Soul Bait Ministries...equipping, healing, planting
 | |  | |  | |  | |  | |  |
A Testimony from Hearing God's Voice
| Jonathan P. Hearing God’s Voice Level 1 Graduate, 2006 |
Several months after I had graduated from the Hearing God’s Voice Level 1 class that
I took under Scott Lathrop, I was at a ministry called EPIC Surf Ministry on a Thursday
night for their regular service. After the meeting ended, the pastor tapped me on the
shoulder and asked me to grab a couple of people and go pray for the people
standing over by the door. Not knowing the need or anything, I said ok, being
obedient.
So I grabbed two other leaders at EPIC and we went over and started talking to them –
a mom and two boys, one in his teens and the other about eleven. We asked what
was going on and how they were doing. They said: We’re really going through a hard
time right now. My sons and I are not getting along. We’re about to go on a long
journey in a car and we just need some prayer because we’re at each other all the
time. I asked them if they had any other specific needs. The mom shared the needs.
Then the other leaders asked if I wanted to go first. Instead, I had them pray first,
because I wanted to seek the Lord and listen and hear God’s voice.
I didn’t want to jump in and pray for these people without getting instructions from
God. So while the other leaders prayed for them, I prayed in tongues. God started to
speak to me about what He wanted to talk to them about. He had a whole lot to say to
the mom, and He showed me a picture that He wanted to share with the younger
boy.
When the two leaders finished, I told the mom that God wanted to tell her something
and asked if I could share it with her. She said yes. I stepped out in faith and said
exactly what God wanted me to say to her. He was speaking straight to her. She
began crying because God was speaking to her, and what He said impacted her so
deeply.
Then I spoke to the 11-year-old boy. I relayed to him the picture God had showed me,
and explained to him God’s love for him and desire to commune with him. For the first
time, the boy understood the plan of salvation! God used me to snatch this boy out of
the darkness!
I was so stoked and humbled and blessed. This was a boy who was not your
everyday, regular American person, or someone who’s been going to church that’s
not saved. This was someone from the Muslim faith – radical Islam! – getting
snatched from the darkness at a young age! This boy and his family were fleeing for
their lives because their father is a radical Muslim and their mother had chosen to
serve Jesus Christ. This boy had never heard anything good about Jesus. The father
would say, “If you pray to Jesus, you won’t get any candy, you won’t get any presents,
you won’t get anything. But if you pray to Allah, he’ll give you everything, and I’ll buy you
this and I’ll buy you that.” The mother was fleeing with the children because she
wanted her boys to be free and grow up in the freedom of Jesus Christ, and get out of
the oppression that their father had put them in.
That’s one person. Who knows what will happen? Who knows how that person will
influence other Islamic people to come to know Christ, the true, living God?
I could not have done this by myself. I could not have understood or even known what
to say or do without stopping, hearing God and listening to His voice, and stepping out
on faith when what I’m hearing or seeing doesn’t make any sense personally to me.
But because of having faith to act in obedience to what God wanted to do, and being
God’s mouthpiece in that situation to say exactly what God was showing me for each
person, their lives were changed, and darkness was overcome by light.
So, for people out there, I just say be obedient to God and listen. Listen to God. Listen
for God. Ask God to help you, and you won’t have to come up with something to say on
your own when you are in a place where someone needs to be ministered to or
needs help.
I took under Scott Lathrop, I was at a ministry called EPIC Surf Ministry on a Thursday
night for their regular service. After the meeting ended, the pastor tapped me on the
shoulder and asked me to grab a couple of people and go pray for the people
standing over by the door. Not knowing the need or anything, I said ok, being
obedient.
So I grabbed two other leaders at EPIC and we went over and started talking to them –
a mom and two boys, one in his teens and the other about eleven. We asked what
was going on and how they were doing. They said: We’re really going through a hard
time right now. My sons and I are not getting along. We’re about to go on a long
journey in a car and we just need some prayer because we’re at each other all the
time. I asked them if they had any other specific needs. The mom shared the needs.
Then the other leaders asked if I wanted to go first. Instead, I had them pray first,
because I wanted to seek the Lord and listen and hear God’s voice.
I didn’t want to jump in and pray for these people without getting instructions from
God. So while the other leaders prayed for them, I prayed in tongues. God started to
speak to me about what He wanted to talk to them about. He had a whole lot to say to
the mom, and He showed me a picture that He wanted to share with the younger
boy.
When the two leaders finished, I told the mom that God wanted to tell her something
and asked if I could share it with her. She said yes. I stepped out in faith and said
exactly what God wanted me to say to her. He was speaking straight to her. She
began crying because God was speaking to her, and what He said impacted her so
deeply.
Then I spoke to the 11-year-old boy. I relayed to him the picture God had showed me,
and explained to him God’s love for him and desire to commune with him. For the first
time, the boy understood the plan of salvation! God used me to snatch this boy out of
the darkness!
I was so stoked and humbled and blessed. This was a boy who was not your
everyday, regular American person, or someone who’s been going to church that’s
not saved. This was someone from the Muslim faith – radical Islam! – getting
snatched from the darkness at a young age! This boy and his family were fleeing for
their lives because their father is a radical Muslim and their mother had chosen to
serve Jesus Christ. This boy had never heard anything good about Jesus. The father
would say, “If you pray to Jesus, you won’t get any candy, you won’t get any presents,
you won’t get anything. But if you pray to Allah, he’ll give you everything, and I’ll buy you
this and I’ll buy you that.” The mother was fleeing with the children because she
wanted her boys to be free and grow up in the freedom of Jesus Christ, and get out of
the oppression that their father had put them in.
That’s one person. Who knows what will happen? Who knows how that person will
influence other Islamic people to come to know Christ, the true, living God?
I could not have done this by myself. I could not have understood or even known what
to say or do without stopping, hearing God and listening to His voice, and stepping out
on faith when what I’m hearing or seeing doesn’t make any sense personally to me.
But because of having faith to act in obedience to what God wanted to do, and being
God’s mouthpiece in that situation to say exactly what God was showing me for each
person, their lives were changed, and darkness was overcome by light.
So, for people out there, I just say be obedient to God and listen. Listen to God. Listen
for God. Ask God to help you, and you won’t have to come up with something to say on
your own when you are in a place where someone needs to be ministered to or
needs help.
| More to come! |
| Melissa L. Hearing God’s Voice Level 1 Graduate, 2007 |
| Click below for more testimonies! |
| Satu N. Hearing God’s Voice Level 1 Graduate, 2007 |
| Cathy H. Hearing God’s Voice Level 1 Graduate, 2007 |