** Disclaimer - This post is extremely long.
It goes into some detail about how I have come to understand the gift of
prophecy and its usefulness to the church**
Just about 24 hours ago, one of my friends
asked my about my history with the gift of prophecy. As I paused to consider my
journey into this aspect of God, I thought back to Oxford where it had begun.
As part of a wonderful community of
believers, I showed up to Sunday morning church meetings where a line of people
waited to share the truth that God had given them. For some, this meant describing
a picture, for others it meant reading a passage of scripture, for other still,
it was simply a testimony of God’s grace in their lives. Sometimes the messages
were for specific individuals, the whole church, or even a certain
cross-section of the body. Before speaking, individuals had to receive approval
from the church elders. It was cross-checked with scripture.
After awhile, I began to wonder if this
practice was merely a charade. Having a ‘word’ to share was cool and it seemed
like people were just making things up that sounded good. Whether or not they
had heard this from God, I could not say. Even while judging the character of
others, I made up several ‘words’ myself. Since I was too scared to share them,
no one ever knew that I was cool too.
One Sunday evening with the gathering of
college age members, the leader asked if we had learned to operate in the gift
of prophecy. In my mind, prophecy was one thing only: predicting the future.
The book of revelation had been written with a warning not to add to the
prophecy of the book. I did not plan to bring all those curses upon myself by
trying to predict the future or adding to the words of God.
I didn’t understand that while prophecy is
speaking truth from God, it finds its value in application of the principles in
the Bible to specific situations in a person’s life. It does not seek to add to
the truth, but to apply the truth to the life of an individual or church. Even
though it is not infallible like the Scripture, it requires attention to the
voice of God, humility, and the boldness to share the message. The receiver
should consider with prayer whether the prophecy lines up with the truth of
Scripture and encourages them toward understanding God.
I don’t know if this was explained then, but
most of us had never used the gift of prophecy to encourage someone else, so an
elder of the church was going to walk us through the steps. First, we received
sheets of paper. Each paper had a number written on it that matched the number
on another sheet of paper.
Each of us would spend time in prayer and
then write down whatever came to mind first: a picture, a verse, a word, a
story, an idea – really anything. I was one of the two people with the number
11 on his or her sheet of paper. The story I wrote down was about a train
travelling through a dark tunnel. There was no light to be seen on either end.
It was a long tunnel, but just around the corner from where the train was, a
person could see a hint of light at the exit. For now though, the tunnel was
pitch black because the train had no lights. Even though it couldn’t see, the
train continued on guided by the rails on a safe path to its destination.
The application of this idea was to show that
even when we don’t know what is going on around us, God places the track
securely beneath our wheels. If we keep on moving forward, we can trust that He
will take us where He wants us to go. For the guy I gave this to, it
encouraged him in a struggle he was having to see God’s direction for His life.
He didn’t have to know all the answers, just stick to the track, trust, and
keep moving forward.
His word for me is one that I still do not
fully comprehend. I pasted the paper in my journal and have copied it here:
“You are not my puppet, you are my child. I want to work with you, not control
you. This is an adventure I want to share with you.”
Since receiving it, I have come to appreciate
more fully the cooperative relationship that I have with my Creator. This life
and our interaction is like a dance. This prophetic word as well as the one
that I shared could both have been useful to anyone and could have also been
made up by anyone, so I didn’t think to much about it until my friend asked me
about my prophetic history and I suddenly remembered that this was the first
time I had ever tried something like that. The strange part is how well I
remember the word I received.
Leaving that church shortly after, I didn’t
encounter prophetic encouragement until that fall at Cedarville. That fall, I
became friends with people who believed that God still communicated with
people. My story of learning to hear God speak is written elsewhere, however, I
want to note a couple things that apply. First, I didn’t know God’s voice when
I first used prophecy to encourage someone. Second, even after I learned to
hear God speak, I did not use prophecy to encourage others right away. Third,
even though I know God speaks, I don’t always prophetically encourage other
people, nor do I always hear Him correctly when He speaks to me. In light of
this, I always encourage those who hear me speak to consider what I say in
light of what they already know of God and His word. By the same right, I
cannot say that people who do not know they hear God speak, cannot
prophetically encourage others with truth.
In the fall of 2011, I remember one night of
prayer in which a friend of mine wrote down six distinct words for certain
individuals. He gave them to a specific person with an explanation of their
meaning and significance. My word was “little, big joy.” In many respects this
word has now come true. I responded to this by encouraging my friend with the
words that he was like a lion in his relentless charge forward after the things
of God and his courage in taking others with him.
At the time, I still didn’t understand that
this sort of encouragement was prophetic. In this respect, anything said for
the purpose of building someone up in the things of God could be called
prophetic encouragement.
In December, I learned to hear God speak – or
first recognized that I could hear him speak. This led to a month of prayer in
which I experienced conversation with God for the first time. It was talking,
listening, discussing, arguing, fighting, and simply hanging out. It was a lot
of fun. I changed a lot. Sometimes while I was praying, I would hear certain
things that I knew I had to tell someone else. Most of the time, I was too
scared to do it, but every once and a while I would work up the courage to
share and was always deeply encouraged.
The second significant step in my prophetic
development occurred in February. After staying late in a room in order to
pray, I waited wondering why I was still there. When a friend of mine came
past, she needed help and I asked her to meet me that night for prayer. That
night as I prayed for her, I began to share her identity in Christ. As I prayed
aloud, I began to realize that the words coming out of my mouth were not mine.
I had no idea where they were coming from. I usually struggled to pray aloud.
But now as I spoke, I was encourage by what I said. They were truth, they were
pure, they were beautiful and eloquent. In fact, this was so much fun and so
encouraging that I decided to pray
for people whenever possible and began
stopping anywhere to have a word of prayer with someone. Even though I liked
doing this, I sometimes didn’t want to pray with a certain person when I knew I
should. Every time I did I was blessed. Without realizing it, I had started to
practice the gift of prophecy and I didn’t even know how it worked. This is the
same thing that happened with the gift of tongues – or with learning to pray in
tongues if there is a distinction.
Continuing the story, I learned a new aspect
of prophecy when I exchanged questions with two other students at the
Desperation Leadership Acadamy. The two students would pray for my request and
I would pray for theirs. We would both share the answers we got with each
other. That turned out very cool. As I took my focus off my problems and lifted
up someone else in prayer, I found myself with a new perspective on my
situation and a loving desire for that person that surrounded the words of
encouragement I had to give them from Jesus.
This was the last time I can remember using
the gift – though I didn’t know it was a gift at the time – until November. It
was about 5 months. Those five months are incredibly precious as they are a
time when I really struggled to see God and what He was doing in my life as I
waited on His promise. In many ways I was alone spiritually and did not have
the context of a church where I could practice this gift.
On the 11th of November, I spent
12 hours with a church that became my family. Several people prayed for me and
encouraged me with this gift. At the end of the night, a new friend prayed for
me to receive the gift of praying in tongues. Although I will go into more
details with an essay on that subject, that was the first night when I forgot
how to speak in English, yet could not stop the ideas and words from coming out
of my mouth. It was a bit overwhelming. Even when I needed to pray for a
friend, it was difficult to keep my speech in a language she could understand.
In this prayer – my first for another person in this place, I prophetically
encouraged this younger sister to seek to know more of God and to never be
satisfied with the way in which she now understood Him.
Over the next two months, I began to pray for
other people again, and even began to practice the gift of prophecy
intentionally. In doing this, I would have a specific person in mind to encourage,
pray for what they needed and then speak what I received. It was a safe
environment where others were learning the same things and didn’t really care
if you messed up, so I decided to try it.
One night, several of us were sitting in a
circle and decided to speak ‘a word’ over the person to our right. We would
pray for something to share that we didn’t usually get. If we usually shared
prophetic pictures, we would ask for a word, if we usually shared a word, we
would ask for an idea. It was a chance to stretch.
Because I have an active imagination, it is
easy for me to get and describe pictures to people. That night, though I wanted
an idea. I didn’t get one. I got the first part of an idea, so when my turn
came, I began to speak. As I developed what I had understood, I received the
rest of the idea and finished it. It described a struggle this person had as
well as what they could do to overcome it. Because I had no idea about this
specific situation, yet spoke directly to it, I realized that purposeful
encouragement through prayer and prophecy involved something more than simply
knowing good things to share. Someone must be behind all of it.
Whoever spoke to me shared ‘a word’ that I
have been learning for some time: rest. Simply enjoying being with God.
A month later, this had become a somewhat
normal practice for me, but God had a plan for proving just how cool this gift
can be. In a small group meeting, a friend asked me about my history with
prophecy and I told her my story up to this point. Telling my story began to
wonder why I still had doubts about the legitimacy of this gift. I had seen it
work. I had participated in encouraging others in ways I did not know they
needed. What was my question?
Even with this mindset, I used prophecy to
encourage several people to walk in the grace of God and trust in His timing.
The 'words' that I received from others inspired me to try something new and I
spent about an hour doing something I can't do. I was playing the piano and singing
at the same time. After a rough, nervous start, I was able to worship in the
presence of God with my gift of music and encourage others in the process.
Around 1am, I was ready to go home, but I
wanted to ask the two worship leaders to give me a word of encouragement before
I left. Sitting down with them and another friend, I was not prepared for what
happened next. I just wanted to get a quick 'word' from the two girls, but
another woman in the room began to speak in a language I could not understand.
She asked us to interpret and in course, the translation was interesting and
encouraging. One of the ‘words’ led to a discussion about flamingos. They are
actually white birds, but we see them as pink because the red seafood that they
eat dyes their feathers. One of the girls got the part about the flamingos and
I understood the message that when I input God’s word, I am like the white
flamingo. All that people will see when they look at me is the pink color of
the food I eat. They will only see Jesus. Cool, right?
I practiced interpreting another
encouragement that was in a different language. I got some of the idea, but
really not the gist of the prophecy. In truth, I think that believers should
just speak the prophecy in the language of their hearers unless they are told
to do otherwise. Like Paul said, three words in a language someone can
understand is much more useful to building up the church than a thousand with a
tongue if there is no interpretation. To me it still seems like prophecy in a
strange language is little more than a formality if not simply a waste of time.
As with everything else, my opinion on this will probably change as I see its
particular effectiveness in practice.
Regardless of my opinions, I still had a word
to give someone before I left. It was not in English. Grrr. Of course, I would
have to stretch and push myself into yet another new thing I didn’t understand.
After working up my courage, I began to speak and let the words flow from my
mouth. I didn’t understand it and nobody else did. Three possible
interpretations came to light bearing resemblance to each other, but none was
clear. In the end, it was encouraging to the person who heard it. Mostly,
though, it was good for me to have stepped into something I was extremely uncomfortable
with simply because I knew I needed to obey.
The next day, God had plans for some huge
surprises. He was going to prove to me that He is behind the prophetic words of
encouragement that I was still skeptical about. What is the way to prove a theory?
By practice! If the prophecy works in real life, then it is from God. If it
doesn’t, then it is not. If two or more people agree in prophecy without
knowledge of the other’s opinion or statement, then it must be more than
coincidence. If I hear something, my friends hear something, and someone I
don’t know hears the same thing about me, then Someone must be behind the
'word'.
Before leaving Friday night, I had heard that
at work a man would be there who wasn’t looking for clothes, but was looking
for hope. I would be ready to give him what he needed. I had the answer, but
just needed to be watchful. Because of this warning, I was alert. I fought to stay
in the presence of God and love people so that I would be ready to bless this
man whenever he came. Even though I was praying for him and asking every guy I
talked with what brought him in to the store, I didn't meet him.
With only a couple hours of work left, I was
walking with a pile of jeans when I met two guys from my church. They walked
with me and offered to pray for me. When we looked up, there was a man standing
there. The guys left, and he asked for my help. He had been there before the
prayer and we had exchanged greetings. Now, he mentioned that he went to
church. I knew I needed to ask him more. I don't know how I knew, but I knew this
was the guy. "What brought you in," I asked. Second question,
"do you have a family?" This second question led to him sharing the
reasons that had brought him to the store. He had just lost his family. Serveral
months ago, he had been through divorce and now was just needed to get out of
his house and get restarted. I was able to encourage him, and prayed after he
left. I wish I had invited him to church or offered to pray for him there, but
I knew one thing, I had met the guy I was going to meet and I had been pushed
right into the conversation by the other two guys who just randomly (or
providentially) came through the store. Cool.
When I walked into the church after work that
evening, I asked one of my friends who this guy was in a blue shirt. His name
was Tyler and he would be one of the students serving through prophetic ‘words’
that evening. This night was special because the students of ministry would
pray, listen, and then speak/write/draw what they heard for the ‘names/people’
they belonged to. Some of the people, they knew. Others, they didn't know.
After speaking encouragement to three men in the church, Tyler had a 'word' for
the guy wearing a striped shirt sitting somewhere close to me. Since my shirt
was striped, I sat with a question on my face and he responded, yes you. After
looking around and seeing no one else with a striped shirt, I realized it was
me long after everyone else had figured it out. How did I get so lucky? There
were hundreds of people there, and I had a public word from God? That kind of
stuff doesn’t happen every day.
Tyler began to speak. I see a word:
“success.” You will find success in whatever you do. God is finally
bringing you into the dreams he has given you. Whatever you put your hand to
will prosper...He is already putting the pieces into place. When you touch it,
it will come together. You are released into the fullness of your calling.
These are some of the things that he said,
but what I heard in my heart was this: Psam 1: He will be like a tree planted
by streams of water, whose leaf shall not whither, and whatever he does will
prosper.” Since you will not fail, what will you do? It’s time to go for it.
Don’t be afraid. Step out and try big things. Attempt huge things because you
will succeed. Don’t go for something simply because you need money, go for them
because you want to see God do something great!
While this is cool in itself, a quick
background explains why this 'word' from a guy who doesn't know me carries such
weight. It is not the first time I have heard what he said. First, for two
weeks I had been praying and asking for prayer about a decision I had to make.
This decision came at the end of a long struggle with God in which He finally
showed me that whether he chose to bless me with poverty or with riches, He
would always be at the center of my life. Though riches are tempting, I could
trust His grace to keep me from falling away. The previous Saturday, this understanding
had led me to begin a business venture that I am extremely excited about.
Second, on Friday night, several of my friends prophetically encouraged me that
God had given me certain gifts and abilities that I should not keep hidden.
From their 'words' I realized that I cannot disconnect who I am from what I do.
I need to seek for work that emphasizes these qualities.
Finally, Saturday night, I received this word
from a guy I don't know that began to shift my perspective on my career. To
this point, I have considered a career mostly from the standpoint of making the
money I need to live and give while I faithfully represent the Kingdom of God
in whatever I do. However, this encouragement from Tyler has begun to grow into
an idea that perhaps my approach to business should be one where I risk my
talents and abilities in order to watch God do great things. Business becomes
all about Him and not about me. The encouragement from Tyler exactly rephrased
what I had received in prayer over Psalm 1 about a month earlier. It also
followed my decision to begin risking my abilities in a big way the previous
week. It was not something new, it was public confirmation of something I
already knew.
Three other friends of mine heard words which
matched up with exactly what they had needed to hear, what I had prayed for
them the night before, or what our conversations had revealed before the
prophecy happened. My three friends and I collectively received about 25% of
the public 'words.' I think God was trying to make a point to someone.
Although the prophecy itself was a huge
blessing, it was only part of a larger blessing: God showing me how He can work
through prophecy in ways that I will never understand or control. It was part
of God showing me conclusively that prophecy is a way in which He speaks to
others. For me, I couldn’t hear Him the first half dozen or so times that He
said I was going to be successful. Eventually, I heard, but I couldn’t believe
it. Then I acted on it and He confirmed this action by calling me out in the
middle of the service to stand, hear this word and then receive it as Tyler led
the gathering in a prayer for me. Because prophecies are a promise of what God
is going to do and not what I need to stress out to accomplish I am excited to
walk through this story. Well, I have definitely heard now and I am excited to
move ahead into what God has planned!
The point of this story, though, is that
sometimes God uses me to speak His words of encouragement to other people
because I can hear his voice more clearly. Sometimes he uses others to speak
His words of encouragement to me, because they are listening to Him when I am
distracted. The individual always struggles to let the voice of God pass
unfiltered through the lenses of his or her circumstance. Sometimes it takes a
person who is removed from the situation to hear clearly and then speak the
encouragement in a way they can understand. That is what happened to me and
what also happens to others.
Until I could hear God speak, I could not do
this regularly. Now that I can hear Him speak, I can participate in this
blessing at any time. I remember when one of my college friends would simply
check out for a moment or two and then check back in with a word of
encouragement to speak directly into someone’s life or circumstance. People
said he had the gift of prophecy, but I was always a little skeptical and a
little jealous. I hoped that sometime he would give me a prophecy so I would
know whether the gift was real or not, but that never happened. Now I think I
understand what was taking place.
God is always speaking, but I do not always
choose to be in a place where my heart can listen. When I am listening, He does
not always talk to me about me. He also cares about those around me. Sometimes
they aren’t listening, sometimes he just wants to confirm something to them,
and sometimes He just wants to bless me. Other times, he just wants to give me
understanding about them so I can talk with Him for them.
In conclusion, I have once again “been told.”
God proves Himself to be correct and proves my doubts to be foolish. I am
excited to continue walking into a fuller realization of this gift in my life
and to encourage its growth in those around me.
A philosophy of leadership through lifestyle.
If there was no heaven, would you still follow Jesus?
From the beginning of time, people
have been waiting for evil to be crushed and the world to finally work in the
way we all know it’s supposed to. For many, heaven is the final realization of
this desire.
Although we say, “Christianity is a
relationship, not a religion,” how many of us actually know that to be true in
the way that we live? If there was no heaven, if there was only this life, how
may of us would still want a relationship with God? Does our relationship go
beyond that of cause and effect (e.g. I ask Jesus into my heart, He gives me
what I want [heaven, happiness, etc…])? How many of us would be fine with going
to the heaven we hear about in Church even if God wasn’t there?
Perhaps part of the reason
Christians today find their message lacking appeal is the gap of time between
acceptance of the gospel and the final reward of heaven. Apart from fear, any intelligent person
would wait until his very last minute to “trust in Jesus” because it involves
the greatest amount of reward for the least amount of input.
As with any scenario, the solution
is more difficult to describe than the problem.
However, I believe it requires a shift in the focus of Christianity from
“believing” to “walking.” In the garden, one aspect of life differed
consistently from the modern lifestyle: when man and woman had slept, worked
and eaten, they spent time walking in the garden talking with God. This is the
one aspect of their life that is completely obliterated by the fall into sin.
When God came to talk with His friends, they were scared of Him and tried to
hide. Though God in His perfect nature should have destroyed that which was now
contrary to His image, He immediately began to offer promises of reassurance
that He still wanted a relationship. The Biblical narrative continues from this
point to show God constantly seeking a restoration of this relationship while maintaining
the holiness of His character. Jesus death was required in order for God to
justify His actions and stay true to His purity. At great personal cost, the
Trinity made it possible for mankind to walk with God like in the first days of
innocence.
This is both the blessing and the
promise into which every person is called. Heaven is not the promise but a
fuller realization of that promise. Walking with God is that missing piece of
life that everything in a person longs to find. It is that hole in our hearts
that simply ‘believing in Jesus’ is never going to fill.
If not for the joy of this ongoing
relationship, what reason is there for a person to be a Christian? If we do
not enjoy spending time with God right now, what makes us think we would like
it any better in the place we know of as heaven?
About You
I want to write about you, but my mind keeps coming back to
me. If there was something so beautiful that I couldn’t forget, I would let it
capture my heart, ensnare my mind and become the only thing I obsessed about.
Instead of me, all I could see would be what had stolen my
heart.
Now, I fight to know that others watch, but cannot see this
beautiful reality. Themselves know of a searching, longing for what I part
possess, but never knowing the true object of their affection is that which I
pretend to care for less. I hold what is great as if it were only a mediocre
reflection of greatness, and hold what is worthless as if it had some value.
This I confess, and know nought to change. For a prize worth
winning is worth the struggle. The fight to obtain is not a curse but a
blessing – if I count on grace to rise me when I fall.
Oh, that I could embrace my identity apart from the
affirmation of those whose value is derived outside themselves. To recognize
and walk in the freedom that I have tasted without fear of repercussions. To
burn the bridges that still connect me to the life I have rejected and fix my
eyes on what is changeless instead of the ephemeral opinions of those who think
they see….
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