I’ve always been taught that prophecy, speaking in tongues, and healings were no longer part of the church. That God no longer used those things to speak to His people. That those things were no longer needed. And I absolutely 100% believed it. On the other hand, I always wondered why the God in the Bible did such amazing, powerful, unimaginable things, but nowadays the most exciting thing in church is a new song for worship and getting out a few minutes early for lunch? That doesn’t make any sense, not even a little bit.
Training camp and stuff.
But then something crazy happened. My entire perspective was changed at training camp. The theme we heard over and over again at camp was to not put God in a box. Putting God in a box was honestly something I had done most of my life. I believed God could do certain things, but only the things that fit into my theology. Christians couldn’t prophesy. Christians couldn’t speak in tongues. Christians couldn’t heal people. Why? Because I had never seen it done, so therefore it couldn’t be true. God showed me at camp that just because I had never seen something, didn’t mean that God no longer worked in those ways. So after a little bit of wrestling with God (Me? Being obstinate? Never.) I told Him that I would be open to understanding Him in new ways. These things were weird, they were uncomfortable, but that doesn’t mean it wasn’t God working. I’m sure Moses talking to a bush on fire probs made him feel a little uncomfortable too.
The prophecy and stuff.
Now back to the whole prophecy thing. We had a session that was just our squad, and our squad mentor started talking to us about prophecy. O dear. That’s weird. She talked about 1 Corinthians 14: 1-3 which says,
“Pursue love, and earnestly desire the spiritual gifts, especially that you may prophesy. For one who speaks in a tongue speaks not to men but to God; for no one understands him, but he utters mysteries in the Spirit. On the other hand, the one who prophesies speaks to people for their upbuilding and encouragement and consolation.”
She said that the purpose of prophecy was for believers to encourage and build up other believers. Biblical evidence for the win.
So after she talked to us for a few minutes about prophesy, she told us we were going to do an activity. She told us to pray with another person on the squad, and to say whatever God brought to our hearts, whether it was a word, a verse, a picture, anything. She had us line up into two rows and had us face each other. She then told everyone in the line I was in to close our eyes. Awesome. She then had everyone else in the other line to find someone with their eyes closed, and to put their hand on that person’s shoulder.
A sheep and stuff.
Here I am, eyes closed, with a random person’s hand on my shoulder. I couldn’t even tell if it was a guy or a girl. I had no clue who was standing in front of me, so I did the only thing I knew to do. I prayed. As I was praying, God gave me a picture of a sheep. A sheep? Really God, a sheep? Now that’s straight up weird. But our mentor had told us before that even if it didn't make sense to us, it could be exactly what the other person needed to hear. So with my eyes still closed, I started talking about the sheep. I said that we are the sheep, and that God is our Shepherd. No matter how many times the sheep (we) wonder off, the Shepherd (God) continuously goes after us. He relentlessly pursues His children, no matter what we do, no matter how many times we leave. After I finished talking about the sheep, I open my eyes to see who I had said this weird thing to.
It was a person on my squad who I hadn’t yet had the opportunity to talk to, and she had tears in her eyes. She said that it was exactly what she needed to hear, that she had continuously walked away from God and yet He had always brought her back. Wait, what? You mean the sheep thing was what she needed to hear? Who knew.
The main point and stuff.
Let me reiterate what it was like. It was weird. It was uncomfortable. But believe me, it’s completely worth it to let God out of the box. Because when you do, He can do things you couldn’t even imagine.
