I woke myself up in the morning of May 12th by speaking in tongues at an unwelcome intruder. It was early, 4:12 to be precise and I had drifted out of a dream feeling a sense of alertness to observe my own bedroom door being opened and a hooded figure (quite like Peter Jackson’s black riders but minus legs and a horse) glide in. I knew I had to act quickly and told myself to speak in tongues which I did and it left and I awoke. There was no sense of lingering presence and I was quickly asleep again, although a little puzzled, as the intruder seemed to come without any context.
Trying to place a context for things is something that I always find hard. It is for me, or an area I’m watching over or something that I stumbled over?
For example, I heard the Lord speak to me about prisons strongly a few years back and I went to the extent of pulling a few strings to talk to people who work in prisons in London to find out what was going on. It was all quiet and normal, but the sense of urgency would not leave so I prayed for London’s prisons fearing that here would be a serious incident in one of them. A week later the Abu Graib jail abuse in Iraq hit the news – completely out of my context and subsequently off my radar. I did complain to the Lord that it seemed a little unfair.
So possible contexts for my intruder are -
1. My sister was ministering in the States and was nearly involved in a serious accident that day, her husband in the UK had his car damaged on that day too. I had wondered if it was a spirit of death at the time. This made me wonder what my parents, who are tough prayer warriors, had been stirring. They denied speaking on the phone later that they had been doing anything likely to cause trouble for us (apart from the normal) :-).
2. Government – I often dream and respond to events related to the British monarchy and government. Royal deaths and weddings have been active nights for me! The date 5/12 and time 4:12 seemed to underline this. Timings have been a significant element of my dream activity. The developing shaking of Parliament is certainly significant, but relevant?
3. I met with a regular prayer partner this morning and he had woken from a dream upon hearing the doorbell. Someone was trying to get into his house and he was woken with a sense of indignation at the event. This struck a chord as the intruder seemed half-hearted at his attempt to creep in and gave up easily as if ‘he’ was just doing a recee.
4. A personal dimension? Always an essential context to consider, even if the other contexts apply.
I am still chewing this event over, but praying this morning I certainly feel that the enemy is putting out feelers to see where he could get a foothold or an entry point. In this time of high alert we need to be careful. Are the doors and windows of our lives locked? Are we giving any place to the enemy in what we do, watch or say? We cannot be careless at this time.