Tania, Can You Give Me a Prophecy?

Sometimes when I visit churches, people ask me to prophesy over them. Their angst is written all over their faces, and usually points to a need for guidance on some sort of life-changing decision. Personally I find the request a little awkward. Are they accustomed to hearing God’s voice for themselves? Have they been hearing the Spirit for the smaller areas of their lives? Or are they treating me like Moses…? “You go up the mountain and hear from God then come back and tell us what he said.” (Exod. 20:18,19)

The scenario reveals a common problem in the Church. Too often our congregations have learnt to rely on the experts to hear God’s voice for them rather than hearing God for themselves. So they look to a visiting prophetic ministry, a social media prophet or their church leadership. Inadvertently we have led our people back to the time of the Old Covenant where everyone heard God’s voice largely through someone else.

This is where the ministry of God Conversations comes in. We are committed to helping people hear God’s voice for themselves. It’s a very particular calling that I didn’t fully understand at first. I’m not your typical prophetic leader who visits churches and spends time prophesying over everyone. I am not even naturally spiritually intuitive, feeling more at home with the analytical left-brain types.

At the same time, I’ve learnt to hear God’s voice clearly for my life. The God Conversations ministry came out of a personal journey, starting out as an avid Cessationist and learning on the go. Still, when God called me to a ministry that equips people to hear God’s voice, it didn’t make a lot of sense. That is, until God made it clear in his typically creative way – through a dream.

The Broken Periscope

In the dream, I saw myself being shown around a beautiful home. It was huge! We came to one particular area – with white marble tiles on the floor, grand columns and French windows. I knew the home belonged to a wealthy banker. Then the scene changed. I was walking along a dusty path and came across a young boy. He was playing with a toy periscope, but the periscope was broken and he handed it to me to fix. I saw the problem straightaway. The two mirrors inside the periscope were fuzzy and you couldn’t see through them properly. So I took out the fuzzy mirrors and replaced them with clean ones, and I gave the periscope back to the boy. Then I woke up.

A few weeks later, I was chatting with a colleague at work. I had mentioned my need for a new place to live because my flatmate was getting married. “Funny you should say that,” he said, “because I have a friend and he’s a banker. At the moment, he’s overseas on a longterm contract and I need someone to live in his home.”

A week later, my colleague showed me around the home. It was huge! In one particular area, there were white marble tiles on the floor, grand columns and French windows. I moved in a few days later and lived there rent free for a year and a half.

My home was a beautiful display of God’s grace and provision, revealed to me in advance. But there was more to it than that. Later God used it to describe the nature of my ministry:

Tania, I want to speak to people and like looking through a periscope, show them things they can’t normally see. I want to give them my perspective on their lives. But the problem is, their mirrors are fuzzy. They don’t see the inheritance that is theirs. Your job is to take the fuzzy mirrors out and replace them with clear ones. Then give the periscope back so they can hear my voice for themselves.

Confusion in the Academy

It wasn’t until I began my PhD that I understood the problem of the periscope’s mirrors. To my shock, I discovered this topic is absent in the Protestant academy! There is virtually no theological reflection on the topic of direct Spirit revelation among Protestant writers. For the few theologians who do mention it, it is largely through the lens of prophecy in 1 Corinthians, a specialist gift that involves hearing God for others.

This neglect of hearing God’s voice in the New Covenant has startling implications – the most important being the disconnect between the voice of Jesus and the voice of the Spirit. This connection made so strongly by Jesus before he left (John 14-16) and then by Peter when he interpreted the events of Pentecost (Acts 2:16,17) has been completely ignored in the wider Protestant church. Pick up a book on hearing God’s voice and you’ll rarely read about Jesus and discipleship. Pick up a book on discipleship and you’ll rarely read about Spirit revelation. Study at Bible College and you’ll rarely see hearing God’s voice in the curriculum.

Problems in the Church

In practice, this means that we expect God to speak for our “encouragement and comfort” (1 Cor. 14:3), but not our sanctification (Matt. 14:24). We’ve reduced prophetic experiences to guidance, but not to discipleship (John 10:27).

Of course, God is still speaking and people are still hearing, but because our practise doesn’t align with our theology, we end up with countless pastoral issues… a lack of Spirit-led sanctification, discernment through the lens of our desires rather than Jesus, increased potential for manipulation and abuse and most significantly, a shift back to the Old Covenant paradigm where revelatory experiences sound more like Jeremiah than Jesus.

The Church who Hears God’s Voice

As Christians we are called to enjoy the fullness of our New Covenant reality… The Spirit given to each one so that they can hear God’s voice in the same way as the Old Covenant prophets (Acts 2:16,19)… Where the prophetically gifted use their gift to encourage and strengthen others but not without equipping them to hear God’s voice for themselves (Eph. 4:11,12). And where we are all listening to the continuing voice of Jesus through the Spirit, recognising it and following it.

This is the clarity God wants to bring to the global Church. At God Conversations, our mission is to come alongside you on the journey and give you the strategies you need to facilitate the voice of the Spirit for everyone in the context of discipleship and the accountability of the local church. Our goal is to help you to be the church who hears God’s voice! May each of us receive God’s periscopic insight into our lives, and in doing so, find the courage to follow.