Watch and Pray….

I made a recent decision to address some personal and spiritual areas in my life. These  areas have caused some major pain and tears. My flesh wanted me to walk away because I didn’t want the heartache and headache anymore.  And I could have easily walked away from the people and the circumstances involved with these areas. But I couldn’t! I felt that if I walked away and ignored it that the pain and hurt would fester and would cause more issues and I was fully aware that if I turned my back that this would cause me my life. So I made the decision a few months back after much prayer and self-examination that it was time to address these areas. Well, once I prayed, developed a plan and initiated the plan that’s when the attacks began. 

I wasn’t surprised that this happened as you see the areas that I am addressing have massive strongholds surrounding them and when victory is obtained, generational strongholds and curses will be broken. And what confirmed that I was in line with God’s divine plan was my family was visiting and before they left to go home we prayed in ‘The Sanctuary’. We prayed intently about the different situations and the people involved. It was a dynamic prayer session. As we were leaving to got of out of my home to walk my family to the truck we came across a large black snake and it was aggressive.  We enlisted the help of the entire neighborhood to try and capture this snake. But the snake moved so fast around the perimeter of my home, that it was able to escape under our air conditioner unit. The entire situation had me on edge as we had never seen snakes around our home. I was fearful to go outside my home more yet into my garden. I was peeking around corners and looking behind bushes. I forced my husband to go to Home Depot that day to find something to get rid of this snake. I was frightened.  But after a few days of tip toeing in and out the house and having all of these fearful thoughts, I had to stop and ask myself, “What are you doing Yolanda?  What are you afraid of? “That’s when I had the revelation. This snake came to manifest fear in me and my home, my place of peace, my refuge. And I saw it as a sign to do as the scripture says, to be always on the watch and pray because the adversary is seeking whom he may devour”. 

Luke 21:36 says, “Be always on the watch, and pray that you may be able to escape all that is about to happen, and that you may be able to stand before the Son of Man.” 1 Peter 5:8 says, "Be sober, be vigilant, because your adversary the devil walks about like a roaring lion, seeking whom he may devour”.

Simply put, we are required to be in a state of ‘watching and praying’.  When you examine the definition of watch it is “to look at or observe attentively, typically over a period of time”. When the New Testament commands us to "watch," it is telling us to "stay awake" and to be vigilant and on guard, fully awake, aware, alert and intently focused at all times.  And when Jesus commanded us to “pray”, he was stating to us that we should spend time talking with our Creator so that he can give us insight, provide us the plan of escape from the enemy, give us strength and power. But you see in our society today we are not in this constant state of watch and pray. We waste enormous amounts of time on being entertained with the mindless, trivial, mundane and materialistic. I must stress that we do not have time to waste if we are seeking to break the chains and strongholds in our lives. We must be as the word says; sober and vigilant. And that means properly using our mind to study, learn, observe, analyze, judge and think. Our mindset should  be clear and determined if we expect the yokes and chains of bondage and destruction to be destroyed in our life, in our children’s lives, in our family lives, in our churches, in our schools, in our communities and in our world. We are required in this life as wise sons and daughters to understand the times and seasons in we which we live, that we have to be watching and praying accordingly that we might not misunderstand what He is doing but remain focused on His will. If we do not watch and pray it can result in us missing much of what God has to say to us and do with us. You see watchfulness and prayerfulness is the price of constant victory and I know that I want constant victory not in just some areas but in every area of my life. I am willing to pay the price….are you?

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