I was just going through my original blog, which was started nearly nine years ago. In the beginning I used my blog as more of a journal for people like my parents and friends in Canada to read while I was in Bible school in North Carolina, and eventually living in Holland for my internship.
In those days, I wasn’t trying to get many readers to my blog and so I saw little to no point in avoiding sharing more personal stuff. This was how I kept people in my life updated from afar.
The particular post I stumbled upon was one I had written after going to a Morning Star service one Friday night in October of 2004, and hearing Rick Joyner speak for the first time. I had read many of his books by that point but never seen or heard him.
The following is what I wrote, and I’ll interject with my own commentary and let the reader know when I’m doing so:
At the end of the night I got ministered to prophetically. The way they do it at School Of the Spirit is the students are on teams, and three people are in a booth and when it’s your turn, you go in and get prayed over and then they tell you what they feel the Lord speaking to you. They have about twelve booths with three people per booth.
Well, tonight was interesting. The first thing spoken was by the girl on my right. She told me the Lord showed her I had a sense of humor and that in situations I have a different perspective than most that brings a lightness to it that others can sometimes take comfort in. However I’ve been doubting if I really have appropriate humor, or if I’m offending people all the time. She told me that I feel awkward and like I’m criticized for it, but to take comfort because the Lord made my character and that this is something He gave to me—that He likes my sense of humor because He gave it to me.
So, people who think I goof off too much–TAKE THAT!
But what really impacted me is the attitude we’re to have when ministering in the Holy Spirit and using His gifts. I can’t find the verse off of the top of my head that says it, but somewhere it says “Where there are many words sin is present”. Well I might have seen an interesting illustration of this. The young woman in the middle said the most, however, she also said not one single thing right. It was unusual to me how flippant she was with the concept of prophesying. When I sat down she kept sighing and moaning during her prayer and sounded like I really inconvenienced her by receiving prophetic ministry. She even said in a boasting arrogant way how they’re “pretty good at reading peoples’ mail”. However, everything she personally said was incorrect. I am not called to business, nor am I competitive, nor am I called to music as urban DJ with a turntable. I had a hard time keeping my poker face during the ministering, because that is the least likely thing I’d ever do. Not only am I not musically inclined, but I hate rap and urban music. That particular word was hysterical to me, and it was hard to keep a straight face.
Prophesying Things that Have Yet To Make Sense
The reason this prophecy resonates with me now, is because in hindsight I might have been a little harsh on this student. But I still don’t like hip hop or urban music.
Recently when discussing this with a friend of mine who vaguely remembers my telling of this incident, he pointed out to me that she many have been thinking of DJing in a different sense and not necessarily music. You know, like podcasting or talk radio. If so, that would make much more sense.
Maybe she was right?
I’m also finding myself a lot more business inclined–internet business. In those days nearly a decade ago I probably wouldn’t have been open to being told that as venturing out to make money online is a little intimidating as people still think of it as some kind of playground and not necessarily as a legitimate way of making a living.
At any rate, since I was accustomed to the idea that prophecy is for edification, exhortation and encouragement, I assumed that since this didn’t jive with me, it probably was wrong. But fortunately for me I had written it all down at the time, otherwise I’d not have remembered this experience–another reason I try to blog.
Don’t Throw The Baby Out With the Bathwater
The verses she gave me I couldn’t figure out in my life how they apply. But it’s interesting how clearly the two girls next to her could hear God’s voice and prophesy specifically and detailed with accuracy. This was a lesson for me in my attitude if I’m going to operate in the prophetic and not develop an arrogance like that one girl had (her attitude stunk before they even began praying for me). Any act I do in the Holy Ghost is in Him, not my own strength, therefore there’s no room for such a boasting or arrogant attitude. Father, don’t let me get that way with healing, remind me always how it’s you that gives us the grace to do your works, not my own strength or ‘deserving it’.
Something I thought of afterward: if they didn’t allow us to respond or give answers as they prophesied, letting them know if they were right or not—then how does their ministry ever receive feedback and find out if they’re right on or way off? How would a girl like the one I was annoyed by ever learn to hear God more clearly if the people she’s ministering to aren’t allowed in that setting to give a response of any kind?
This was just something that I was provoked to think about. I’m all for situations and “labs” where people are free to practice, and, as a result, make mistakes they learn from. But if you’re not allowed to let them know they messed up, how can they improve?
At any rate, the take-away I’m trying to get out of this is that sometimes we just need to take things the Lord gives us–whether directly or through other people, and put them on the back burner for later. It dawned me that back then, the idea of podcasting hadn’t really been introduced in the mainstream, so I ought to give her more credit than I did at the time–she accurately saw something about my destiny related to a technology and way of spreading the messages burning in me that hadn’t even been invented yet.
It makes me wonder how much other stuff we ignore or throw out just because it doesn’t make sense to us at the time.
