It all comes down to love…

Senior and young holding handsI opened the front door at 8am this morning in utter surprise to see my 85 year old widowed neighbour huddled there. This was highly unusual because I haven’t seen this neighbour outside of her house for several months. She has a cleaner, personal carer, and grocery assistant all visit her but she doesn’t go out much any more, and certainly never before 10am as she is never dressed before then. She also doesn’t receive many visitors – only those who are there to provide a service. In fact, I had been feeling guilty that we never seemed to have time to visit her lately. When the kids were younger, I would pop in several times per week with biscuits the kids had made, have a coffee, just to see how her and her husband were. Then her husband died and it tended to bring out the worst in my neighbour. She was extremely lonely but came across bitter and desperate to drown her loneliness.  Thus, we knew we could no longer visit after 3.30pm unless we wanted to help her off the floor from standing too soon after being inebriated on an empty stomach. Unfortunately this only caused us to ‘pull’ away from her when she most needed us around. It was sad.

Last week I finally acknowledged the promptings of the Holy Spirit and set aside a period of time to visit her. God must have been up to something as, at the very time I went outside to walk down to her front door, my 9 year old son called out from cleaning the gutters on our roof that he was going to visit her and ask if he could clean her gutters whilst fixing a tile back in place on her roof that he could see was in the wrong place and allowing rain in.

I am now so glad that I listened to that ‘nudging’ on my heart. It paved the way for my neighbour to knock on my door at 8am this morning so that she had someone’s arms to cry in. Her 40 year old granddaughter had been admitted to Palliative Care overnight, riddled with cancer and not expected to last the weekend.

As I sat with my neighbour, I felt the need to offer to pray for her and her family. I have prayed with my neighbour several times over the last 9 years but she strongly expresses that she has no need of God in her life as He can’t be real. Before I asked if I could pray, knowing that I needed to pray with her as the Holy Spirit was highlighting this so strongly, I asked if there was anything I could do for her. She replied that she had come to me because she wanted me to pray for her and her family. I was shocked. She was desperate to ask me that and it was something I wanted to do. It was a special moment as I prayed with her desperately looking into my eyes for some kind of hope and reassurance and desperately seeking peace. I realised that I couldn’t give her what she wanted. She needed an encounter with Jesus.

The Bible says in 1 Corinthians 13:1-2 “If I speak in the tongues of men or of angels, but do not have love, I am only a resounding gong or a clanging cymbal.  If I have the gift of prophecy and can fathom all mysteries and all knowledge, and if I have a faith that can move mountains, but do not have love, I am nothing.”

I was so thankful that I had followed the nudgings of the Holy Spirit last week and spent the time visiting with her, even though I had a long list of stuff needing doing around the house.

I don’t know about you but I sometimes fall into the trap of believing that I am ministering to others more effectively when I am giving prophetic words or involved in praying for Healing for people at organised ministry times. In reality, I am being more Christ like being a kind neighbour whom I can be relied upon to help bring comfort and petition the Most High God on behalf of a desperate grandmother.

Friends, let’s not lose sight of the ‘little’ & seemingly insignificant ways that we touch people in living Christ-like throughout our normal daily life. That is what is truly important. That is really demonstrating the power of love, being the supernatural ‘gold’ and finding the supernatural ‘gold’ in your neighbour.

Prophetic Activations / Exercises to incorporate into your week:

The purpose of these exercises is to help us hear God’s voice in a clearer manner. They sharpen our senses to hear and recognise God’s voice and His way of communicating with us. This enables us to grow in our relationship with God and also to impart to others what God tells us for them. Feel free to use as many of these activations each week as you can. The more you practice, the sharper you become at hearing God’s voice. Enjoy!

Remember that whenever you give another person a prophetic word or picture etc, please make sure that it is encouraging, edifying (strengthening) and comforting (1 Corinthians 14:3)

1. Children / Families Activation: As a family, or individually if doing this as a children’s ministry, write a note to your postman, expressing your thanks and include a part about how God sees them and what He feels towards them. Brainstorm what you could include with the note eg box of chocolates or homemade biscuits. Hand deliver it to your postman or leave it in an appropriate place this coming week for your postman to be able to see and collect.

2. Group Activation: Have paper, pens, textas and crayons handy. Either individually or as a group, take a few moments to brainstorm all the people in your life who do things to help you but whom you hardly notice or acknowledge. Individually choose several people off your list to write a note or draw a prophetic picture for that will communicate the Father’s heart towards that person. Talk about using everyday langauge and not ‘christianese’/religious language. Let people decide if they want to do it anonymously or not.

3. Beginner Activation: This week whilst in line at a checkout, ask God to show you something about His heart for the person serving. When it is your time to be served, share what God showed you, making sure that you don’t use any ‘christianese’/religious language. A great way to start is to say, “As I was waiting here, I felt an overwhelming sense that you are a person who …..”

4. Intermediate Activation: This week, ask God to show you a person whom you work with or who lives near you and that you know. Ask God to show you how He loves them and to give you a prophetic word/picture for them. Share this with that person. For my unchurched neighbours, I usually begin by affirming that character within them eg “You are such an amazing person who has an incredible heart for …”

5. Advanced Activation: Think of the person who is causing you the greatest amount of grief at the moment. Ask God to bless them and to show you His heart for them. Ask God for a prophetic word/picture for them and then deliver it nicely to them, expressing God’s heart for them in a loving way.

Parenting a prophetic child – part 2: “Practical parenting tips”

Happy father and son walking together at beachLast week I wrote about parenting prophetic children looking at the likely characteristics they will display whilst a child and how to recognise if your child may have a prophetic gifting. This week I am addressing the issue of how to parent these children so that the prophetic gifting is encouraged and grown within them and also so that their ‘spirit’ is not broken.

The following practical parenting tips have been compiled from our own experience of parenting prophetic children and also with gleaning insights from parents of grown children who have evident prophetic giftings. I love learning from people who have walked the road before me!

Practical Parenting Tips:

Protect their innocence.

  • Don’t let them watch movies that have demons, witches, warlocks etc in them. I want my children to have images in their mind that God has given them of Him, angels etc not what some movie maker has created. Certain movies and television shows can also open the door to a spirit of fear.
  • Also, be careful what they read. ‘Feed’ them great books that will ‘feed’ their appetite for the things of God.

Recognize that there is no junior Holy Spirit.

  • They have the same access to God, Jesus and the Holy Spirit that we have. However they usually do not have the character or the emotional maturity to process and understand things the same.

Teach your child the Bible and who they are in Christ

  • Teach them their identity and their authority in Christ and what to do during a spiritual attack to rebuke the demonic.
  • My children know and use the Bible verse Isaiah 43:1 “Don’t be afraid. I have rescued you. I have called you by name. Now you belong to me.” They will verbalise this during times of fear. One of our children asked for this to be printed out and stuck above their bed and then recited this every night before going to sleep during an intense time of attack several years ago.
  • They know to use the name of Jesus and to tell the demonic to go in Jesus’ name. They know to ask Jesus to come and show Himself to them and for the Holy Spirit to show them where their protective angels are at that moment.
  • Another great Bible verse is 2 Timothy 1:7 “For God has not given us a spirit of fear but of power and of love and a sound mind.” I love praying over them and reminding them of their identity in Christ and how heaven sees them and what Father God thinks of them.

Listen to your child.

  • Take them seriously. If they are ‘seeing’ things at night, listen to them and teach them how to manage the situation. Home needs to be a ‘safe’ place. Ask them to explain to you how they are feeling and what is happening for them. I acknowledge that my child has seen something demonic and I say to the demon to get away in the name of Jesus Christ but then I focus my child on to Jesus. I get my child to ask Father God, Jesus or Holy Spirit to come and show my child where they are in the room. Father God/Jesus/Holy Spirit is so good and will always come, whether in their room or, at times, by stationing angels on the roof to guard over us, usually one angel for each family member. This greatly comforts my child. I will also ask my child to ask Jesus what else He wants to show, tell or give to my child at that particular moment. I never dismiss or down-play my child’s fears and safety concerns.
  • Empower your child to be able to deal with the negatives themselves but be there to support them emotionally.

Teach your children about the spiritual realm.

  • Talk naturally about God, angels, demons, and the second and third heavens.

Pray for them and protect them spiritually, especially during times of ministry.

  • That is, when you are involved in ministry and also when they are involved in times of ministry.
  • Have your prayer partners pray for them as well.
  • ‘Brush off’ anything not of God after a ministry time. Several years ago, one of our children was involved in praying for healing for people during the church service. This child was involved in praying for over 100 people. Afterwards, that child felt physically sick and had a bad headache. Despite all my nursing measures, medications (panadol and nurofen) and lots of prayer, nothing changed. 24 hours later, I suddenly realised that we had not prayed off any negative effects of that healing time. So I physically brushed off with my hands as I prayed that everything negative that had remained on that child from that time would be brushed off and gone in Jesus name. Immediately, and I mean, immediately, that child stated that they no longer felt nauseaus and sick and they got out of bed and resumed normal daily life. Our family now makes this a physical and spiritual practice that we do after every ministry session we are involved with.
  • We also share with our children the answers to prayer and the outcome of ministry times. A leader once shared with me how when she was a child, she noticed that when her parents were out ministering to others, she was often spiritually attacked. Her parents also never shared the great outcomes and highlights of the ministry times, so she was left with negative impressions of ministry.

Encourage them to live a prophetic lifestyle.

  • Go after intimacy with Father God, Jesus and Holy Spirit.
  • Read Bible stories to them as well as stories of heroes and heroines of the Christian faith.
  • Encourage them to journal and have a daily time of reading the Bible.
  • Prayer ministry at different times, suitable to your child’s age can be beneficial so that issues don’t become big. We have taken both our children, aged 11 and 8 at the time, for a Sozo prayer ministry session and both children loved it. We took them not because there were any huge issues but just recognizing that we are not perfect parents and that everyone has issues at some point in time and we wanted them to have as few as possible. Hubby and I both have a Sozo every year and view it like a car’s service, essential to keep running smoothly and address issues before they become huge. Both children loved it and wanted to go again. We also noticed afterwards that one child became more courageous and was willing to try things more eagerly than the reticence we had noticed beforehand.
  • Pray with your children, not just for your children. Listen to their prayers. Encourage them to pray and pray prophetically. Share answers to prayer with them.

Watch for any personality changes.

  • Prophetic children can easily take on the spiritual atmosphere of the environment they are in and act it out. Help them understand how to recognize this and what to do with how they are feeling and what they are seeing. Help them to communicate it verbally and then help them, or you on their behalf, pray about that demonic spirit that has manifested. I now love that one of my children is a ‘spiritual barometer’ and their behaviour highlights to me important spiritual things to pray about and how to deal with them during intense times of focused prayer.
  • Be very wary of imaginary friends or ‘spirit guides’. The demonic may be masquerading as a ‘friend’ or they may be simply playing a pretend game. Ask your children what their ‘friend’ is telling them to do.

Use wisdom in your discipline.

  • You don’t want to break their spirit. You do want to correct any behaviour, though, that is not appropriate.
  • Ask lots of questions about what they have said and done. Try to get a fuller picture of how they were feeling, what they actually did, what actually occurred from their perspective.

Cultivate the gift.

  • Encourage times of ‘soaking’ – putting on christian or reflective music and just being quiet before God and asking God what He wants to show, tell or give me during that time. One of my children plays with Lego whilst soaking, the other used to but now just sits and writes, draws or scribbles.
  • I get both my children to draw prophetic pictures for people. I give them a blank piece of paper with a person’s name on the top left hand corner and the date on the top right hand corner. I encourage them to ask God for a picture, sentence etc for that person. I encourage them to capture the first thought that comes through their mind and draw that. My children find it is easier to draw a prophetic picture for someone they don’t know as against someone they do.

Encourage them to connect with creation / nature.

  • This can help ground them and also sow the seed of the contemplation / seer gifting.

Encourage them to try out different prophetic expressions

  • Encourage their creativity. Encourage them to try prophetic art, dance, worship, speaking

Remember they are still a child

  • They need to enjoy life and not be ‘pushed’ in their gifting.

Teach them healthy boundaries for expressing themselves appropriately.

Help them develop their inner sense of truth

  • Teach them Christian values and Godly character.
  • They need to know why those values exist and why they are so important. They need to learn to forgive quickly.

Don’t jump in and try and ‘save’ them from negative experiences.

  • Part of their training is that they need to experience pain and rejection so please don’t quell God’s work in their life. God will be preparing them for the call on their life.

Spiritual upbringing

  • Please do not leave their spiritual upbringing and the responsibility of that to the church. The church’s role is to complement your training and discipling of your child. Their christian discipleship is your role and responsibility. Help them grow in the things of the Spirit.

Love is more important.

  • 1 Corinthians 13:2 “If I have the gift of prophecy and can fathom all mysteries and all knowledge,and if I have a faith that can move mountains, but do not have love, I am nothing”. Mo matter what else, love is far more important than anyone’s ability or giftings. It all comes back to your child’s character and helping them develop in that area.
  • Deliberately put them in situations where they will be tested in this area and have to grow and learn.
  • Watch your character as your children learn more from watching you than what you say and will copy your actions.

Prophetic Activations / Exercises to incorporate into your week:

The purpose of these exercises is to help us hear God’s voice in a clearer manner. They sharpen our senses to hear and recognise God’s voice and His way of communicating with us. This enables us to grow in our relationship with God and also to impart to others what God tells us for them. Feel free to use as many of these activations each week as you can. The more you practice, the sharper you become at hearing God’s voice. Enjoy!

Remember that whenever you give another person a prophetic word or picture etc, please make sure that it is encouraging, edifying (strengthening) and comforting (1 Corinthians 14:3)

1. Children / Families Activation: Have every family member/child ask God for a picture or a few sentences on how He sees the new royal baby – Prince William & Kate’s new little girl Charlotte. Ask God to highlight any particular attributes. Remember that God loves being asked questions so encourage your children to ask God lots of questions. Then get them to draw a prophetic picture or write a few sentences about what God has just shown or told them. Then send it with a covering letter to: Duchess of Cambridge, Clarence House, London, England SW1A 1BA. Please be careful with what Christian language you use and ask God to highlight ways of explaining/writing etc that are not offensive or use religious words.

2. Group Activation: Find a partner and ask God to highlight an object in the room to you. If you are outside, then ask God to highlight an object that you can see outside. This object will now form the base for the prophetic word you are going to give to your partner. Ask God to expand on this object and show you why He highlighted it to you. Keep asking questions and listening to what God says and watching what He shows you. Spend at least 5 minutes asking God to show you more. Then share with your partner.

3. Beginner Activation: Ask God to highlight a particular aspect of you and your personality today that He really loves, appreciates and delights in. Ask Him why He made you with that aspect and to show you some more about how well that ‘fits’ in with your lifestyle and your life, who He made you to be and your identity in heaven.

4. Intermediate Activation: Take a moment to select a leaf. Look intricately at the pattern of the leaf and the beauty that it beholds. Ask God to highlight a particular person to you and to show you some intricate beauty of their life. Contact this person and share this with them to encourage and edify them.

5. Advanced Activation: Flick through a calendar and ask God to highlight a particular month of the year and also a person. Ask God to then show or tell you why that particular month and why that person and what else there is He would like you to know about it all. Ask God to show you whether or not to tell the person now or whether you need to hold it to yourself and pray about it or share it encouragingly with that person at a later date.

Parenting a Prophetic child – part 1

Intimacy with the Father

Every child is unique and one thing I am learning is that there is no singular right way to parent every child. Every child needs some adaptation to our parenting style. Prophetic children (ie children with a prophetic gifting) in particular, pose some issues of their own.

Let me say this up front. I strongly dislike it when a parent talks about their child and how God showed them that that child was going to be so special, important and do amazing things for God, especially when that parent has other children and doesn’t talk about them in the same manner. Every child is important and special. Sometimes, particular children are highlighted from a young age or when they are in the womb. Please, be careful what you say to them and others. Be discrete with what God has showed/told you.

 

Recognizing a prophetic gifting in your child:

The following characteristics are not prescriptive. They are based on my own reflection of my children (ie these characteristics particularly describe one of our children) and other children in whom I can identify a strong prophetic gifting at an early age. Do not be discouraged if they don’t fit your child, or conversely, if they do and you just can’t identify a prophetic gifting. They are generalizations!

  • They have a strong justice meter. They recognize injustice and are concerned with right and wrong. They have an inbuilt ‘fairness’ detector and know instinctively when they have been wronged. Most children can pick up unfairness etc, but these children are particularly hurt by unfair situations and can’t seem to understand why people would treat them unfairly.
  • They may be seen to have a habit/tendency to lie and not tell the truth. In fact, I have discovered at these times, they are so focused on the exact wording of what you are ‘accusing’ them of that they cannot agree totally with the accusation. They have seen their actions slightly different. Thus their denial of involvement comes across as though they are lying.
  • They are generally sensitive in nature and wouldn’t intentionally hurt anyone. They tend to ‘feel’ others pain.
  • They seem to be naturally drawn to the things of God and search for the truth.
  • They can easily identify sin in their parents.
  • They have prophetic tendencies where they ‘see’ things we don’t see and pick up on situations we don’t. There may be certain people that your child will avoid and won’t want to be near. They may well be ‘seeing’ something negative in the spiritual over that person. They may well not want to go into a certain place because of what they are ‘seeing’ in the spiritual over that place.
  • Their spiritual radar is amplified. Most young children tend to have a sensitivity to spiritual things, but these children have an unusually high sensitivity to this. They may ‘see’ demons or other bizarre things happening in their room at night.
  • They usually have had at least one, if not multiple, experiences when they could have died, especially by bizarre circumstances. Satan comes to “steal, kill and destroy” (John 10:10) and certainly doesn’t want this child to make an impact for the Kingdom of God so will try and ‘snuff out’ their life. There is usually a situation when they were in their mother’s womb where they could have been seriously damaged or died. In one of these circumstances, our children had an extremely bizarre ‘accident’ up at the snow one year when they were very young where I ‘saw’ a demonic interference which could have easily resulted in their deaths but for an amazing rescue by God.
  • They are usually hard to discipline. They seem able to withstand ‘harder’ punishment. We have one child who was devastated at just the mention of the consequence of spanking, and raising your voice at that child was enough to bring about immediate change. The more prophetic child almost ‘pushed’ us to breaking point with our discipline of them. We could very easily have become physically abusive to that child as no matter how you punished them, they would show no emotion or remorse.
  • They may have ‘roller-coaster’ emotions and need to learn how to control their emotions and how to process their feelings. They may experience a deep sense of fear suddenly and seemingly out of proportion to what else is happening at the time. Satan wants to intimidate prophetic children so that they won’t rise to the calling on their life.
  • They tend to not be part of the status quo. Please do not expect them to be the most popular child in a group or to fit in with the crowd. They may seem ‘out of step’ with the rest of the world. They may tend to have a hard time making friends and fitting in. It is almost as if other children have an inbuilt radar that something is different with this child. They tend to experience a lot of pain and rejection in relation to friendships. They can be very headstrong.
  • Their parents may well operate in the prophetic gifting/office. It can be common for children to follow on in the blessing and calling of their parents. (2 Timothy 1:5 “I am reminded of your sincere faith, which first lived in your grandmother Lois and in your mother Eunice and, I am persuaded, now lives in you also”.)
  • They may have sudden personality and behaviour changes. We have a child who ‘picks up’ atmospheres and acts them out. Thus, if we are in a place where there is a dominating rebellious spirit, that child will become very rebellious. I can remember one time in particular when we were on a combined holiday / ministry trip and that child suddenly became very rebellious. I had only that day commented on the various signposts in that city that were suggesting a rebellious attitude but didn’t put everything together. We tried disciplining our child but to no avail. We tried everything and were becoming very frustrated with the lack of response to our disciplining efforts. I began to seriously doubt our parenting style and started to look at how we could learn new strategies. It didn’t actually ‘click’ for me properly until a year later in Cambodia when we saw this same child take on the extremely strong emotion or behaviour of the ruling spirits over that area. That child did not know how to process those emotions so they acted them out. At that time, I realised that I needed to help that child be able to verbalise and process what they were sensing and feeling and help them (and me) be able to use that prophetically for specific focused prayer for the area.
  • They may have imaginary friends, cartoon characters or super heroes who ‘tell’ them to act differently. This is usually a demon trying to exert influence over your child.
  • They can be hugely observant. This becomes the ‘seed bed’ for the prophetic and helps them make the connection between the seen and the unseen, the physical and the spiritual realm.
  • Our more prophetic child came home from Children’s Church one day so excited that they had found out what they were meant to do with their life. That day, they had learnt the verse from Jeremiah 1:5 “I am your Creator and, before you were born, I chose you to speak for me to the nations.” This so resonated with their spirit that it impacted them greatly. Six months later, this child could still recite that verse from that day as it had impacted them in such a huge way that it resonated with their whole being and how they were designed.

Due to the length of this blog post, I will continue this theme next week where I will present a number of practical parenting tips to help you in parenting a child like this. These parenting tips can actually apply to any child and help all children, but are specific to children with a prophetic gifting.

 

Prophetic Activations / Exercises to incorporate into your week:

The purpose of these exercises is to help us hear God’s voice in a clearer manner. They sharpen our senses to hear and recognise God’s voice and His way of communicating with us. This enables us to grow in our relationship with God and also to impart to others what God tells us for them. Feel free to use as many of these activations each week as you can. The more you practice, the sharper you become at hearing God’s voice. Enjoy!

Remember that whenever you give another person a prophetic word or picture etc, please make sure that it is encouraging, edifying (strengthening) and comforting (1 Corinthians 14:3)

1. Children / Families Activation: Arrange several plates with strong or distinctive tasting food on them eg salt, honey, vegemite, chocolate, cheezels, curry, apple, mandarin etc. Get everyone to taste the different flavours. Then ask individuals to select a person in the room and ask God what flavour He says that person is like. It may well be a different flavour to what was on the tasting plates. Then ask God why that flavour, making sure it is encouraging. Share it with that person.

2. Group Activation: Get into pairs and ask God for a number for your partner. Ask God why that number, what it represents for that person and why He gave you that number for that person. Share it with your partner. Please note, certain numbers have certain meanings and you could find out a list of common numbers and their meanings and have it handy for after people have finished giving their prophetic words and use it to ‘add to’ your prophesy. Never let numbers (or colours) and their ‘usual’ meanings become prescriptive for you. God is far bigger than that. He loves us individually and  speaks to us individually, knowing what certain things mean to us, which may be totally irrelevant for someone else.

3. Beginner Activation: Ask God to show, tell or give you a nickname/endearing name and why. Ask what you are called in heaven and why.

4. Intermediate Activation: Ask God to highlight someone that you don’t know very well. Then ask God to show you something about their name that will be significant to that person and encourage them. Share it with the person.

5. Advanced Activation: Choose a sense (hearing, seeing, smelling, tasting or feeling) that you don’t currently use spiritually. Ask God to demonstrate something new to you using that sense. Spend some time with God, just meditating on Him and enjoying being with Him and enjoy experiencing how God activates that ‘spiritual’ sense.