Hi, kieth, very happy to meet your acquaintance and welcome to a wonderful
spirit filled list. I am Kerri from Canada with the only gift of note being
discernment if that is going to get me anywhere. be glad you have usable
gifts. Kerri.
----- Original Message -----
From: "Keith P Hodges" <[log in to unmask]>
To: <[log in to unmask]>
Sent: Wednesday, August 04, 2004 3:55 PM
Subject: Sleep problems


Dear Echurch friends,

I am really really pleased to be here, I have been lurking for a few
days, having made Phil's acquaintance. I am Keith, 34 from Knowle a
village near Birmingham  in the UK. I am a full time male mother,
which is a challenge I can tell you, even to explain. I do similar
kind of praying for people that Phil does, but I have been called to
focus on caring full time for one person for a season. Phil
encouraged me to post here he thinks you would be interested in my
testimony... so...

Dear Phil,

your post on sleep apnea is interesting reading.

You say you have had it more than 2 years.... I wonder what else
changed in your life two years ago?

I am watching your situation with interest because I have a friend
who also suffers and who also happens to be aware of theophostic.

I think it is interesting that you are pursuing both medical and
spiritual directions in seeking a solution. I suspect that the
spiritual one will be the most effective, don't you?

I thought I would tell you that I have had a lot of wrestling with
not really being wide awake until later in the day. For me I have
been beset with spirits of tiredness weariness laziness and
exhaustion.

I am still working my way through these...

Earlier this year the Lord showed me that the little boy Keith was
woken up every day by my dad with a cup of tea and breakfast. Little
boy Keith really wanted mummy to wake him up and so would stay in bed
as long as possible. The Lord spoke to me and said that "you are
grown up now and can get out of bed yourself".

I was also shown that when I got out of bed late at 8am I would miss
the bus and have to run after it. There was built up an association
in my heart between waking up a bit late, missing the bus and
exhaustion. I would go back to sleep until the next bus at 9am, at
which point the cycle would start again, until 10am and 11am etc.

These roots grew a number of coping strategies. For example I would
not book any appointments in the morning. That way I would not be
late for them or let anyone down. I would not be fully active until
the afternoon, and I would be most active in the night time, thereby
self compensating for my laziness in the morning by being active at
night.

After this one ministry session (and I am particularly hard to
minister to so I am told, even the Lord has said that to me which is
a bit upsetting) in which I also had to repent of my laziness and
then command the spirit to leave. I went from having an active
working day lasting about 6 hours to being active doing things for up
to 18 hours a day. The change was somewhat dramatic.

I have continued to work through tiredness issues. Since being in
full time ministry all of these things have become more apparent.
When I lay down or sat in a comfortable chair I would dose off
immediately. I remember when I was 18 that I found it very difficult
to fall asleep a complete contrast and no apparent reason for it. I
would also have an annoying habit of falling asleep during ministry.
I would be there slapping myself poking myself in the middle of a
deep intercessory ministry time trying to stay awake while my pen
would wobble all over the place. I had to adopt an uncomfortable
chair for prayer and ministry.

In order to solve these, one thing I had to repent of was using
tiredness as an excuse to avoid doing things that I didn't want to
do, and avoiding life. After that I commanded any spirits associated
with that attitude to go. Now I can lie down, rest, pray or read a
book without falling asleep immediately.

I would get behind a steering wheel and instantly I would find myself
fighting to keep my eyes open. It was incredible, and yes it did lead
to accidents. This took ages, months to get to the bottom of, with
some prophetic help. It turned out that I had on an occasion in the
past forced myself to stay awake in order to drive a long distance
and this had been dangerous. This had given the enemy a foothold in
that I was willing to drive tired and not to be safe. The solution
was to repent to God and to my passenger of dangerous driving, and
willingly driving when too tired to drive. Then when I commanded the
spirits associated with this tiredness to go, I was healed and have
not had the problem since.

I hope you found these interesting and I trust that your persistence
in looking for the roots of your sleep apnea will be fruitful.

your servant in Christ

Keith