The Undeniable Power of Midnight Prayers

The phone rang the moment I’d picked up my pen to start writing and almost immediately I had forgotten what I was about to write, angrily, I threw the phone away and searched for this unusual inspiration that came shortly before the phone rang but I couldn’t find it. When you’re inspired, you need maximum attention to grasp the message before sending the message out to anyone, so also, you need 100% focus to have a heart to heart connection with God. I know two friends that got so close in a space of 6 weeks which ordinarily, wouldn’t have been made possible because of their busy schedule (though married now). One of them said said to me, “I enjoy every bit of our conversation at midnight because it’s just the two of us, no distractions, no “hold a second I have another call” and we have a hearty talk that has helped to build our relationship over a short period of time”. Wow! She added that they hold conversations during the day but because of all the distractions, they end up not saying all they have to say, they end up not having a conversation even though some “talking” was done between them. What am I trying to bring out?  

Communication is a two way thing, best without distractions. Several times we go to God in prayers with the mind of “just talking” then again, we do not remember that it’s a two way thing and when you do some talking without the other party’s response, you have not had a conversation. Prayer is not complete until you have heard from God; it is an act that involves the heart. An old friend of mine once shared his funny understanding of what prayer is with me, he said at 5.30am, he’d jump out of bed and while he rushed into his bathroom, he’d start praying, and at the same time got dressed, packed his lunch, got in his car (still praying) and when he got to the entrance of his office, he’d stop praying and dash in, that was prayer for him. This is what a lot of people do and expect desired results, no! God demands your full attention so He can give you the expected result and His attention, when God gives you His maximum attention, you have landed yourself the best treasure in life, He reveals Himself to you in ways you’ve not known Him, He reveals Himself to you in a special way, in the way he chooses to relate personally with that individual, then and only then can you do exploits 
Daniel 11:32b
...but the people who know their God shall be strong, and carry out great exploits.

Midnight is that time of the day when almost everyone is sleeping, and when they are not sleeping, they are engaged in one activity or the other but prayer. Whatever keeps anyone up at night must be a very serious issue that cannot be ignored, how much more when God is involved. Because those things that distract you in the place of prayer, for example, employees coming to complain to you, your kids need you to fix them some meal, you have some laundry that hasn’t been done, your neighbor wants to talk with you, the door bell goes off the moment you get on your knees to pray, etc are no longer there to keep you distracted, it is the best time to focus on your communication with God and have God give you all His attention. There are so many positive effects of midnight prayers that you cannot ignore, though, getting up at midnight may not be the easiest thing, it will definitely draw heaven’s attention to you and cause God’s angels to act rapidly on your behalf.  Let’s look at some of the benefits of Midnight prayers.

1)      UNDIVIDED ATTENTION. Like my friend shared with me, she doesn’t get distracted when she communicates with her best friend at midnight, neither does her best friend get distracted at that time of the night. Because it is God’s will that we give Him our attention so that He can attend to us and specially communicate with us, this time of the day is the best time to pull out from whatever draws your attention away from God, in order to effectively communicate and clearly hear from him. Exodus 3:1-4, Now Moses was tending the flock of Jethro his father-in-law, the priest of Midian. And he led the flock to the back of the desert, and came to Horeb, the mountain of God. 2 And the Angel of the LORD appeared to him in a flame of fire from the midst of a bush. So he looked, and behold, the bush was burning with fire, but the bush was not consumed. 3 Then Moses said, “I will now turn aside and see this great sight, why the bush does not burn.” 4 So when the LORD saw that he turned aside to look, God called to him from the midst of the bush and said, “Moses, Moses!” And he said, “Here I am.”

Verse 1 pointed out Moses’ distractions and busy life which relates to most Christians in the world today, they are too busy to give God attention to fully manifest Himself in their lives. Moses was too busy caring for the flocks that he did not realize how much God wanted to speak to him, but God had a way mapped out just to get his UNDIVIDED ATTENTION. The bush that was on fire,yet, did not get burnt did the magic. Verse 3, Moses caught sight of it and said “I will now turn aside and see this great sight, why the bush does not burn.”HE TURNED ASIDE!!! That was when he gave God an UNDIVIDED ATTENTION. God did not first speak to Moses to get his attention, NO! Moses decided to turn aside, to stay away from distractions, from his father-in-law’s flock and that was when God spoke to him, that was when he gave God attention and in return God attended to Him, he heard God clearly and allowed God move Him to the next level of glory in his life and today, Moses is known for all the signs and wonders that followed his “TURNING ASIDE"

2)      A RELATIONSHIP IS SPARKED AND STRENGTHENED. The bond between two people exists when their minds are alike but it takes undistracted communication to strengthen this bond, making it impossible to be broken. It takes the soul to be deeply involved during communication for you to know that you’re in a relationship with the other party. What am I trying to say? During mid night prayers, it is your soul communicating with God and because God is not a man, you’re connected with him the moment your spirit does the communication. This kind of communication affords you the opportunity to uncontrollably pour out your deep and sincere feelings to God , your worries, your cares, your requests, etc. (you cannot deny yourself sleep just to feign all these before God, to start with, sleep will knock you out the moment you think of staying up at night to pray if the heart or soul is not involved, just like a popular saying, when the heart is willing, it finds a thousand ways but when it is unwilling, it gives a thousand excuses). God who knows and sees the heart of every man knows what it takes to be in His presence when you should be sleeping.

3)     QUICK AND GUARANTEED ANSWERS: A lady who had just started work was summoned before her boss three days after resumption and was told that she wasn’t performing her duties right and that the confidence the Interviewers saw in her before she got hired was no longer seen in her, they concluded that she’d be with them for another two days to prove them wrong. Two days!!! She echoed to herself. Everyone is given at least three months to adjust to a new work environment before final evaluation, but this one was different. She added that it was a whole new experience for her and she needed more time to adjust, but the decision had been made. Considering the angry and determined job seekers out there, who would love to throw hers away? It was at that moment it dawned on her that she needed quick intervention, not from any man, but from God. She skipped dinner and went to bed and at midnight she got up and poured it out to God, she had all the time to speak to God, she communed with God with all her heart and soul. Three hours after she’d gone to sleep (after praying), she was woken up before her alarm went off (at 5a.m), and was hurried to go to work, at first she argued with the voice (the Holy Spirit), but after few seconds, she got ready and left for work. She got to work at about 7am. She found access to the file room and took up files of important clients and started reading, she got familiar with their names, companies and the deal they had with the company she was working for. Just when she was done going through some files, ONE OF THE BIGGEST CLIENT CALLED THE COMPANY, fortunately, she was all alone and she answered, she was so fluent and confident that the client went personal with her response, owing to the fact that she was new and knew so much, said to come in and see the President of that Company that same morning. The moment the man walked in, He asked to see the new lady who wowed him that morning and that was how she was officially welcomed to be a part of the Organization. That was too quick, in less than 24 hours, God intervened and saved her. Let’s look at Acts 16:25 & 26.

25 Around midnight Paul and Silas were praying and singing hymns to God, and the other prisoners were listening. 26 Suddenly, there was a massive earthquake, and the prison was shaken to its foundations. All the doors immediately flew open, and the chains of every prisoner fell off!

Verse 26 states the result of Paul and Silas’s midnight prayers. SUDDENLY, immediately, quickly, what they were praying for was received. This is another biblical confirmation of receiving quick answers to midnight prayers. What am I saying, because it is a soul communication, God is committed to act, He becomes compelled to do what we ask of Him. How? Take for example, when you sincerely love anyone, and you feel the soul connection, even before they are done asking you for anything, you’ll do it and sometimes, you may not even have what it takes to satisfy their needs, but you’re ready to go out of your way to keep them happy and connected. So also God, When He feels the connection, when you communicate with him from your heart, He becomes vulnerable and because He has whatever it takes to satisfy our needs, there will be no stopping Him.

4).     YOU TAKE CHARGE OF THE SPIRITUAL REALM.  Matthew 13:25 But while everyone was sleeping, his enemy came and sowed weeds among wheats and went away. If the enemy did it at mid night,while you slept, then, you can only undo what was done at mid-night, too. Mid night is a time to war against the devil and undo all that was done to hinder you and make you unfruitful; it's a time to take charge of the spiritual, knowing that the spiritual controls the physical. How do you achieve that? At midnight, we lay hold of the time and the opportunity to call forth the things of the Spiritual into the physical, you stand face to face with the enemy who works while people are sleeping and aggressively take back everything that belongs to you and because you know that God is near, (I can assure you that there’s never a time you get up at midnight that God isn’t there), you cease the chance and opportunity to stand up against the enemy and God’s angels work on your behalf. Like Solomon said in Ecclesiastes 9:11. TIME AND CHANCE dictate who the winner is and because you know what time to get God’s attention even more, why don’t you tap into the chance you have, knowing that not everyone can do that, yet the chance is given us. THE SPIRITUAL IS LIKE A MARKET PLACE; THE HIGHEST BIDDER WINS THE BATTLE.

May God fill us with the grace for a strong prayer life and through His mercy, perform our desires, that Jesus Christ be glorified.

HARDSHIP- The Middle Event We Never Talk About!

Any regular person, when asked about Jesus Christ would say he was born of a Virgin; He died as the savior of the world. True! But most people never really tell the events that took place between His birth and his death; most Christians pay little attention to the details of his suffering on earth. When people are celebrated in death because of their achievements on earth, most times what you see is when they were born and when they died, no one really takes time to talk about what they went through before they left an unforgettable mark on earth. This is so sad as people everywhere, especially Christians, are wriggling in pain and dying of ignorance, simply because they have little knowledge about life’s struggles and the reason for their struggles, knowing that God promised life abundance in their walk with Him.

Just because God promised to give anyone who believes, the best things of life doesn’t mean they will come easy. (Matthew 7: 14) “Because narrow is the gate and difficult is the way which leads to life, and there are few who find it. Man’s thoughts and wants are for the PRESENT but God’s thoughts and wants for man are for the FUTURE. The frustration and sorrows that follow trials, hardship and temptation is because we are yet to learn about TIMING – (Ecclesiastes 9:11).  We get frustrated when our plans fail, we sorrow over disappointments, we worry when the future appears bleak, we even cry when friends leave us, that’s because we’ve taken our eyes away from the One we should trust, that’s because we are carried away by our immediate desires and wants, even when we think we’re doing things the right way, yet God has a bigger picture and until we see the picture, we cannot stop getting frustrated.

God has equipped man for difficult times, as a result it is expedient that we trust Him and selflessly walk with Him to help us use the right tools when trouble comes. God did not promise us that the road will be smooth, but one thing He’s assured us of is, that the end will be what we expect, (Jeremiah 29:11). When God brought out the people of Israel from Egypt, taking them into the Promised Land, the journey would have been shorter if they had gone through the main road that runs through the Philistine territory, (Exodus 13:17), but God said if He made them take the shorter route, that they’d return to Egypt, they’d return to their former life, so HE had to prepare them and mature them not to return to Egypt, how did God achieve that? He took them through the Wilderness for hard testing – Trust me, the people of Israel learnt to trust God completely, they learnt to fear God, they matured and were fully prepared to enter into the Promised Land, however difficult they appeared, God brought out the best in them, God tried them to see if they’d obey His commandments (Deuteronomy 8:2). God’s end plan was achieved, though not the easy way. Why then can’t we see things God’s way? I used to cry over difficulties, I would frown when things went sour, I would worry when the future appeared bleak, but I got over the frustrations and pains of hardship the moment I discovered this. Trials mature and prepare you spiritually, intellectually and physically. I smile when people pray against trials, yet they ask God for the good things of life- Don’t be deceived, God wants to know that you’ll handle his spiritual and physical blessings well.

Not too long ago, I asked God to help me see things His way, gradually, He helped me understand that hard testing brings out the results we want in life. It’s important that we surrender out thoughts and will to God, however difficult. Jesus Christ  did not find his journey to the cross easy and when the urge to satisfy his immediate “want” came, He cried to God and asked that this cup of suffering be taken from Him; (at that moment, God reminded him that it wasn’t about his present “wants” , however glorious his presence on earth was, there was a greater place for him that would benefit all mankind, if he would endure hardship), that was when Jesus Christ saw things God’s way, and he quickly added; nevertheless, not my will but yours be done. That moment, His walk with God to the cross became a lot easier, because he yielded to God’s will with such a great attitude. 1 Peter 4:1, so then, since Christ suffered physical pain, you must arm yourselves with the same attitude he had, and be ready to suffer, too. For if you have suffered physically for Christ, you have finished with sin. We are urged to accept hardship like Jesus did, it may seem difficult but when you tap into the grace that has been given to us and totally surrender your  will to His, He’ll help you walk through your trials to produce obedience. Hebrews 5:7&8; During the days of Jesus' life on earth, he offered up prayers and petitions with loud cries and tears to the one who could save him from death, and he was heard because of his reverent submission. 8 Although he was a son, he learned obedience from what he suffered

Apostle Peter addressed the Jewish Christians (I believe it applies to believers all over the world today), as PILGRIMS – 1 PETER 2:11. Why did he address them as Pilgrims? Pilgrims suffer, so it isn’t a bad idea to suffer as long as it’s for a good course which most God’s people have found themselves in today. The day you’ll stop struggling in trials, or not cry in difficulty, or have reasons to rejoice in disappointment and betrayals, is the day you surrender completely to God, the day you give up your will for God’s will letting God work in you and through you, trusting in His judgment to take you safely to your final destination where He’ll have His will perfected in you. But as long as you want your will over God’s will, trust me, you’ll never get the desired result and even when it seems you have the desired result, it will be temporal and not without sorrow.

What attitude should you have in trials, hardship and temptation? Having the mind that ALL things work together for good to them that love God and have been called according to His purpose (Roman 8:28), however difficult this may seem, trust God to bring you to an expected end, God will bring out the best out of your ugly situation and turn the impossible around to favor your course. Submit your will to His, walk diligently and fearfully with Him, love everyone around you with the love of God and rejoice constantly, for when perseverance has finished its work in you, you’ll receive your crown. James 1:12 -God blesses those who patiently endure testing and temptation. Afterwards, they will receive the crown of life that God has promised to those who love him.

IT IS MY PRAYER THAT GOD WILL STRENGTHEN YOU AND HELP YOU SEE WITH HIS EYES WHEN YOU’RE TRIED. BE HAPPY!!!