We used to have this man in our community named Michael. He would come towards us, look deeply into our eyes and tell us things that happened in our past – things nobody would know. And he spoke about things we were processing in our hearts and he even gave us words for our future . . . It was impressive and always resonated with our hearts. And it always made us hungry for more . . . more of God, more of the prophetic.

Whenever we invited Michael to our discipleship group or our house church, everyone wanted him to give a prophetic word. And he did. Most of the times Michael prophesied over each and everyone . . . what a privilege! Even though we knew that every believer can hear God’s voice, the level of his prophetic gift seemed far away from what could be reached by us in our lifetime. We didn’t seem to hear the voice of God that clear, that detailed, or even that fast.

After we moved to Redding, one of our first experiences with the prophetic happened when we met a BSSM student because we wanted to buy his car. Shortly after we met him, he asked us: “Can I give you a prophetic word?” Of course, he could! He started telling us about some tough things that just happened before we came to Redding and that God would give us the rest we desperately needed. He continued speaking life and truth over us. We were deeply moved.

Something like “Some day I want to encourage people like this” went through our minds . . .

Even though we were hungry for the prophetic, I tried to avoid giving prophetic words throughout the whole first year of BSSM. We would rather lead a team to the streets to evangelize or to minister to the poor people than giving a prophetic word to an individual.

As our 2nd year of BSSM started, we were challenged to give prophetic words to the incoming first year students. I was nervous, almost scared. Therefore, I went for really simple encouraging words and I was surprised how many times my words were spot on. By the end of the afternoon someone would introduce me as “the prophet” – I thought that was funny.

A bit later, I was challenged to be part of a team that prophesies over different local business owners. Again, I was nervous. But the more I decided to take a risk and speak out what came to my mind while I was listening to God, the more I figured out that it actually worked out. Prophesying wasn’t that difficult at all!

Two years after coming to Bethel we find ourselves being part of the prophetic team and prophesying at the Heaven in Business conference. On our second day most of the people we prophesied for were moved to tears. And it was amazing to see how God was obviously using us.

What was far away from being reached became now part of our daily life.

By Emanuel and Sylvia Sieber