Give your gifts, talents, and passions to the Lord, and watch Him brilliantly exceed your expectations with flying colors!
First Encounters
One day nearly seven years ago, I walked into the most wonderfully strange and strikingly fascinating church. After what felt like years of communing with God one-on-one in my own little cave, the Lord slowly began introducing me to people that were just as peculiar in their relationship with the Lord as I was. When I walked through the doors of this church, I immediately recognized the presence of God. I had felt it before in my own room, but never at church. After I recognized His presence, the second thing I noticed was the response of the people in the room to His presence. I had never seen anything like it—it was a people worshiping Jesus in spirit and in truth. They brought their whole hearts to the surface, worshiping God with their own instruments, their own dance, and their own song, and the Lord was multiplying their joy as they worshiped (Psalm 11:16). They didn’t seem to follow their own agenda, but the Spirit, and though every person was worshiping in their own way, there was still inexplicable unity.
The last thing that caught my eye was the paintings that lined the walls. I wondered where they came from, and what purpose they served. I studied each one, perplexed, knowing they were all rich with meaning, but couldn’t seem to unravel them. All I knew was that the glory of God radiated from each canvas. I remember one painting I saw had a dove of many colors, and shimmering with gold. I saw another that portrayed trees growing on hills of differing heights, but the trees were all the same height. Finally, I asked my friend, “What is this?” He replied, “Oh, this is prophetic artwork. Some people here paint what they feel like the Lord is showing them, then it gets hung up on a wall so it can bless others.” I was amazed. Then my eyes wandered to the back corner of the room where I saw an easel, canvases, and other art supplies. That corner looked like home, and I wondered what it would be like to worship God in that way. Despite being wildly in love with art since I could hold a pencil, doing that myself never crossed my mind. I just admired the concept from a distance. However, if I’ve learned anything from God, it’s that He wouldn’t expose us to things like this unless He had plans of one day accomplishing it through us.
My Turn
Fast forward a few years, and I found myself in a church in college that felt every bit as home, much like the church I visited in Dallas. They also hosted the presence of God, and along with it, stewarded a healthy culture of hearing God’s voice. There, I had an overwhelming sense of being at the right place at the right time, and with the right people. I had met my mentors at this time—a husband and wife team that pastored the church.
One day, we had an event at the church where we worshiped and prayed for God to move mightily at an event we were hosting. Suddenly, I heard His voice. “I want you to paint for Me.” “Wait, what?” I thought to myself. “I want you to paint for Me,” He repeated. “No way,” I thought. “This can’t be God. First of all, how am I supposed to paint when I don’t even have my supplies with me? They’re 3 hours away!” He still spoke to me as I continued to make excuses (you know you’re hearing the voice of God if you want to argue with it!). He said “Paint my peace. Paint my joy. Paint my love. Paint my words.” Still in disbelief, I blew off the voice. There was no way that, if this was Him, I could do what He was asking. I had no supplies. I thought it was impossible, that is, until the next day rolled around.
My pastor, not knowing the back-and-forth conversation I had with the Lord, approached me and asked “Would you like to paint prophetically on stage?” I raised my eyebrows. “I have an easel, paint, brushes, and even canvases. You can start this weekend if you want to.” I instantly felt foolish because of my unbelief the day before. Oh, how patient the Lord is toward us! Once I settled down from the initial shock of the Lord actually responding to my excuses through a man that knew nothing of that conversation, I eagerly said “YES!”
I’ll admit, throughout that journey of painting prophetically on stage, I didn’t always hear the Lord’s voice correctly. It’s still a learning process! However, when I did hear Him correctly, it was really impactful. Many times, the Lord would show me or tell me about the message that was being preached before the pastor preached it, or a prophetic word before it was prophesied, and mind you, no one could tell what I was painting as I was painting, so I had no influence on these messages whatsoever. It was simply the Lord working through all of us to unite the body of Christ and confirm His words!
Some of my favorite experiences as a “prophetic painter” were when the Lord gave me dreams for me to paint. There were several instances where He gave me a dream, then I would paint it that weekend. But the story I’m about to share with you about one of these instances blows my mind to this day. I’m still baffled. I hope when you read this, you get a revelation about how cool God really is, and how His works bypass mere logic and reasoning.
The Dreams
One night, I had a dream that I was standing outside in front of a table. The table had an open book, facing me, ready for me to read it. In it, I read what God was planning to do in the next season, not just for me, but worldwide. They were prophecies. I don’t remember everything I read, but one phrase stuck out to me in particular. “The Lord is going to release His mantles of fire in this season,” it read. I woke up, unable to get the words “mantles of fire,” out of my head. “What even is that?” I asked myself. “I don’t remember seeing that in the Word anywhere, but I know a mantle is a head covering that ancient Jews used to wear, and that mantles have prophetic significance in the story of Elijah and Elisha, because when Elijah was caught up, Elisha took Elijah’s mantle and was able to do twice the amount of miracles he did (2 Kings 2). But what on earth is a mantle of fire?” I had been in charismatic Christian culture for a while, and had never heard this phrase, but my pastor had been immersed in this culture a lot longer, so I asked him if he had ever heard of such a thing, and I told him my dream. He couldn’t even answer my question because I had shocked him. He told me that he had a dream the other night, and in part of the dream, he was sitting on a bench outside with the Lord, and the Lord had a book in His hand. He didn’t open it, but told him how He was about to release His mantles of fire. He didn’t prophesy about it and kept it to himself because he wasn’t even sure what it meant, but after we both had similar dreams about the Lord telling us the exact same thing, I knew exactly what I was going to paint that weekend, even though I still had no idea what it meant. All I knew was that it must have been important to the Lord.
The following is the result:
What Does it Mean?
A couple weeks went by after I painted a “mantle of fire.” I kept probing the Lord about it, hoping He would tell me what it is, what it means, and what the implications of it are. No response. Personally, I wouldn’t have minded if He didn’t tell me. The fact that He had shown my pastor and I the same thing was good enough for me. But He didn’t stop there.
I was riding the bus after I finished a day of classes. I did what I typically do and scrolled through Facebook to help pass the time. Previously, I had found a prophetess on Facebook who hears the same things from the Lord that I do. I follow her page because she helps me confirm some of the things that I already heard from the Lord, so I feel as though she’s trustworthy, but I digress. I saw one of her prophetic words pop up on my feed, so I opened it. I read it and read it, then I read something that made me almost pop out of my seat. There was a whole section of it titled “MANTLES OF FIRE.” I couldn’t believe my eyes. The Lord had told someone all the way in AUSTRALIA the same thing, but she actually had the explanation. Finally, I had found out what this meant. Excitement and faith bubbled up in me as I continued to read. For me personally, this word has continual relevance in my life. In fact, she even reposted it recently at a time when I had almost forgotten about it, and yet again, the timing of her reposting it was impeccable. It's too long to incorporate into this post, but you can read it here:
The Lord took something I witnessed many years ago that seemed like a beautiful and farfetched idea, brought me into it, and expanded it beyond my wildest imagination. He gave me the gift of art when I was born, I gave it back for Him to use for His glory, and He multiplied it in my hands. I think the people that say that God is boring don’t really know Him. It’s because of times like those that I’ve shared with you in this post that have convinced me that knowing Him is truly the greatest adventure one could ever choose to embark. Not only that, but He's the most creative and artistic Person I've ever met!
Stay tuned for more blog posts regarding the stories behind some of my other prophetic paintings!
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