On Being Called "Prophet"...

...publicly for the first time: it is strange. I've had You operate in my life in such a way that I myself in my private heart feel that label raining down on me. I've even had it implied by the things I offer to my family, though they haven't actually stamped me with that label. But now, I walk down the hall, and I greet a co-worker: "Hello, Keith..." and he says back, "Hello, Prophet..." and the conversation ensues. He deeply believes this profession he made over me; he also says I scare people, because not many people operate the way I do in this day. He remembers a couple or three times when I've come to him personally and said, "I want to pray for you..." and then I proceed to pray for Your will to blanket concerns he'd kept private, ones he had not told me, nor much of anyone except his wife. She also at first is stunned as she hears my words while I pray over him. One of these times, I see their eyes, and I say, "What, was I right on the money?" They laughed about how I addressed things they spoke of in the privacy of the bedchamber, but not really elsewhere. I said, "Well, that's God for you. Affirming from an unlikely source that He heard your prayer," to which they agreed.

In fact, since then, this man's wife is a person God has graciously given to me as a prayer partner. As such, she hears more of the things God plants in my heart than what just relate to her or her husband, and she is also convinced of this assignment to the office of prophet. (Which even now sounds too elevated a title for the likes of me.) I wonder what this means. It is said that 2008 is a year of new beginnings, that "8" stands for the idea of new beginnings, or more Biblically speaking, represents resurrection. What will begin for me this year, God?

I know that You are calling me out to share what You tell me with people less "familiar" to me. For instance, I was driving along the other day and noticed a man in a truck next to me at a stop light, and he looked to be in great distress. I observed him, thinking, "Why that looks just like T." And God said to me, "Yes, and just as much as that man is stopped and in distress, so is T. You should pray for him." For a week, I prayed for T. During that same week, I had a strange vision. One of those that is like the quick flash (almost subliminal) of an image, an image that "feels" like You, but comes so fleetingly that capturing it is similar to grasping after the string of a helium balloon inadvertently released. Often, the retrieval seems inadequate to the full detail of the picture, but I do seem able to draw back enough to bring the meaning to light. In this one, I saw a rectangular box filled with paper grass (the decorative kind of grass) and set with nine bars of soap. To the right side of these 3 rows of 3 bars, and nestled against the little wooden crate's side was a scrub brush, like a nail brush for a laborer to use when he cleans his hands from the grime of his work. The whole box had an old-fashioned barbershop look to it. So that week, I had this vision and I pray for this man--a man who is not necessarily common to my prayer life. At the end of the week, I learned that this man was indeed going through great distress at being stopped from a part-time job of responsibility he held--stopped through the repercussions of an error in judgment he made that ended up bringing a judgment on him that was without any offering of grace for continued employment at that time. I'd give more details, but don't want to be too specific to his situation. Anyway, as I reflected on the wonder of this prayer unction having come before I was privvy to the details, I felt God say to me, "That was soap bar number one." So it feels like 9 old-fashioned cleansings will visit men, cleansings that aren't necessarily comfortable--for the scrub brush had stiff bristles--but that nonetheless are designated as a gift. So with this in mind, I asked God for further clarification, for I felt led to share with this man's wife (a friend of mine) what were the details of this prayer call and this vision, for the sake of his encouragement and hope, even in the face of the despair of failure. The next morning, I came in my Bible-reading across this verse:

"Behold, I send My messenger,
And he will prepare the way before Me.
And the Lord, whom you seek,
Will suddenly come to His temple,
Even the Messenger of the covenant,
In whom you delight.
Behold, He is coming,"
Says the Lord of hosts.
2 "But who can endure the day of His coming?
And who can stand when He appears?
For He is like a refiner's fire
And like launderers' soap.
3 He will sit as a refiner and a purifier of silver;
He will purify the sons of Levi,
And purge them as gold and silver,
That they may offer to the Lord
An offering in righteousness. Malachi 3:1-3

I noted how the talk of a refiner's fire was singular, but the talk of launderers' soap was plural, making me once again see the nine bars as nine men. And in the end, I saw how this image serving as a "keyword" of connection brought something prophets of old would have said was a "word from the Lord" lifted straight out of scripture: once purged these ones designated for cleansing would be fit to bring an offering of righteousness to the Lord. Now as I share these things with "live" people and not just with You in my prayer closet, it is as if the experience were "new"all over again, for even though these things are now frequent for me, other people's eyes pop open wider at the hearing of this format of vision/scripture synthesis. They are either amazed at You, which is the appropriate response of one who believes in You as a living personality who is capable of such things...or they believe I'm weird or a charlatan.

I pray that if You are indeed going to publicize Your relationship with me into this new territory, I might be ready to face any of these responses when people meet You in me. Most of all, I pray that I might be ready to face the isolation that may come as people find You show me things that are indeed concerns they lay at Your feet, but ones they've not laid at anyone else's feet. May they not hold me at arm's length for fear of what I might "know" about them if You are indeed wanting to touch them through me. I know that the point is always You reaching out to them. I don't contrive personal judgments or connections with what You show me. YOu taught me early on that putting myself "in the stew" is wrong. Nevertheless, keep reminding me of this, too, God. Help me remember my place. Help me know when to speak and how to speak...as You Yourself once said in life--when You were in intimate sharing with Your disciples, You said: there's more I'd like to tell you, but right now you just can't bear it. Give me that side of wisdom that knows when and how much to say, especially alongside with this new unction to step out into a larger world.
Happy new year, God!