Cassie and I have been learning a lot that I want to talk about, but it’s been a minute since I talked about our circumstances, and there’s some information there that’s relevant to what we’ve been learning. So first, an update!
As I mentioned in my last post, we’ve been staying with our friends, the Armes. Their kids have all either moved out or gone to college, so they had a spare bedroom we could use. They’ve been excellent hosts; oh my goodness, Debbie takes such good care of us. Every other day we wake up to some fresh-baked pastries, and we have to press her to let me handle any of the cooking. (And we certainly can not do any of the cleaning!) Alan leads a family devotional every night after dinner, and besides that it’s been great to be a part of his regular Sunday School class at church.
Speaking of church, Grace Pasadena has been such a wonderful, welcoming place for us during our time here. It’s been so much fun to get to know the people there, who have all been friendly and encouraging and excited to get to know us. I’ve particularly enjoyed their mid-week worship nights that they do once a month, as well as the intimacy of their small groups. We’d attended sporadically during little visits with the Armes in the past, but this is the first time it was a regular thing, and what a delight it has been!
We’ve also been blessed by several visits to PIHOP, the Pasadena International House of Prayer. Our first visit there was to an event they call The Well, where you get prayed for individually by two separate groups, who prophecy encouragement and exhortation over you. Cassie and I both were tremendously encouraged by our visit to the Well, so much so that we attended several other events there.
Which does finally get us to the point where we can start talking about what God’s been teaching us. Well, I’ll mostly just talk about what God’s been teaching me – Cassie can speak for herself if she chooses to.
It’s hard to pin down the point when it started, because it’s been a thing that’s been growing slowly for years, but God has been pushing me to be more aware of the Spirit and more open to his gifts. None of the churches I’ve attended have ever been particularly open to the more miraculous, or “sign” gifts of the Spirit – I don’t know that any of them are even Continuationist, because conversations on topics like speaking in tongues or modern prophecy basically don’t even come up. I’ve been theologically Continuationist for years after deciding I just didn’t see a strong scriptural argument for Cessationism, but that decision hasn’t had much of an impact on my life because I haven’t, like, done anything with it. Or met anyone who does.
But we went to PIHOP after some encouragement in that direction from the Armes, and PIHOP is very Continuationist. I don’t agree with all of their beliefs, but it was very encouraging to get exposure to believers who (in my opinion) go too far towards the miraculous gifts than too far away from them. Our first night there, we went to a regular event that they call “The Well,” where you basically just get prophesied over for ten minutes. You don’t tell the people praying over you anything about yourself, they just say whatever the Spirit leads them to say. Cassie and I were both in tears by the end of it, it was so encouraging, so specific to us and our situation. They recognized that I had a calling that was taking a long time to come to fruition, and they reassured me that I was called and that I was still being faithful to that calling.
It was so encouraging that I went to their monthly “Prophecy 101” class, and while there, the guy leading it used me as a “sample” target for prophecy and asked the class to prophesy over me. They said that God has a plan for me that may be hard to understand, but that he’s behind the curtain, controlling everything, so I don’t need to worry. Someone said they felt like I was being called to work with foreign cultures. After praying these things over me for a couple minutes, the class was delighted for me to share a bit of my story so far – how I was called to go to Japan two years ago, but have been waiting for God to get us visas.
The class insists that every believer has the gift of prophecy; I don’t agree with that, but I am increasingly convinced that I have the gift. So I’ve been reading a lot about it (User-Friendly Prophecy by Larry Randolph) and praying a lot about it. 1 Corinthians says that prophecy is for edification and encouragement and comfort, and Revelation says that the testimony of Jesus is the spirit of prophecy – both of which, I think, are a little different that the popular perception of it. Old Testament prophecy may have been largely about guidance and rebukes, but New Testament prophecy seems to be more about encouragement.
I’m still praying a lot about it, I don’t know what it’s going to look like or how it’ll fit into my life. But I’m excited to see where God takes it!