“Each of you should use whatever gift you have received to serve others, as faithful stewards of God’s grace in its various forms.”
1 Peter 4:10
From the time I was a kid even into my adult years (hilarious that I am an actual adult, right) I have always had what I originally called thoughts or feelings about things and they would eventually happen. For a long time I never knew how things like that happened or why I always had those thoughts or feelings and even dreams that would play out in real life. I never put much thought into it, I just thought it was a luck of the draw kind of thing. The older I got the more I noticed those things happening. I would have dreams that felt so real and vivid that I knew it had to be real. For example, I had a dream that my sister was pregnant right before she actually found out she was pregnant. I was even bold enough to ask her. She had no idea she was pregnant at this point, so of course she said no. Well, here we are today with a three year old little boy running around! Crazy, right?! I would have weird thoughts about individuals that felt off or uncertain and a majority of the time something was brought into the light with those individuals. There have been many occasions when I’ve had visions of something or a picture in my mind that made no sense to me, but when I spoke them out to someone it made total sense to them. Things like that began to make me wonder more about what that really was. Was it God or was it just something I felt was bound to happen by some chance?
Fast forward to several months before I left for the race. I had this strange dream that I was sitting in a random kitchen I’d never seen before and I was sitting at a table reading a blog from the World Race. I could literally give every detail of what the kitchen looked like in my dream and I knew for certain I was reading someone’s blog from the race. Even weirder, there was a random tiger strolling through the kitchen in my dream, which seemed way weird. Just a few weeks ago I was up late reading my first blog I had posted from the field and I look up from the computer and everything felt strangely familiar, like I already been through this exact scenario. I immediately thought, “Wow I’m having dejavu, that’s cool!” I was in the exact kitchen, with the same layout, table, and stove I remembered, not just reading a random world race blog, but reading MY own blog from the field! It was crazy! Luckily there were no tigers in our kitchen. God took me back to the dream I had several months back. It was almost like he was preparing me for what was to come while I was on the race in the very first month. Little nuggets like that are some of my favorites, but things like words from the Lord when I know who they belong to are even crazier, and so awesome when they come to fruition and I understand what they mean or the person I share with knows what it means! Man, God is so creative with what he has for us!
So, it’s now January 2016, the first month on the race, and I find myself having these visions, dreams, thoughts, and words for people more regularly. Thankfully one of my squad leaders Leanne was with my team the first week and was very informative about what I was experiencing. So to explain all of this rambling, God gifts all of us with different things, whether it’s speaking in tongues, prophecy, teaching, discernment, etc. After all of these years I never really considered all of these experiences to be a gift from God, but I now 100% believe that I have been given the gift of discernment and I have never really recognized it as a gift from the Lord. Thankfully I shared with my squad leader and she was able to affirm that in my life and encouraged me to speak out the things I have been given from the Lord. I began reading more about this gift and with it can come prophetic words and the ability to feel deeply and sense what is going on around you with individuals emotionally or spiritually or in a specific area that may be full of trauma or demonic spirits. Seriously can’t believe I’ve been missing out on this my entire life. With this gift there is that ability discern and feel what’s going on around you and take on that emotion, so to speak, and I have never realized how much it affected me. During our first week of ministry, I literally couldn’t even hold my head up half of the time at the school. I would feel so exhausted and wanted to lay down, I couldn’t carry on a conversation because I couldn’t focus long enough, literally sleeping during after care sitting up in a chair, and really just not enjoying my time. I simply just thought it was jet lag because that was an issue as well but as soon as we left the building I felt full energy so it was really confusing. After feeling like that for a few days, Leanne mentioned spiritual heaviness and how it can be such a heavy weight on you that you physically can’t function. These children we worked with come from homes of sexual abuse, physical abuse, drug abuse, alcohol addiction, demonic practice, and probably many other things just to name a few. During that first week or two I was literally feeling the chains of abuse and other heaviness just weighing me down and I was completely wiped out. I began doing some studying on spiritual heaviness. I began searching scripture, blogs, and authors to understand more. I read some information that spiritual heaviness and discernment can be going on even before you’re a Christian or as a child. I immediately remember a dream I had as a kid probably around the age of 7 or 8. I had a dream I can still vividly remember now like it was yesterday about this demon possessed child trying to kill me hiding in my closet. I can remember waking up the next morning begging my dad to come to my room to kill it with a hammer. I strongly believe that was some kind of spiritual heaviness I experienced even as a kid. After lots of studying, I realized that praying against this heaviness and speaking out to break those chains of abuse started to physically lift me out of that fog, so everyday I began praying against those things and I eventually never felt that heaviness anymore.
I think for someone who doesn’t understand things like this, it will likely be hard to grasp exactly what I mean, but I encourage you to search scripture and look into credible resources to understand more. For those who know, you guys will totally get what I am explaining. It is seriously one of the most amazing and chilling things I have experienced with the Lord, especially now that I know exactly what those “thoughts and feelings” are. It feels like the closest connection with the Father because he shares with me things he wants to show me or things he may have for someone else. I have been so encouraged to just press into what he has gifted me with and try to understand and listen more closely to what the Spirit is sharing with me. I have found that it can be really difficult sometimes to decipher what is from God and what is from my own thoughts so seeking what the Lord wants to show me in prayer has been beneficial. Thankful for seasons of radical growth and understanding in these areas of my life! Who knew month one would be such an awesome month of stepping out in faith and in turn stepping into the gifts he has given me! I am so excited to see where the Lord leads me with the gift of discernment and I can’t wait to share some amazing stories where the Lord used my gifts to make an impact for his kingdom!
Here are a few references about spiritual gifts and discernment. Give them a look!
1 Thessalonians 5:19-21
1 Corinthians 12:4-11 (vs. 10*)
Proverbs 14:6
1 Corinthians 14:1
Romans 12:6-8
Hebrews 2:4
1 Timothy 4:14-16
1 Corinthians 7:7
1 Peter 4:10-11
Hebrews 5:14
