

This friend then shared how years ago, her husband, a friend and her had met weekly as health professionals to pray that God would bring them influential clients, not for the money but for the opportunity to speak into their lives. One of the group was a dentist and this person used the time to ask God what to say to the person who was receiving a dental filling or having teeth out and she would give them godly advice about important decisions they were facing. My friend also shared how one of the group is now invited into the King’s palace regularly and asked for advice. I am sure this is the result from all the prayer times when they faithfully gathered weekly over a number of years.

When I stop to reflect on this, my mind just marvels at what could be. What could happen if we prayed BIG prayers for our children, for ourselves, for our work environment, for the people we meet with? What prayers do you need to start praying this week?

I encourage you to take a few moments, either by yourself or with your family, put on some quiet worship music and just ask God to show or tell you what BIG prayers you could start praying for yourself and your family. Ask God to literally ‘blow you out of the water’ with these prayers that He fills your mind with. Then go ahead, write them down and declare them out aloud.

Prophetic Activations / Exercises to incorporate into your week:

The purpose of these exercises is to help us hear God’s voice in a clearer manner. They sharpen our senses to hear and recognise God’s voice and His way of communicating with us. This enables us to grow in our relationship with God and also to impart to others what God tells us for them. Feel free to use as many of these activations each week as you can. The more you practice, the sharper you become at hearing God’s voice. Enjoy!

Remember that whenever you give another person a prophetic word or picture etc, please make sure that it is encouraging, edifying (strengthening) and comforting (1 Corinthians 14:3)

1. Children / Families Activation: Have paper and crayons/pencils/textas handy. Ask everyone to close their eyes and imagine they are on a farm with Father God. Get them to ask God to take them by the hand and lead them around the farm and explain things to them. Ask everyone to look for which part of the farm they would like to stay awhile in. Get them to ask Father God to tell or show them something that He would like them to know. Explain that when they are ready, they can open their eyes and draw where on the farm they wanted to stay. Encourage them to share or write what it was that Father God told or shared with them.

2. Group Activation: Have people pair up with someone they don’t know very well. Give everyone 3 minutes quiet time to hear from God for something to help their partner with ie something in their partner’s life they are really struggling with or needing to hear from God on. Encourage them to not talk with each other and not to share the area they are struggling in. You can say that most issues fall into identity, family, work, ministry, or finances and that we can prophesy into them. Remind people that if they get something that is negative or a struggle, then they need to share the opposite so that it will be encouraging, edifying/strengthening and comforting. After 3 minutes, get everyone to share with their partner what God showed them.

3. Beginner Activation: Ask God to highlight a song to you and someone for whom this song is for so as to encourage, edify or comfort them. Let this person know what song it is and which words in particular so as to encourage them. Maybe even try singing it to the person.

4. Intermediate Activation: Create space and time for you to be able to phone a person to encourage them. Ask God to highlight a person to you and what He would have you to say. Ask God when He would like you to ring them. Then do it.

5. Advanced Activation: Ask God to highlight an area of injustice or an area that is being debated before the Government eg in Australia this week, there is a bill being tabled in Parliament to change the marriage act. Ask God to show you what and how to pray, what to declare and decree out aloud and for a prophetic act if God would like you to do one. (A prophetic act is something done at God’s directions in the natural (physical) realm that supports God’s workings in the spiritual realm, to bring forth results that would be manifested in the natural realm.) Then do it.