In the prophetic workshops I have been running this term, I have encouraged students to try lots of different “listening challenges” set as homework each week. I have made sure I also do the challenges – I’m a student too! Always will be. Doing the challenges has been fun and profound and powerful. I’m discovering that practice is a gift, not a curse!!
The challenge that most stands out to me had a “ripple effect” I couldn’t have anticipated!
It involved asking Jesus for the name of someone who follows Him and encouraging them with the special fragrance of Jesus they personally carry and release to others. (based on the verse in 2 Corinthians v 15).
The person’s name I had in mind was someone I trained with on a residential course last year. We became friends through the course, but this friend lives quite some distance away from me and, with the added challenges of Covid, we have only “met” occasionally online or by phone.
As I asked Holy Spirit about the special aroma this lady carries, I had both a taste and an aroma all at the same time – it was sherbet!! I haven’t tasted sherbet for years, probably decades, but there it was, unmistakable, even though not a single lollipop or sweet was in sight. It’s so cool how you can taste and smell things in the Spirit that aren’t there in the natural! As I asked Holy Spirit more about it, I felt He highlighted a few special aspects of sherbet – that it carries a “a tang”, along with its sweetness. My friend not only connects people to previous childhood joys but also imparts a “fizz” that brings out new energy and zest for life in those she encounters. She also releases an unforgettable “zing”, which is the release of Truth, sweetly given.
I also sensed that my friend’s sherbet taste/aroma stirs earlier memories in people she meets who had once tasted the sweetness of Jesus in childhood but have lost the taste of Him in adult years. As they taste Jesus again, this taste will linger and even be visible to others – just as those who have enjoyed sherbet powder have visible signs of it all around their mouth!
I prayed blessing over my message as I tapped it out – then pressed SEND!
A few days later I heard back from this lovely friend. She was so encouraged by the sensory word I had sent her. It brought out in her a fresh boldness to walk in the identity highlighted in the sherbet message. This boldness was such that, in meeting with a client she had been helping, she was emboldened to ask this person if they would like to receive Jesus personally – and that person said YES! My friend is not an evangelist, pastor or professional church worker. But, the power of a prophetic word based around a childhood sweet, gave her the courage to invite someone else to taste and receive the God who is so good!
One thing my friend specially mentioned was that her client had once lived in another country as a child and remembers being taken to a lively church where she tasted the sweetness of Jesus, many decades earlier. Though she had lost the taste of Jesus in her adult years, my friend was reviving the taste of this childhood joy all these years later, through her prophetically emboldened, everyday role.
I hope this little story encourages you to see the power of making all our senses available to Jesus, and how the revelation that comes through this, however simple and seemingly trivial, can powerfully bless others and have untold ripple effect – even to them becoming part of His beautiful, big Heavenly family! Hallelujah! What a wonderful Saviour!