How to Grow in the Prophetic - w/ Katia Adams

I would say God, I stand on Ephesians 3, you say you would do beyond my imagining, well I want to see the blind healed and I want to see the deaf healed and I want to see people come to faith and in my imagining, I am giving those to you. But the thing is right, once you've done that, you've got to stop praying for the sick, you've got to stop being willing to open up your mouth and say, do you want to hear about Jesus, because then it's up to me to take the first step of seeing the snowball effect of those imaginations, but it's a beautiful place to be. You are listening to the dwellings podcast. On this podcast, we will share stories that will inspire you on your journey with Jesus and help you cultivate kingdom community right where you are. This is season 1, hearing God's voice. I'm really excited today to have Katiya Adams with us, Katiya and her husband Julian Pastor The Table in Boston and I was privileged to meet her in San Diego at a pastor's gathering and as she spoke, "Hey, I just really liked her and wanted to be your friend," and actually afterwards. Yeah, I actually came up to you afterwards and said, "Can I be your friend," which someone that was there in Numi, so that's a very weird thing for you to do, but anyway, I felt like I wanted to be your friend, but also I wanted to learn from you. You were specifically talking that day around the prophetic, so that's what we're going to get into today. You have a way of describing the prophetic that's very accessible to people that don't have experience with it, and so I'm excited to hear from Katiya about that. Katiya, thank you for coming on today. Thank you for having me. Absolutely. Can you tell our listeners a little bit about you and your family and ministry and your heart for the city of Boston? Sure, yeah, so I have the privilege of being a mom to two little kids. I've got a seven-year-old and a six-year-old, and alongside that, getting to pastor the table, Julian and I planted the table in Boston two and a half years ago, and it's been a wild ride of we arrived with. There was a handful of us. There was maybe seven of us on the team right at the beginning. And just seeing God add people and bring people, it's always an incredible adventure, getting to see how Jesus builds His church, and we just get to kind of clean God for dear life through the ride of that. So that's what I do. I get to be a mom and get to be a pastor, and really I'm just so passionate about seeing people come alive to all that they were made for, and so the fun part of pastoring for me is being in a city like Boston, which is an incredible city, so rich in history, so on the forefront of so much in this nation and in the nations. And just encountering people who are hungry for God, but don't even know that they are. And introducing them to Jesus, it's a beautiful privilege. The Christian life and getting to bring the kingdom is a beautiful privilege, so I love doing what I do. I love living in Boston, and I'm so excited for what God is doing in the earth today. We're living in the best times. I fully believe it. And so yeah, that's a little bit about me. I love it. And that is evident when I hear you teach, and when I hear you speak that you do love what you do. And that's an encouragement because we hear a lot about how ministry can be hard, and it is hard, but to also see your love for it and your joy in your calling is a huge encouragement. Well, I want to delve right into the prophetic today and just knowing that that is a new term for many of us. I would love to just hear your answers to the question, what is prophecy? And what does it have to do with hearing God's voice? That's the series that we're in right now. Could you just explain that to us? Sure. I mean, for me, I think sometimes these words, they sound more complicated than they are. So if I can take a step back, maybe from the word prophecy, more to a general understanding that God is our Father and created us to be His sons and daughters. And in any parental relationship, the expectation of healthy parents, at least, is that they would talk to their children and that their children would be able to hear them. That's just a normal family expectation that we have. And I think human families are a glimpse, obviously not a perfect, complete representation, but are a glimpse of what God invites us into as He invites us into understanding that we are His children and He is our Father. And so for me, prophecy is really the word to describe us as sons and daughters hearing the voice of our Father. And I think sometimes we can over-spiritualize it almost or over-complicate it. And we can maybe talk about this to prophecy being something that only a few people can do or only special questions get to hear the voice of God. And I think, of course, there's nuance and we want to grapple with what Scripture says. But in the most general terms, I think every believer, every son and daughter of Jesus should expect to be able to hear the voice of God because He's a Father who speaks to His kids. And I believe that He designed us to hear Him. So prophecy for me is really that us being able to hear what God is saying to us, not only for us personally, but for those around us too. So what is the difference in having the gift of prophecy and it being something that's accessible to all of us as children with a living Father who desires to speak? Like is prophecy for all of us? Can you expound on that? Yeah. I mean, I think in some ways it's almost like on a gradient rather than a, you have it or you don't. Right. Kind of scenario. So I think hearing God's voice is an open invitation for His children. But I think as we pursue the hearing of His voice, one of the things that Ron Quincy and St12 tells us is that prophecy is a gift that the Spirit gives. And so really in wanting to grow in hearing God's voice, I think that's almost like a foundational belief system that we can have. I'm a son or I'm a daughter of God, therefore I can hear His voice, that that's just a foundational belief. But then how do I grow in that? How do I actually tangibly hear His voice? How do I pursue that? Well, I think that's where the gift of prophecy comes in, where we, we, on the foundational belief that God speaks to His children, we then pursue a gift that Holy Spirit loves to give to the children of God so that we can hear His voice. And so I think it's one Corinthians 14 where Paul writes, you know, "Earnacy, desire, all the gifts, especially prophecy." And there's this invitation to really recognize Holy Spirit gives gifts. One Corinthians 12 tells us he's the one who decides how to give them. And then one Corinthians 14 gives us the permission to actually pursue gifts that we want to desire, especially prophecy. And so I think it's like a both-and-a-moment of recognizing the Spirit gives us this gift to empower sons and daughters to hear the voice of God. But He also invites us to ask Him for that gift. And so I think I don't know if it's so much to completely separate things or maybe a foundational belief, God speaks to all of His children, but the practice of how that happens. And certainly the growing of that, from, let's say, more of a low level sense of what God's saying, to more, a sharper understanding, a sharper ability to hear His voice. I think that's where the gift of prophecy comes in, but I certainly think from the invitation of Scripture, that gift is meant to be something only for a few, but something that we're all invited to ask for and to then practice. Yeah. So the two misconceptions that I had earlier on about just this word prophecy were that I pictured it being only a foretelling of the future. And that, to me, signified danger or just at least that felt weird and strange. And then also I thought that gift was reserved for a certain group of people. And I definitely didn't feel like I was one of those. And so the verse you just mentioned where Paul said, I desire that all would prophesy confronted me several years ago where I realized, okay, this isn't just for the few. So that's where I had to go back and redefine what God meant by the word prophecy and do some study to go, okay, is he desiring that we all tell the future, okay, no, he's desiring that we all hear his heart for us and for his church. And I've experienced so much growth, just even learning, just demystifying the word, knowing it's for me and knowing more about what it is. Yeah, absolutely. I think a lot of people see prophecy specifically as future, futuristic. And of course, there is an element of that because if we're hearing what God is thinking about any given situation, he sees the future, it would make sense that there is a futuristic element that he invites us to see what he's seeing. But of course, that's not his only lens. He's not always living in the future. He sees us where we're at right now. There's insight that he has into our current circumstances that he wants to share. He sees things in our hearts that we don't see. And so to limit prophecy simply to telling the future, which of course, there is a biblical aspect of that, misses the description that you see in 1 Corinthians 14 of it being something that is really about building. And building isn't just about what's going to happen in 10 years' time. Everything is also what do I do today? And so there is the reality of prophecy, really, in its most basic form, is encouragement, is giving people perspective that pours literal courage into them in order to do the work of building whatever that looks like, whether they're building church or whether they're bringing the kingdom in their workplace, whatever that looks like. But the gift of prophecy gives us the thoughts of God, the heart of God, the voice of God towards us, towards our circumstances. And yes, towards the future of us in our circumstances, that then gives us the courage to be able to build in the present. And I think when we see it more holistically like that, first of all, it takes the pressure off, constantly having to find futuristic words to speak over people. But also, it allows us to encounter the heart of God in a broader way than just expecting him to have a one-track word, which is always about tomorrow. I also want to hear what he's saying about today. I think we can't be believers and read the scriptures and say there's no such thing as the prophetic. I mean, you see a prophetic thread through all the scriptures, old New Testament. So then we have to wrestle with, is this still for us today? And then if so, how do we take steps to grow practically? So let's get practical for a few minutes and could you just share with us? If this is a new topic, how do we grow in the prophetic? Yeah, I think that's a great question. Well, first and foremost, if we want to grow in the prophetic, I think we have to be willing to spend time with God in order to recognize his voice. Now, this might sound silly or very basic, but I think sometimes people want to grow in the prophetic and they almost become one track about a gift or an expression of power rather than recognizing that ultimately, to hear the voice of God, you have to be someone who enjoys being with God. Yeah. If not, we're divorcing him from his voice as if we can just tap into the power of his voice to recognize someone's voice with any level of accuracy. You need to spend time with them regularly. Yeah. If not, you know, if someone had said to me about someone I've met one time, will you be able to recognize their voice again, maybe, but to a level of accuracy that I could hear just the voice and guarantee it's that person and no one else, probably not. It's proximity, it's frequency, it's relationship. You know, if you were to play recording right now of my dad speaking, I'd be able to tell you it's my dad. That's not because I can see his face, but because there's so much relationship, there's so much history that I'm able to much time listening. Exactly. And I think so foundational to wanting to grow in a gift is to recognize. If I'm ever going to operate in this gift with any level of accuracy and any level of authenticity, my passion and my pursuit must be the person who is central to that gift. And one Corinthians 12 talks about Holy Spirit giving the gift, well, if I want to grow in the gift of prophecy, I've got to get comfortable in spending time in the presence of the Holy Spirit. I've got to regularly be inviting him and not just to deposit gifts to me, but from me to grow in friendship with him so that I learn not only what he thinks in the gift of prophecy, but I learned from relationship how he thinks. All of these things actually broaden the depth of gift that we walk in because there's history and relationship that anchors the gifts that we operate in, then practically, so practically for me, whenever I'm wanting to grow in any of the gifts, honestly, I spend a lot of time in worship and prayer and just communion with the Spirit, wasting time on Holy Spirit, if you like, not that that's possible, but I think you get the sentiment of it. The second thing is, I take one Corinthians 14 super-seriously, so with prophecy it's something that I've really asked the Lord for and I kind of made a decision on this. It's a conviction that I have that God is a good Father, and when we ask Him for things, He's not mean-spirited and He's not teasing, but He, especially when He invites us to ask for things. He has every intention of fulfilling those requests in the context of beautiful relationship, and so with asking for the prophetic, I think if you've asked for the prophetic, then the next step is to find opportunities in small ways to practice what the prophetic is. So I would then, just in conversations over a cup of coffee, in growing the prophetic gift in me, started learning how to have two conversations at one time. Conversation with the person in front of me, but an internal dialogue with Holy Spirit of, is there something that you would like to say to this person today? And just getting into the habit, really, of consistently checking in with Holy Spirit, not just in important moments, but rather run of the mill every day moments of God. I know you're thinking something right now, that's a given. You know, the Bible tells us that God has thoughts all the time. So then the question in terms of practicing the prophetic is just getting into the habit of asking God, what are you thinking in this moment? And is it something that you're telling me, or is it something that you're using me to tell somebody else? I learned over time that for me, one of the best ways to really practical, again, to practice this is to spend time. I used to do this every day. I don't do this every day, but still regularly. I would spend time just taking a piece of paper or a journal or something and just saying, Holy Spirit, please will you speak to me? And then I would just write whatever came into my head. And I would have this dialogue with God of really explaining what I was doing to him, as if he didn't understand it already, but just kind of saying, Lord, I'm going to believe that when I ask you you answer, I'm going to believe that you're the sort of dad that when I say dad, please will you speak to me? You don't just ignore me, but you speak. And so I'm going to put my faith in practice not just saying theoretically, that's what God does, but saying if we truly believe that God actually isn't mean and speaks when we ask, then it's worth listening immediately when we've asked, rather than waiting for some kind of finger of God in the sky. My personal experience is that the prophetic has never come through some kind of writing in the sky, but rather a still small voice internally, as I've asked him to speak. And so this is a really practical way of exercising our faith and just learning over time, learning, of course, some of our thoughts are our own. But over time, as we make a habit of this, as we journal, we learn, Oh, I'm getting it. This is what the voice of God sounds like. And then there's moments where you realize, oh no, I just ate way too much cheese last night, that thing. But it's the practice and I believe God responds to faith. Hebrews 11, right? He's pleased by faith. So I believe as we make a habit of that, God sees, Oh, there's Catherine, there's Katya, they're taking me seriously. They actually believe I speak well, then I'm going to speak more. I'm going to sharpen their ability to hear because I think sometimes where we don't put anything into practice, our faith is in the realm of theory, rather than actually taking risk. And what we're expecting for God to do is to download a complete thing to us out of the blue without us ever trying. Yes. He doesn't work like that. He's more relational. That's like me believing that God wants to make me the best preacher the world has ever seen. But I never read my Bible and I've never written a sermon. But what I'm expecting is one day someone's going to call me up and say, we've got a platform of a million people and we'd like you to preach tomorrow. And somehow miraculously, I will stand up and I will preach a sermon that I've never prepared. But that's not how it works. We don't expect God to open doors in that way. When we get a sense of what God is leading us into, we steward that. We prepare for that. We study that, right? Prophecy is exactly the same. In the moments where I'm like, God, God wants to speak to me, then I've got to steward that, which means that I'm going to write down thoughts that are coming and I'm going to say, God, if this is you, confirm it tomorrow, confirm it a different way. And if this isn't you, at least you see that my heart is postured to believing that you speak. So please sharpen it. Make it more accurate. The bits that are wrong show me why they're wrong, which bits I miss her. I often say to our guys here at the community, or anyone I'm training in the prophetic, if I ask my six year old to get me an orange and she mishears me, but she comes back with an apple, I'm not going to yell at her for mishearing me. I'm actually overwhelmed that my six year old bothered to obey that she actually thought, oh, mom's asking something at me, right? Like every parent gets that because you're so desperate for your kids just to learn obedience. Just to say, yes, when you ask them to do something. And I believe God is like that with us. That he is so overjoyed at me sitting there, journaling what I think he's saying. He's not angry or disappointed, oh my gosh, look at that second sentence of hers. Clearly, I didn't say that. That's not the kind of father he is. He's saying, look, I asked for an orange. She thought I asked for an apple, but at least she's writing it down. At least she's actually taking me seriously. At least she actually believes that I'm a good enough dad to speak, rather than an abusive dad, which is what many questions have you got as someone who's distant, someone who withholds his words. That's an abusive father. So I believe that it actually brings him joy that I believe good things of him. I'm willing to steward that, even if I look foolish. And the more we're willing to steward it to the point of foolishness, I believe that practical habit actually creates a high accuracy over time. Because we're just spending time with him. And just the course of time by nature teaches us his voice, if we're willing to keep stewarding it. Oh, I love that, Patia. And this year, a verse that's just been on repeat in my head is from second Chronicles when it talks about how the Lord's eyes are roaming all over the earth, just looking for people whose hearts are earnestly seeking him. And so I hear that from you that it starts just with this child like desire, just to seek the Lord and all the gifts that he says are for all of us. And then there's that there's the the must that we have to have this time alone with God seeking him just for the sheer communion of me and him. But then I know there's this next level of the prophetic where it does feel a bit riskier because as we're seeking God for ourselves, we don't want to stop there. We want to seek him and seek his heart for the people that we love for the people around us in our communities. And and then as he speaks on behalf of these people, we don't want to just keep it in our own hearts like we, a part of our obedience is to step out and say to a friend or a member of our community or to family. This is a sense that I'm having from God and and tell us a little bit about the risk of that and tell us why we should step into delivering some of those words to other people. Yes. So it definitely is risky when you start sharing with others. Although I think there are ways to to mitigate some of that risk. Yes. So I think for a lot of people when we think about sharing prophetic words, it feels so big and the language that sometimes you can see someone who's stepping out for the first time, the language that they're using is such heightened stakes. You know, God says this as soon as you make it a definitive God said this, it is a high stakes moment. Rather than I'm a Christian, I believe God speaks, I'm just learning, so this could be wrong. But I felt this, right, that's a very different way of communicating to something, it's something then thus say if the Lord, you know, if you're going to say, thus say it the Lord, you better rewrite it. I think there's ways that just in our manner and in our posture as we're practicing and throughout prophetic ministry, no matter how accurate you are, in our posturing, we can lower the stakes in the language that we use that gives people permission to weigh the word, which is important. That's a biblical requirement, which we can talk about actually because I think in conversations on the prophetic, we too often talk about the delivery of the prophetic rather than the receiving of the prophetic. And when we create communities that don't have a biblical lens of how to receive the prophetic, then it actually heightens the stakes when someone delivers the prophetic. If we train people in how to receive, how to weigh, in how to have permission to really decipher themselves as this, the Lord or not, then again, it lowers the stakes because it's not just the person who delivers has to be perfectly accurate, but a recognition the prophetic is a communal exercise. There's two dance partners involved, the one who delivers and those who weigh and together they find the heart of God together. So when you deliver, when you're practicing the prophetic, one of the ways you can help other people have permission to weigh is by not saying things like, thus say the Lord, which is too commanding, but rather really go low, go slow, I'm just learning, is they ask loads of questions? That's one of the things I do, especially when I'm prophesying over people who are not believers. I'll ask, hey, I had this sense that you're having some challenges in your relationship with your mom. It is, is that true or is that completely off? It could be really off. I'm a Christian, I'm learning to hear God, so this might be wrong, right? It's very low stakes. They have the ability to say yes or no in that moment. I would also say in terms of the platform that you use, keep it small when you're learning. So don't look to prophesy on your Sunday service if you've never prophesied in your small group. Don't look to prophesy in your small group if you've never prophesied over a friend over coffee. Don't prophesy over your friend over coffee if you've never journaled in the private place and heard God for yourself. Because if you can't hear what God is saying over you, you don't want to go to the next step of what is God saying over someone else. If you can't hear God for one person who you know well, you don't want to go to 20 people and so it's just taking things very gradually step by step. And I think sometimes we get disappointed in the prophetic, both in the practice of it and in the receiving of it. Because we've we're jumping steps. Obviously this isn't a formula. It's just, I believe it's just kind of basic wisdom. Gradually take things, learn things step by step. You're not going to go into grade six before you go into grade one. We do these things in the natural so instinctively. And yet in the supernatural, I believe we sometimes kind of go a little bit upside down as if God's got very chaotic systems all the time. Of course, he interrupts flow. Of course, he does things sometimes seemingly randomly. But often he loves systems. Often he's very ordered. And so I think when we're practicing, unless God says something so completely different, it makes perfect sense for us to order ourselves and how we grow in in the context that we choose to practice in. Yeah, I love that. Yeah, I mean, I think it's so important that we step into the risk of it all because I have just seen the benefit of being on the receiving end with some friends that stepped out and courage even in this last season. They're about a year ago. I was looking to make a big decision. And I feel like sometimes God in his grace and in his kindness speaks more loudly because he knows it's a big decision. And I really need him. And so there was about a year ago, there was a verse that got laid on the heart of a friend of mine. It was from Isaiah 54 and she called me and said, I just was praying and this verse came to mind for you. That's how she said it. But then I had two other friends, one in a different country and another one in a different state. None of these people knew each other that within the span of a month while I was making this decision said, Isaiah 54, two and three were laid on my heart for you. And it was just amazing to me because God knows I think our weakness and in that moment, I was battling with some insecurity and endowed. And he stepped in through the voices of other people to say, I want to reveal to you that you need to go in this direction. And it felt very safe. It was literally just repeating words of his scriptures to me. But it was an encouragement to all of us, not just to me. By the time the third person called and I said, you're the third person to give me this verse in a month. It was encouraging to them. It encouraged them to take more risk. And so I think about if those people had felt an edge and hadn't called me as what that would have meant for my life. Now I'm not saying God couldn't have used another way to speak to me. But often, I mean, all through the scriptures, he's using people. I had to remind myself of that when I was learning about the prophetic that scriptures were spoken through people. And all throughout the word, he's speaking through people. And so unless that completely stopped, it's his way often. And so I'm just really grateful for the people in my life who have taken the risk to say, I'm sensing and they've all been humble. I think that's what I heard from you is there's a humility in the way that you can deliver those words. And they were all very humble. I don't know, but I had the sense as I was reading or there was a weight to this as I was thinking about you. And so that really, that's something that I have written down in a book to look back on. You know, it marked a moment where I knew God cared and God cared to show me the way, but it was it was through people taking risk. And so, you know, in that instance, it was people delivering scripture. I know for me recently, I was I was on the delivering end and in a conversation with a friend and she said, I need your advice. I'm, you know, looking at these two choices of a way forward. And I'm I'm practicing what you're practicing, which is having a guy recently explained it as horse ears because horses can have ears that hear in two directions at once. Yes. I thought that was really cool to think about, but I'm I'm practicing like, how do I listen to my friend, but not just speak out of my own advice and actually be listening to what the Lord might want to say to this person. And, you know, she was saying, I have this choice. And I've just this choice. And what do you think? Should I do a or should I do b? And I was praying. And I felt a sense that wasn't it felt, um, it felt weightier than if it was my sense. And I don't know if that's, um, you know, Dallas Willard talked about God's voice having a weight. But there was something that came over me and made me slightly emotional as I delivered it. Like I wonder, I'm praying for for you even right now. I wonder about this third way forward. And this person got tears in their eyes and said, something about that just feels really right. And so it wasn't scripture, but it was, um, it was something particular for that person that I felt like came on me as I was praying and had a weight. Um, yes. How how else can it look like to deliver a prophetic word over someone? Um, those are two examples. Is there another example of how this is lived out or or types of prophetic words to deliver? Yeah. I mean, uh, I think God can speak in so many different ways of see where we're mentioning scripture or or a sense of weight over things. Uh, I sometimes find that, um, just like a random thought pops into my head. And it's not necessarily something I've never thought before, but it's certainly not what I was thinking before. Right. It's just, it's just something that's come in. The thing is with everything to do with, um, learning how to partner with Holy Spirit is that if you're not careful, you can ignore so many things that he is saying or so many ways he's trying to lead because we can, um, we can explain them away. Yeah. So, you know, random thoughts. Oh, I'm just thinking a random thought. I just happened to think about this thing. Yeah. Right. You, you can just, you explain it away. And I think in those moments, we actually miss a mode of which God is using to speak to us. So I will learn it over time when I'm speaking to someone and something completely left field just pops into my head. I've at least got to pursue that just for a moment. It might be a random thought. I'm not saying every time a random thought comes into your head is God. Uh, let's be clear. That's not the case. Not every thought in my head is God. But I, but, um, neither is it true that every random thought in my head is just a random thought. Sometimes it is God. And so it's worth pausing and saying, why don't we speak into you? Just like, I just had this thought. Are you going through this challenge or are you thinking about this thing? Right. It's worth pursuing it. The worst cases, the person just looks at you and goes, no, best cases. That person says, how did you know that? It's like, oh, and over time as we practice that, we learn to trust. Oh, when I get an interrupting thought that it obviously isn't negative. That isn't right. There's ways to weigh it. But I'm going to pursue that because I've learned over time when I'm speaking to someone and I feel, and I suddenly think about pain in a person's body. It's not just random. God is telling me this person has shoulder pain. Why don't you pray for them? Right. So you learn, you learn to steward those interrupting thoughts with a question. If the question isn't, no, you move on it. The question is, yes, you know, you're onto something with God. Another way that God, uh, that I've learned that God speaks to me. And again, I think we are also different. God uses different ways to speak to us. This isn't a formulae, but I have learned that if I, um, suddenly experience a pain in my body that was not there before just seemingly comes on randomly, either when I'm speaking to someone or sometimes in a kind of congregational setting, um, that actually oftentimes, that's not just because my body has decided to manifest knee pain in that moment. Um, but rather that God is trying to speak to me through my physical senses. God speaks to us through all of our senses about that other person. Yes. So sometimes, yeah. So, you know, God isn't just auditory. He's not just like, I'm going to, I speak verbally and your ears here. He gave us all our senses because he likes to speak through all of them. So the sense of touch is one that he uses. And I think it's one that we ignore because we don't think God will use that. Well, then, but God created it. He likes that sense just as much as he likes your sense of hearing. And he will use it. So there are many moments where I've suddenly had a seemingly random pain come upon my body. Yeah. And I've said to the person I'm speaking to, hey, do you happen to have hip pain? And they're like, how do you know that? Well, because my right hip just started hurting just as I started speaking to you. And wow. And then it's like, okay, God's in this place. Let's pray for your head, right? Or in meetings, I'll have that. And I'll say, I think I have a word of knowledge that there's someone in the room that they have this pain. Let's pray for it. Is it right all of the time? No. But does God see that I take those things seriously and pursue them? Yes. And the more he sees that, the more he entrusts me with that. So there's this, like it is snowball effect. God knows, you know what? That Katya Adams, whenever she feels it, she'll say it. So matters will let her feel it then, right? So that it becomes the reality of, are you a good steward of what you've been given you use? Then he goes, okay, more than more than each each moment grows. So that's another one to really pay attention to. What your body is feeling, aches and pains or a sense of weightiness. Sometimes it's just an inexplicable joy that comes on me as I'm speaking to someone. So I'll say, hey, I just got such a sense of joy as I was speaking to you. I feel like God wants to deposit joy to you. And he wants to let you know that he delights in your joy, right? So it's just sometimes these things are so small, but they have such a huge impact on the person of front of us. So listen to your body. Obviously, sometimes God speaks audibly. I've never had an audible encounter with God. But I know friends who hear a voice and it's God speaking to them. That shouldn't shock us. He of course he is able to speak out loud. So that might happen. I have some friends who see images in their mind's eye. Now, I think this is really important for the believer to understand that our imagination is a gift from God to see the heavenly realm. Ephesians 1, or it might be the beginning of Ephesians 2, it talks about Paul is praying and he talks about the eyes of the heart being open. Your imagination is the eyes of your heart. That's exactly what he's speaking into your imagination. And I think for many Christians, we believe almost our imagination to be in some ways negative, like a possible open door to sin, close off your imagination. As if God who created our imaginations did it just so that we would close the door on it. But the Bible gives us this understanding. God gave your heart eyes so that you would be able to imagine things which means internally see things that your physical eyes do not see. That doesn't make those things unreal. It actually more often than not if we understand the spiritual realm will recognize that our imaginations are tapping into something that is very real. It's just not in the physical realm. And I mean, I've got so many stories of this that I could tell you, things that I thought I'd imagined. And then I've seen happen in front of me, or places that I've encountered God in in the realm of my imagination, that I thought, oh, that's just a sweet, a sweet moment that doesn't mean something. And then someone else has said, I saw you in a garden with the Lord. And this is what the garden looked like. And it's exactly what I saw in the place of my imagination. And in those moments, you recognize of where our imagination is an open door way to the kingdom of heaven. And we ignore it because we misunderstand what God gave it to us. But if you start paying attention to the pictures that you see in your mind's eye, you'll find that, again, in stewarding of that, in stepping out gently with asking questions rather than declaring things, you'll find, oh, my imagination is actually a context where God is speaking to me. Wow. If he's not just speaking to me from me, he's speaking to me for other people. So if you get a random image in your imagination of someone, I don't know, someone getting a promotion, and you just see it, it's like this weird thing in your imagination. Don't just think, oh, my imagination is all sorts of things today. Think, oh, God might be using the realm of my imagination. That image that I saw may well be of means of God speaking to me. Anyway, I could go on forever, but there's loads of different ways. I have little fireworks going on inside myself. I think just as a creative, I've just noticed that even just the birthing of ideas, creative energy can be patronized sometimes in the church. And to think, I do, my friend David has said our imaginations just can be a neutral vessel that God placed there. And of course, we can use it for evil. And of course, we can use it in ways that are flippant or not really worthy of the cause of his creation. But of course, God can use it to birth ideas for His kingdom and to birth ideas that we need to deliver to other people. And that, I don't know, that's just really exciting to think about. God using our imaginations for great purpose. Yeah, my husband Julian says, and obviously, this is to be taken with a, not with a pinch of salt, but with an understanding of what he is saying and not what he's not saying. But he says our imaginations are the blank check of heaven. And there is an element. Ephesians 3 says, God will do more than we think we ask and we imagine. And there is permission in that. Like God, God doesn't say things that he doesn't mean. And he means what he says. And sometimes we act like, oh, oh, God just went overboard there. He doesn't really mean it. We start pastoring our people. Don't, don't imagine things and then act like your imagination is important. It's not. It's like, well, actually, Ephesians 3 invites people into a place to partner with God. Of course, this isn't just getting entitled because that's ignoring multiple other scriptures, right? But in the tension of scripture, Ephesians 3 invites us into a space where we start using our imaginations in partnership with Holy Spirit to start seeing things that we literally can never dream of. So I remember going through a season where I said to the Lord, I'm going to take you seriously on this verse. And he sees our hearts. He sees if we're being just entitled, spoil children, right? Or if we're genuinely trying to partner with him in faith. And I said to him for a season, I'm going to almost like play a game where I imagine miracles. I'm going to imagine the things I dream of. And I would just like close my eyes and I would imagine myself laying hands on a layman and seeing him stand up and walk. And I would, I would go through the whole imagining, right? If you can fantasize about lots of things, why don't we fantasize about this? And I see miracles about seeing the kingdom come about. I would imagine myself coming into a secular workplace and saying to my coworker, "Hey, do you want to hear about Jesus?" And I would imagine them saying, "Yes." And then I would imagine myself preaching the gospel. And so I spent a season, and I want to see even as I'm saying this, I'm like, I need to imagine more for Boston. I haven't done this in a while. But I'm spending time with the Lord. And I would do this. And I would say, "God, I stand on Ephesians three." You say you would do beyond my imagining. Well, I want to see the blind healed. And I want to see the deaf healed. And I want to see people come to faith. And in my imaginations, I am giving those to you. But the thing is right, once you've done that, you've got to start praying for the sick. You've got to start being willing to open up your mouth and say, "Do you want to hear about Jesus?" Because then it's up to me to take the first step of seeing the snowball effect of those imaginations. But it's a beautiful place to be. We hope that you're enjoying this episode so far. If you're finding this conversation helpful, we want you to know that we have a dedicated app full of resources and opportunities to connect with people around the world. We want to see God's kingdom expand right where they are. It's through the generosity of people just like you that we're able to offer everything for free. If you would like to begin partnering with us through a one-time gift or a recurring gift, you can do so at dwellings.info/give or simply click the link in the podcast show notes. Thanks again for listening. Now let's get back to the conversation. What's exciting about all of this is like when I think about, you know, he's listening and he cares about all that we ask for. There's a sense, you know, I'm not usually going to ask, you know, in the middle of my day for something I've never seen before. And I'm not going to normally ask outside the realm of the certain boxes that I've seen him work in before. But when I think about and giving him what I imagine, but also letting him inform what I imagine, having space with him and saying, help me fill my imagination for your kingdom. I'm thinking about, you know, I'm just throwing out like Nehemiah in the Bible. I mean, it doesn't talk about what happened before he went and asked to build the wall. But I'm sure there was a period, you know, if he hadn't seen someone do that before, ask everyone in the town to help build a wall. He was probably spending time with the Lord and had an image given to him. I'm assuming in his imagination to even know what to go ask for. So, you know, if we're stuck with the, hey, I'm just going to ask and we don't spend time imagining, maybe our ask might be too small or it might be too much in a box or it might be asking for things that are good, but maybe not beyond, yeah, what we've seen or or what we've experienced. So I just love the thought of like a holy imagination. Yes. And you know where it gets really fun is that and God does do this when he sees that we are stewarding spaces in our lives and our hearts for for kingdom adventure. He meets us in those places even if we're unaware of it. So say I'm, I'm spending some time every day imagining different miracles. Well, the thing is about God, he may well sneak into your imagination, a real person. Now, you think you've just had this, you've imagined this whole scenario, but what if you leave your office building and you see the person that you thought you just imagined. But actually, God meets you in the realm of your imagination because of course he does. And he starts actually speaking to you and what you think you initiated, you find that actually he was co-initiating. And then I guess really fun because I just imagined this person being healed. I thought he was make believe turns out he's real and God is inviting me to pray over him, right? Now we're into a very different nature of adventure. And I think, wow, I honestly think God desires this for his children. I just think too many of us are too scared to allow ourselves to lean into spaces we can't control. You've got to keep inviting his lordship. You know, I'm not saying check your brains out. I'm not saying lack discernment. I teach on discernment. I'm not saying become entitled. That is unbiblical and ungodly. But I am saying for the believer who truly believes that God speaks, we have to lean in. I think more than we often do. Yeah. And I, there's this parable that Jesus tells. I think it's in Matthew 25 and it's the parable of the talents and the servants and I'm sure will be familiar to many of us and the master gives different talents, different servants. And the first two do great things. The last one, he hides his talent and he says this to the master. I knew you to be a hard man. Therefore, I was afraid and hid my talent. Fascinating in that parable is that the master is not a hard man. The parable communicates to us that the master is anything but a hard man. He is a generous man. But the wording from the servant is incredibly important. The servant's perception of the master led to two things, led to the servant being afraid and led to the servant being paralyzed. He was so afraid that he just hid. He could not do anything else. And I believe for many believers, we see God as harder than he is. As harder to please than he actually is. Hebrews 11 lays it out for us. Guys, it's not performance that pleases him. It's fake. That should be the most relieving concept to every Christian that he's not looking for an A+ performance. He's just looking for my heart to be postured in play. The rest he can deal with. But so many of us believe him to be so hard to please. So difficult to follow that we are afraid and then we are paralyzed. We get locked in. We hide the talent rather than invest it because what if it goes wrong? Well, if you believe master is generous, if you believe the master is forgiving, if you believe the master is easy to please, though what if it goes wrong isn't so scary because he think, well, he'll forgive me. He'll be generous with me. He'll be kind with me. He'll see my heart. But if you believe the master to be hard, then you'll never take the risk because what if it goes wrong means that he'll punish me, means that he'll shout at me. What we perceive about the character of God, you know, bringing this all back to prophecy will determine whether we are willing to take the risk or not. Because if you believe he is difficult to please, you will never take the risk of prophecy. If you believe he's actually incredibly easily delighted by our ridiculous, childlike attempts, then you'll take this step because what could possibly go wrong? My daddy is so thrilled he is smiling so broadly as he sees little old Katya taking risks with only a 5% success rate that he has delighted. And he's going to teach me how to do that better. And for anyone who's saying, oh, but that will cause problems for others, it won't, if you take those risks in question form, then it's not going to hurt other people. You're doing it gently enough, not to hurt others, and you're doing it risk-takingly enough to delight the heart of God. That for me is a wonderful invitation. Oh, it's a wonderful invitation. So if we can get past the risk factor and the thoughts in our head of what could go wrong, and we can talk ourselves out of, you know, taking steps in the prophetic, tell us what could go right? Like what are the things in our communities that will experience as we grow in the prophetic? What is the fruit of that? Well, I mean, we're asking what is the fruit of allowing God's voice to interrupt and so into our communities? I mean, the fruit is endless because suddenly in our lives, in our practical day-to-day, in our jobs, we're allowing the perspective of God to infiltrate our perspective. And the thing about God's perspective is that it allows for solutions that we would never find on our own. It allows for the miraculous to break in in a way that is not humanly possible. And so suddenly, actually, it's the prophetic, I believe, that unlocks the realm of the impossible, not only in our own lives, but in other people's lives, because it starts speaking in possibilities as if they are possible. And as soon as you start doing that, you create an open doorway in the spirit realm when you're inviting men and women to operate in faith, to steward that thing. It changes the game entirely. So I think of Mordecai speaking to Esther and Esther four. Mordecai says, "What if Esther you were made for such a time as this?" Now, we know from reading the scripture from this side that actually that was God speaking destiny over this woman, so that she would stand up and do something unthinkable actually in her day, unthinkable in many ways in our day. And that's the power of the prophetic. This woman, who believes she can't, woman that believes it's impossible, woman believes that she cannot possibly do anything that would be significant. Because that was the reality of the culture of her day, even as a queen, she had no power. And then you get this voice that interrupts that cultural narrative, and actually speaks to her the thoughts of God. Hey, Esther, what if what your culture is saying? What if the problem before you isn't the whole story? What if there's a different narrative in this story? And we see that that one interruption from Mordecai changes her stance from, "No, it's not possible to, okay, I'll go to the game." And literally the destiny of the nation shifts in that one moment. When we talk about what is the possible fruit of the prophetic, it's that. It's not just that I might have a better day, although it is also that. It's not just that my job might go better, although it is also that. But there are going to be moments as we learn to steward the prophetic where we bring a word that we might not think is that significant. Maybe Mordecai didn't even realize that sentence would be so significant as to shift everything in that moment, right? It's a pretty simple thing to say to somebody. Yeah. But when we allow the words of God to break out of our mouths, anything is possible. Wow. We're sowing something that will bear fruit that we cannot possibly imagine. Yeah. But it will come to pass because the words of God in our mouth are incredibly powerful. And he's inviting us to unleash them wherever we go. Yeah, because he says in First Corinthians, he desires that we'll all grow in the prophetic, but he says it's for the building and the edification of the church. It's not. It's for us, like hearing God's voice is a privilege. It's to accomplish, you know, his purpose is on earth, but the most clear purpose that he gives is to edify and build up the church around us, build up our communities. And I just have to tell you after this conversation, as we close, I'm super encouraged by the ways you're even speaking about getting outside of some boxes that I've had. And I think it's just we have to encourage one another and step into this because we're just pulled back into the natural realm so much and lack faith in the supernatural, you know, even as much as I talk about it and teach about it, I still have to be encouraged to remember that there's always supernatural going on that God always has more as another dimension. And he's beyond the boxes that we often have. So I just thank you so much for opening up our our imaginations for helping us understand the prophetic. And I thank you for the gift that you are not only in Boston, but through frequency and all of your videos that go out and also just just your voice as a female in the church. I think it's super important. I feel like that verse, the second Chronicles one that I referred to earlier when God's eyes are roaming about the earth just looking for for someone whose eyes are earnestly or whose hearts are earnestly seeking him. He looks down and he sees you and he he smiles. And so thank you for sharing with us today. Thank you. Thank you so much. It's been a joy being here. (upbeat music)