Prayer Dreaming

I have neglected my once established habit of regular fasting. For a couple years, I was faithful to fast once a week. My experience of those times was that some times were so rich for my soul that my hunger was fueling and satisfying rather than distracting and empty. At other times, I feel like it would have been better if I had ate instead because food was all I could think about. Within the past year or so, I got out of the habit, partially because it became a thing I did almost robotically, a box to check, but I didn’t really spend focused time praying. I also had a year and a half span of non-stop headaches and fasting can be a headache inducer for me so I shied away from the discipline.

During the last several months of transition, I’ve tried to reimplement this discipline by choosing one meal a week to fast. I’ve yet to get into a good groove for when to do this and I would say I’ve only been partially successful. This morning I chose to fast breakfast and spend the time in focused prayer. By 10am, I was praying while cleaning up the kitchen and I was a little grumpy. I almost talked myself into just delaying the fast until another meal and why not have some food since I was already in the kitchen. The Spirit instead gave me some self control and I pushed through. I was rewarded with a sweet time of dreaming for big things through prayer. Those kind of moments are so satisfying that it makes the hunger worth it. 

This past week and really these past few months, the Spirit keeps bringing up this theme of dreaming big in prayer. It came up again this week as I read in Numbers. The passage was when the people were wandering in the wilderness, eating the food that fell from the sky, but this miracle was not enough. Nope, they wanted some meat. God told Moses that He intended to give them meat. Moses then asked how on earth God could find enough meat for 600,000 people. (On a side note, this story blows the ‘Feeding of the 5,000’ out of the water!) God said, “Is my hand shortened?” 

If His hand is not shortened to provide meat for 600,000 people, in what other ways is it not shortened? Last week during our fellowship time, we discussed the resurrection. God’s hand was not shortened in raising a dead man from the grave. Is there ANY scenario in which God’s hand is shortened? Nope. 

If that’s the case, then shouldn’t our times of prayer be spent dreaming big and asking for all kinds of crazy things equal to a man rising from the dead? Maybe He’ll answer with a yes and maybe not. I don’t want Him to not answer because I was too lazy or faithless to ask. What are you dreaming for?