If you haven't read part one of this blog, you can read it here.
Prophecy is one that I felt God tell me was my gift my freshman year of college. August 2006, I just got back from the Baptist Student Ministry church service and I had felt God speak to me there and say, “I want to use you to prophesy.” At the time, I was walking a slippery slope between pleasure and God, often turning selfishly to pleasure instead of seeking God for that pleasure. It wasn’t until five years later at training camp that I learned to trust in God’s voice and allow my voice to be His mouthpiece.
The prophetic voice is huge. I am shaking my head with my eyes ever widening trying to think of how to explain why and how. Without a prophetic voices speaking this year on the World Race, I don’t know where I would be.
Probably somewhere lost, wondering where I am going or trying to find God in some weird way. Prophetic voices give direction. Prophecy this year has spoken strength, courage and comfort into my life. Each prophecy that I have received this year have been words of life that have left me with a feeling that God just breathed new breath into my lungs.
You know what is weird about prophecy.
It’s really easy.
It really doesn’t require you to do anything besides open your mouth.
God literally places thoughts into your mind, thoughts of strength, thoughts of encouragement, thoughts of comfort or thoughts of freedom and all you are required to do is speak them out. Sometimes He places a person on your mind or sometimes He paints you a picture. He could just put one word into your mind, for me it’s usually a word wrapped in gold that is sort of floating through my mind’s eye like a screensaver.
But, He is speaking.
I have said this in previous blogs and it needs to be repeated.
There are prophetic voices that have been silenced for too long. You need to speak. You have to speak.
By being silent you are starving the people around you.
Now, the gift of speaking in tongues. This is a weird gift, it’s a strange. Quite a few people think they know everything about it and usually dismiss most of what is said about the gift of tongues. I was one of those people.
Tongues freaks people out, so they throw it out. But, wow, do not dismiss the gift of tongues.
When I received the gift of tongues it was shortly after Naomi had finished praying for me. My World Race team was shouting out confessions of sin, calling out for the Lord in a reckless and abandoned way. We were all passionately seeking the Lord and when He landed on me after that prayer, it was all I could do but to kneel down and begin to speak in unknown tongues.
It was weird because, I had desired the gift of tongues. Beforehand, I was speaking gibberish in my own power, just saying, “Lord, do I have it yet? Let me try. Nope, I don’t think so. I’ll keep trying until you give it to me.” Then boom, my mind was opened to a new language. It happened so fast, it didn’t make any sense but God gave me his language. In my mind, I have the language, I don’t know what it means but I know it is a very intimate prayer language between my spirit and God.
I know that some of you have issues with people praying in tongues out loud and often think it needs to be translated or it’s a sin. I can’t lie, I thought that myself but as I have entered deeper into my walk with God I know that is not the case. The gift of tongues is a gift for the person speaking it, it edifies your spirit, it is your personal love language with the Father and it is immensely powerful.
I have also been able to understand languages throughout the world. Granted most of the time it just seemed like non-sense but when I needed to understand I did. There was one specific time that literally blew my mind and it was soon after receiving the gift of tongues in Kenya. I was learning Swahili here and there, picking up what I could in Tanzania and then learning more once we arrived in Kenya. One day the kids were joking around with Mark and I by speaking in Swahili and waiting to hear what we said in response. Then they said a phrase, in my mind I heard it in English and I immediately answered them in English. Their jaws dropped and I looked over at Mark and he had a confused look on his face. So I asked, “What? Was that not in English?” Everyone replied quickly with, “No.” As Mark and I were talking I explained to him everything and our minds were blown. My probably more than his because I didn’t understand what happened, but this wasn’t the first time that I understood more than I actually knew. It has happened other times on the Race and languages have seemed to come easily for me when I actually try to learn.
Finally, the gift of healing. I have written many blogs about healing, mostly because healing has been a huge part of my race. I wrote a blog about my knees getting healed, about a lady’s back being healed, a lady’s eyes being restored, a story about a dead man who we tried to raise from the dead, and the lastly another about a lady’s eyes being as new as her youth. Of course, these were the only times I physically saw healing. I have prayed for healing countless times on the World Race, and in most of the situations I couldn’t even speak the language of the person I was praying for. The stories I have are from times when a translator was present and they are stories I will never forget.
Another time I experienced healing was in a small house in Eustace, TX. My sister had a cancer in her chest when she was younger and my mom was one of those crazies I told you about up at the top. She is always getting out oil to anoint me when I am sick and she believes without a doubt in healing. She is always praying for healing and I never understood it or believed it until I was healed.
Even when my own sister was healed after one night at an elderly lady’s house in Eustace, I still didn’t realize what I had been a part of because I was too distracted by how “weird” it seemed.
Now, I am one of those crazies.
Freaking people out, freaking me out all through the God given power of the Holy Spirit. Nothing about the Holy Spirit makes sense in my futile mind.
It’s really cool to read about the Holy Spirit, but it’s something else to really seek Him out.
Push the limits of Christianity and push yourself into a place of mystery.
Trust me; you want to be a crazy.
This is how God designed it to be.
