Modern Day Prophets?
Nathanael Berends October 7th, 2007
This morning I hiked up to the top of Queen Anne and went to church at Bethany Presbyterian for the first time. All throughout the service, there was a man sitting next to me, scribbling furiously in a notebook. His handwriting was fast, without regard for form or accuracy. He was writing what appeared to be coming to the top of his mind.
I would later discover that his name is Jason, and a few of those pages he was scribbling were for me.
This bring me to a question. Do prophets exist in today’s world? I completely believe that they do! To think that God is not still using people to speak truth into the lives of others just doesn’t make sense to me. And so all arguement about whether Jason is a prophet or not can be ignored right now–but the question is indeed a good one.
After the service, Jason shared with me a cliff-notes version of the full letter that he gave to me. A good deal of what he said to me was pretty spot on. And this could be for one of two reasons.
The Oedepus Effect–i.e. self fulfilling prophesey–states that, more or less, a situation becomes as real as you expect it to be. To this extent, did some part of me want to believe Jason’s words to be truth, such that I would find and even stretch reality to provide paralells in my own experience? There surely must be some psychological rule about this.
Therefore, I am forced to conclude either the aforementioned fact, or that Jason was indeed placed in my life (assumedly by God), in order to share with me words of importance.
In other words, he’s either nuts, or a man of God. Are there really any other options?
Click below to see the whole letter. Read it if you wish. And if you know me at all, I’d be very interested to hear your reaction to this event.
What a great prophesy & blessing! My personal thought is that we are always surrounded by grace which manifests in many forms. There is also always the possibility that Jason is BOTH nuts and a man of God. You’ve been given a gift which is exactly what it is.
love
Mom
PS The psychological term is the “drive for cognitive consonance”.
Nate,
Randomly Clicked on your facebook and then on this blog today.
I just read Acts 16:16-40 Paul and Silas were able to set people free from chains and bring people to the Lord simply with an act of prayer and worship.
I think this really lines up with what Jason spoke about you setting people free from evil, it come through perseverance, Paul and Silas were in prison… they had been beat badly, but still there was the power of the Holy Spirit in them to praise God and set prisoners free.
Hope you are encouraged.
Lisa