Lately, I’ve had quite a burden on my heart. I try to ignore it. I try to pretend that it’s not real. I try to think positively to erase it from my brain. But it remains.
I remember back in my church-going-everyday-of-the-week days, there was a group of people who were obsessed with spiritual gifts. What gift do you think you have? Let’s take this test to find out! I wish I had this gift…I wish I had that gift. It all seems so distant, so foreign, so silly today. We didn’t realize the responsibility that comes with the gifts.
So many people want the gift of prophesy. It’s one of my spiritual gifts. It sounds so…glamorous, being able to see things, to speak what you see to people. There are times that the gift is utterly amazing. Like when I pray for a friend and God heals something in their heart that was broken. Like when God gives me a word of confirmation for a person who is just waiting for an answer, for the proverbial writing on the way.
There are times when this gift SUCKS. Like when God shows me something that can be fixed but won’t be because of pride, ego, arrogance. Like when God shows me a person who has all of the potential in the world who has relinquished their gifts in lieu of a cheap alternative. Like when God shows me something that I love dying.
There are times when I speak what God is showing me, and people tell me that I’m negative, that I am speaking “words of death” over (insert whatever is close to their heart here.) There are and have been so many times that I have hoped beyond all hope that those people are right and that I am just a negative, glass-half-empty kind of person. At least if that were the case, I’d be able to adjust my attitude and change my perspective.
Right now, though…a lot of what God has spoken to me and that I have spoken to people close to me is coming to pass. It sucks. But…at the same time, it reminds me that God is God, sitting on His throne. And I thank Him that I’ve not (yet) been called into the wilderness to eat honey and locusts.
Deneen White 