By Ashlea Massie

How many times have you felt like you should call people to check up on them? Or how many times have you felt you should encourage others with Scripture?

Wake Up

It’s interesting that a dream prompted Paul and his companions to immediately recognize it as an act of God’s Spirit, not just a mere whim. In today’s age, we might have a dream about someone but wake up and brush it off as nothing. We might not realize that perhaps this is the Holy Spirit prompting us to pray for or encourage a person. Perhaps we have brushed off these feelings so much that we can’t actually tell when the Holy Spirit is prompting us or not.

I can remember an instance when I woke up in the middle of the night for no reason. I was wide awake and I couldn’t sleep. I felt it would be the perfect time to pray, and I remembered a coworker whose husband had gone out of town for business. Because this was unusual for him to go out of town, she had requested prayer for the safety of her and her kids while he was away. So I lifted up a prayer for them, that God would provide safety throughout the night and into the day. I eventually went back to sleep.

Heed the Holy Spirit

The next day at work, the coworker I had prayed for said that she woke up to a noise in the middle of the night, as if someone were trying to break in. She had said that once she got up and looked around, it stopped. I hadn’t thought about telling her I’d prayed for her until I realized that perhaps that was why I had been woken up in the middle of the night—to pray for her.

The next time you think it’s no big deal to put off a phone call to check up on someone or that the dream you had was pointless, take the time to do what you need to do. You might find that when you get into the routine of acting upon those thoughts, it’s actually the Holy Spirit working in you to serve others.

Ashlea Massie teaches high school students and is pursuing an M.A. in literature. She also enjoys freelance writing and blogging (everupward-excelsior.blogspot.com).