Fat Hints!

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I think I’m actually going to dedicate a category here on this blog to big fat hints, starting with this post!

I’ve previously spoken about dropping fat hints here on this blog. Well here is the biggest, fattest hint yet, directed not at the person who actually is praying but rather at the person who I hope is praying:

Thank you for reinstating your blog! Yes, I’m personally responsible for a big number of all those new views! (Surely now you must know that I am talking about you!!!!) In all sincerity, and joking aside, I am completely blown away by the heart that you demonstrate for God and for people. I do not use those words lightly. See I knew you were deep in Christ; I guessed that you were the one praying so from that I knew you had to be very, very grounded in God! And yet I think that you’ve deliberately been giving allowing a different impression: have you been testing me?! Actually, it is probably more true that you were trying to anonymously do an act of kindness, isn’t it?! Or perhaps it’s a bit of both!  (There is a third option that occurs to me, but I really don’t want to think that that could be true…and I would definitely rather not spell it out!)

Now in case you are not after all the one praying, I guess what remains is for me to think up a convincing and non-threatening reason why I’d have wanted you to be the one praying, even before rediscovering your blog. Well I guess it is because of the way everything happened, and to be perfectly honest there was no other option, it kinda had to be you. Plus a few other reasons that are particularly relevant to those small details of my own life. (I’m guessing that if you do read this blog, by now you’ll have realised that it was a bit of a mistake to hug me!)

So if I am wrong, please please don’t be upset! Surely you must at least admit that you prayed that one time/twice! (Another “mistake”!) I can practically identify the date(s) and time(s)!
At any rate, you know what? I would sincerely love to support you. I would specifically love to pray for you. Will you let me know what to pray about? Perhaps you could use your blog…

Anyway, I think I have said enough here. (I am now bracing myself for the possibility of discovering I’ve been thoroughly unfriended when I do eventually return to Facebook…A time which cannot come fast enough – seriously!)

Well since writing that out last night, and (naughtily!) posting it on “the wrong blog”, a few further thoughts have occurred to me, and here they are!

AMAZING!
I like your approach to people. I like your approach and your commitment to your career, and I love what that career is! From what I’ve recently read on your blog, I’m simply astounded by what I’ve discovered of you. Whether or not you’ve specifically been praying for me, I sincerely think that you are amazing. Which is why I would be so excited to discover that an amazing person like you might be taking time to pray for me! Why would I of all people qualify for this investment of your time?! However it is only because I thought you were praying that it occurred to me to be curious about you at all, and now I’m discovering  that you might be someone that I would find so exciting…
That said, I am still so aware that I know so little of you. I feel as if I’m naughtily peeping through a keyhole, through which I can see some fast-moving outlines of splendid shapes and dazzling colours, but I can’t quite put the whole picture together…

Too forward?
I like to think of myself as bold, but I honestly don’t know whether I am being a little too bold in all of this. I don’t know how to deal with it! I’m a little hesitant as I truly don’t know whether it is appropriate to be saying all these things, using this platform. If this is way too forward of me, I sincerely apologise!
However I truly did feel as if I needed to acknowledge your blog! It is so down to earth, so real, and yet it still tells such a powerful story about who you are.
I did see it before, and it was largely to what I saw that I was responding when you and I spoke that time. However at that time I only skimmed through a few posts. It is only now that I have actually sat down and read through it. There are so many new things that I have seen which give such a deeper understanding of you and your relationship with God.

If I had seen it before, on one hand, I would probably have acted differently. On the other hand, all these exciting prayer questions would probably not have had a chance to materialise… It would have been a lot easier to believe that you were the one praying, if I knew how deep you were in Christ. However, it would largely have removed the specialness of feeling prayed for, and being able to guess immediately that it was you from absolutely nowhere and nothing.

A sleepless night…
By the way did you recently “send” me a sleepless night? Because I certainly felt it! To be honest, that was the reason why I was not eventually able to write my Sunday note, because that sleepless night threw my whole day out of kilter and I did not eventually have time to write the note, after everything else that I needed to do. I’m still tired as I am writing this – yawn!
Just remember – two can pray that game! Hmm. Just… out of interest, when is your next big work event coming up?! (I mean, like, huge!)

On the other hand, it may not have been from you, it may have been from God on your behalf…or it may not have been related to you at all.

“Sending” sleepless nights?! Tosin, whatever can you mean?!
This is what I mean, and once again I am so aware that this could sound so presumptuous if he is not actually praying!

Say for instance you ask your husband to do something really important, and he forgets. You feel really angry but you don’t want to get into an argument with him. So you pray that God would give him a sleepless night. IF GOD AGREES WITH YOU (and this is crucial!): that you have a valid point, and that this would be a good way of making that point to your husband, He might go ahead and cause your husband to have a sleepless night. In that case hubby dearest might wake up in the middle of the night and find himself unable to get back to sleep, for no apparent reason whatsoever. If he is in tune with God, he might ask himself whether there is something that he needs to do, whether he needs to be praying for someone, whether there might be something that he has forgotten…until…oh yes – what was it his wife asked him to do again?! (It need not be a sleepless night per se, it could be anything similar that might cause him to wonder. It just so happens that in my particular case it was a sleepless night!)
It also might not have been “sent” from a person, it might have been from God directly on behalf of someone, waking you up to pray for them. To be honest, this particular example of sleepless nights might not work so well for husbands and wives if they are living and sleeping in the same vicinity, otherwise if he has a sleepless night, then I too will probably also have a sleepless night! Somewhat counterproductive! (Yawn!)
It would work better if your husband had travelled abroad and forgotten to call you on your birthday, for instance… 
Actually I have never done this before in my whole life.  However, now that the idea has occurred to me…hmm, I’m liking it! It could be useful not only for say, spouses, but possibly also say difficult bosses…clients who take their time to pay…unfair judicial systems.  Or you might pray that God would “speak” to them, then God Himself would choose just how to “speak” to them….for some people actions “speak” louder than words, even words directly from God!

I’m sure this is all perfectly Biblical and legitimate; to pray some minor discomfort into someone’s life until they do what they are supposed to do for you.  It is essentially about asking God in His supernatural power to make your point for you in a way that will drive the point home. Remember that God cannot be manipulated, and He only does what He considers just and righteous. So if God goes ahead and sends sleepless nights…no rain…broken internet connection, it will be because God thinks it is right. Which means it is right. So it won’t work if you’re the one in the wrong, or if there is a legitimate reason for their failure to act as necessary! However, I can’t think of a Biblical example right now… That said, King Darius had a sleepless night when Daniel was in the lion’s den, Pilate’s wife suffered many things in a dream on account of Jesus when He was being sent to the cross.
One quite sad example concerns Moses and the plagues of Egypt, when Pharaoh refused to release the Children of Israel from captivity. It gradually grew more and more serious and Pharaoh grew more and more stubborn until it culminated in the death of all the firstborn people in Egypt, including Pharaoh’s own heir. Admittedly that was not quite the same thing because it was God Himself directing Moses concerning the plagues. There was also the example where Elijah prayed a drought unto the nation of Israel, until they eventually repented and turned back to God. Now trying to think of a New Testament example…  I feel as if I’m trying to justify myself in this a little – is it a really bad idea?!  I guess one bad thing about it is that thinking habitually like this might encourage you to fill your mind with vengeful thoughts, where God Himself has said “Vengeance is Mine, I will repay” (says the Lord!)  On the other hand, it just seems like such a basic and necessary defence that the “weak” of this world could have against the “strong” – by appealing to the strongest and most just judge of all.

Prayer is an anonymous activity!
I would just like to reassure anyone reading this that prayer is usually a completely anonymous activity! On the whole, people can’t tell, or are not supposed to be able to tell if someone has prayed for them, or who that person might be! It is usually only when you see the results of the prayer that you can deduce that someone might have been praying for you. Still there is usually no way of knowing who that person may have been. I am not suggesting that it is in any way normal or expected to be able to guess that someone is praying for you. I myself have prayed for people and I would be mortified if they somehow knew or guessed that I was praying for them! No-one in my life has ever come up to me and asked me if I was praying for them. Additionally there must be so many people praying for me on a regular basis, like my parents, and I can never “feel” their prayers in the slightest, as they are praying, or tell you who has been praying. And I would never expect to!

However there just must be something deeply special about these particular prayers, or this particular pray-er… Ordinarily speaking, if indeed he is praying, I’m sure that he would NEVER have expected me to somehow know!
Or ok, I’m asking, Mr Pray-er: can people usually tell when you’ve been praying for them, or is it just me?!  

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