WHEN THAT BURDEN COMES ON YOU TO PRAY, PRAY! SOMEONE’S DEAR LIFE MAY BE ON THE LINE.

In 1956 when my wife and I were in California, I was awakened suddenly in the night. It was as if someone laid his hand on me. I sat bolt upright in bed, my heart beating rapidly. "Lord," I cried, "what is the matter? I know something is wrong somewhere. Holy Spirit in me, you know everything. You are everywhere as well as within me. Whatever this is, You give me utterance." I prayed in tongues for an hour and then began to laugh and sing in tongues. (When praying this way, always continue praying until you have a note of praise. Then you will know that whatever it is you are praying about is settled.)

I knew what I had been praying for had come to pass. I had the answer, so I went back to sleep. I dreamed that I saw my youngest brother become extremely ill in Louisiana. I saw an ambulance with lights flashing take him to the hospital. In the dream, I stood in the corridor outside his hospital room door. The door was shut. Then the doctor came out that door, pulled it shut behind him, shook my hand and said, "He is dead." "No, doctor, he is not dead," I replied. "What do you mean, he is not dead?" said the doctor "The Lord told me he would live and not die." I replied. At that the doctor became angry and said, "Come with me and I will show you that he is dead. I have pronounced too many people dead not to know when someone is dead." He took me by the arm and led me into my brother's room. He walked over to the bed and jerked the sheet back. When he did, my brother's eyes opened. The doctor saw that he was breathing. He began to stutter, "You knew something I didn't know. He is alive, isn't he?"

In the dream I saw my brother rise up from the bed, well. That was what I had been praying about. Three months later we came home to Texas. My brother came by to see me and said, "I nearly died while you were gone." I told him that I knew he'd had an attack during the night while staying in a motel in Louisiana, and had been rushed to the hospital. He thought someone had told me about it, but they had not. I told him about my burden of prayer followed by the dream. "That's exactly how it happened! They told me that for about 40 minutes at the hospital the doctor thought I was gone." (K. E. Hagin.)