A Prophet is Rarely Recognized in His Own Family
By: Laurel Aiyana
Spiritual gifts are still looked upon by far too many in the world with some reservation, more so in Western civilization. Such is the case in my family. Raised Catholic, my parents believed in the Augustinian theory of cessation of the gifts after the days of Jesus and his apostles shortly after his death. At age 36, I was born again, and departed from Catholicism for empowered Evangelicals. As with Jesus, whose own brothers, at first anyway, thought He was a nut. My own family treated me like an outcast, regularly mock me, and don’t value my spiritual gifting.
Spiritual gifts are blessings from God to be used to bless others as an instrument of the Lord. My gifting is more in healing and intercessory work, but in working within these gifts, the Lord will give me prophecy to share with people. I pray for increased spiritual gifts as a regular part of my prayers.
Gradually, as members of my family have come to the Lord, these people have come to embrace me for who I am. Jesus’ brother James was thought to be the author of the book of James in the bible. One saved member does infect the rest of the body. I keep prayer that it further infects my own family, but some of the hearts have been difficult to penetrate. They won’t outrun my prayers though. God can penetrate the hardest hearts. He got through to me, and my hide was pretty thick.
As I’ve grown in spiritual maturity, I have learned to forgive my persecutors, even those in my family for all the poisoned darts that flung my way. They far more easily roll off my back. I take suffering for my faith as a sign that I’m on track spiritually. The devil doesn’t need to attack those he already calls his own. The harder the attack, the better I must be doing. That thought gets me through the hard times. I know blessings must be over the next hill, or I’m ready to come up to a new spiritual level. As many preachers say, “new level, new devil.” How true that phrase is. I want to thank everyone who persecuted me. You’ve made me that much stronger in the Lord, as for a while, He was all I had, and He is my sufficiency.
Copyright (c) 2004 Laurel Aiyana. All rights reserved.
At age 41, I have begun the process of reinventing myself, and follow my life-long passion to write. For years, I held what I thought was the responsible job as an IT administrator to pay the bills, but I sacrificed a piece of my soul. Now I hope to fulfill my real dream.
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