Pursue love, and earnestly desire the spiritual gifts, especially that you may prophesy.
1 Corinthians 14:1
These past couple of weeks, the Lord has been teaching me some super cool things about operating in the prophetic gift. I was telling my friend Han Man the other day,” I felt like if life was like Super Mario Bro, I just ate a prophetic mushroom and grew up really big.”
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p style=”text-align: left;”>It began during LifeGroup at church, but it started getting it really crazy cool during Flood LA, the conference I was at the last week.
During the first night I was there, they invited a group of really prophetic people who I am friends with to come up and to pray for people. Because I knew them, they invited Han Man and I up too. Little did I know what would soon happen..
The speaker lined us up across the stage and wanted us to individually pick out people seated at the retreat and to prophesy over their lives in front of everyone.
Gulp
I glanced over at Han Man and whispered to him, “.. I don’t think I belong here.” He reassured me that I did and to just relax. So I did and just started trying to hear the Holy Spirit to see if there was anything He wanted me to say to anyone as I looked into all these youths.
And so one by one, these prayer warriors lined up next to me highlighted people in the crowd and gave them words over their life. And so people were being encouraged left and right as these prophetic people spoke into their lives and prayed over them. After speaking with some of them after the event, what the people up front had to say about their lives reaaally hit home in a profound way, even though none of them knew the people at the retreat. I thought it was so cool!
At that point, I wasn’t scared of being up there anymore, I just wanted to be part of the blessing God was giving to people. It was then that the Lord started giving me some cool revelations. I got the picture “turtle”, the name “John”, Psalm 91, Matthew 10, and a highlight of this kid in the front row. After waiting, I got some clarity about how those things were connected.
And so I asked for the mic and asked if anyone’s name was John. Lo and behold, the kid I thought the Holy Spirit highlighted earlier stood up. And then I just went off. I prophesied over his life and told him that the Lord was going to use him like when he sent out the disciples in Matthew 10, but then he was going to be attacked by Satan. But, like a turtle, he would be protected, and that he had the assurance of the promises of God in Psalm 91. So I told him to remember those two passages and prayed over him.
Phew! That was fun!
Later that night, little did I know, that kid came to Christ and began being used by God right at the retreat and started speaking into people’s lives. Crazy huh?
Over the course of the retreat, the Lord has given me such great prophetic words to speak over people’s lives. The Holy Spirit really met people in their brokenness, or their struggles, and most left very encouraged in the spirit. Most of what I give them is scripture I feel the Lord gives me, and very sparingly, phrases or direction in life. Some would say that, “Well, they could’ve found that out just by reading their Bible”
Sure, but to have someone you don’t know, who doesn’t know the circumstance in your life, point out the things that are at the forefront of your mind by the Spirit of God without you telling them is really encouraging. It really lets them know in a manifest way that God is really watching them and knows their lives.
So on and on the retreat went. I walked around and just prayed for people and gave them cool prophetic words. In the last two months, I’ve received people’s names twice without first meeting them, I’ve got a chance to prophetically heal people, it’s been really blessed.
I don’t write this to boast AT ALL about me. I’m just so excited about growing in the prophetic gift that Paul so earnestly desired for us to have. Prophecy, he continues in 1 Cor 14, edifies the whole church and should be used liberally, albert tested thoroughly.
So, that’s a summary of me growing in the prophetic, and what it’s like to eat a prophetic mushroom of the Holy Spirit!
