I grew up in the Presbyterian church. For anyone who is unfamiliar with the Presbyterians, it’s quite traditional. For me, we would go to church most Sunday’s, sing hymns, ask the Lord to forgive our sinfulness, and then go home and watch football. Suffice to say that for my entire upbringing, the concept that the God who created the entire universe could talk to me was quite a foreign concept.

It wasn’t until I met a very pretty girl named Jaime who was a self-proclaimed ‘lover of Jesus’ that I was even introduced to the idea. As I would hang around her and her family I began to hear them say phrases like, “Then the Lord told me…” or “I heard the Lord say…” Because I was so unfamiliar with the concept I thought to myself, “Do they actually hear an audible voice from Heaven telling them these things?”

Jaime and I began to date and she left to attend Bethel’s ministry school in Redding. A few months into her schooling I travelled to Redding to visit and got to attend class with her during what was called ‘prophetic week.’ During one of the sessions early in the week the class did a prophetic activation. The instructor told everyone to stand up and when I did, Jaime grabbed my arm and said, “You don’t have to do this if you don’t want to.” – knowing I may be uncomfortable with what we were about to do. I figured that I was already standing so why not give it a try. We were put in pairs of two and we had to stare into each other’s eyes listening for what the Lord wanted to say to that person. I was paired with an older gentleman named Paul.

The first thing I noticed about Paul were his astonishingly blue eyes. As I stared into them it felt like his eyes were as blue as the sea and I could dive into them and swim around. When it was my turn to share with him what God wanted to say, I found myself saying that he had so much depth and was a sea of wisdom and knowledge that would be a blessing to the younger students around him. Paul’s response to me was, “I’ve heard those exact words before so this is a confirmation from the Lord for me.” Have you ever heard someone use the phrase ‘mind explosion’? That’s what happened to me in that moment.

I realized for the first time that I had heard God speak and it’s not as scary or mystical as we can make it out to be. God wants to talk to us more than we realize, and the more people that realize their prophetic gifting, the more transformation can come to our world. Why? Because the prophetic carries the heart of the Father. Oh, and that very pretty girl, Jaime? She’s now my lovely wife.

By Blake Carlson