I wanted to tell you everything that was happening in my last blog because it’s important for this next part. Last month when it started happening my team started praying for me, sometimes throughout the days and other times at night before I’d go to bed. After several days of these non-stop night terrors my squad leader, Chelsea Casady, came up to me and asked “Zach, would it be ok if I messaged the rest of the squad about this?”
At first I hesitated because I didn’t want to make a bid deal about it, dumb I know, and I was still afraid no one would believe it. But then I thought “why would I deny the opportunity for my brothers/sisters in Christ to spend more time with the Lord and time to pray for me when I obviously needed help?” Asking for help is a big deal to me and being on the race has taught me that it’s ok to ask for help, even though it’s still not easy. So I painfully said yes and told her it was fine.
A day or two later there were talks about doing an all night through out the night prayer. Which is when people wake up at certain times throughout the night to pray. Next thing I know there was an email sent out to the entire squad for a sign up sheet for 30 minute increments from 9 pm to 6 am the following morning. Within 10 minutes, if that, the entire sheet was completely full of names from everyone on the squad. It blew me away how quick people were to help.
Over the course of the next few days people began to message me with bible verses and just words of encouragement. Even people from back home that I’ve talked to were messaging me with prayers and more words of encouragement. The love came pouring in in more ways than I could’ve ever imagined or counted! After weeks of my night terrors still continuing to happen my squad was still getting up to pray from 9 pm to 6 am and they themselves were starting to get fruit out of it. They would get up to pray and then still continue to spend time with Jesus afterwards. Even people who I just met were praying hard for me throughout their day.
I myself, unfortunately, wasn’t seeing the fruit out of anything I did. But I myself was seeing the fruit that came out of everyone else and honestly that kept me motivated to not want to check out or be irritable. I kept getting frustrated at the fact that I was still having this happen, but after I started seeing the community it was building it was kind of cool. It’s like it was building a tighter and stronger community, an army if you will, Gods army.
So yes it is still not fun getting little sleep every night, but it has been fun seeing so much fruit come out of it through others. It has been fun getting closer to people, and it has been fun for me personally to dive into Gods word multiple times a day. I stay up late reading/worshipping and I wake up early to read/worship some more. I find myself worshipping more, reading more and praying a lot more. And maybe that’s what God wanted, maybe He wanted me to spend more time with Him. I still haven’t received an answer yet on that one. But until then I plan on taking every opportunity I can to read His word and sit still with Him as well.
Love and community will defeat anything the enemy is trying to get at every single time. It may take a while but stay persistent with it and don’t lose sight of what the Lord has for you!
