 When we are going through a process of prophetic development, the difficulties of the circumstances may cause us to wrongly define where we are in God. God is suddenly not doing what we think He should be doing and when, specifically, we think He should do it like, ah, bring relief to our situation? Our emotions get dragged down with the weight of our interpretation of how things are working out.
Well, it gets worse. Some Christians who happen to be less mature begin to make assessments based on their limited observation on the outward appearances. It goes something along these lines: If you're not rich or driving three BMWs you must not be doing enough "name it and claim it" and therefore are out of the will of God. Or if you've lost your job and have been unemployed for over two years, someone strangely feels led to tell you that you must be out of the will of God because you're not walking in His prosperity.
Baloney.
But – ho! – wait: maybe that baloney will give us some food for thought, and here's a concept: what if the Lord divinely and wisely allowed this to happen to develop faith for what He's wanting to birth in us during this process of prophetic development? You figure? Yes, and let's look at Abraham.
Before Abraham went by that name, he was an idol maker by the name of Abram (word has it that Abram was so fed up with idols around the shop that had mouths but couldn't speak and had ears but couldn't hear a word he said that Abram started kicking the idols around his shop in utter disgust – I've not been able to confirm this but would have enjoyed to travel back in time to witness this and maybe help him kick them around a bit.) God called Abram out of the land of the Chaldeans to give him not only as many descendants as the stars in the sky, but as large as the territory he was willing to walk, God was going to give it to him. Think of the spiritual landscape that God's having you currently walk out – it's bigger than you and much larger than you're comfortable with walking, but you notice that as your journey progresses the journey works on you.
God changes Abram's name from nobody to Abraham which means "father of many nations." Now Abram's in his 80's and his wife is just a few years younger. So imagine this old couple traveling along with their little caravan and someone rides up alongside and shouts, "Yo, Old-dude! What's your name again?" And Abraham had to give the guy an embarrassed look and respond, "Father of Many Nations" and there were absolutely no kids in the caravan! Or if Abraham had to purchase something and the store clerk said, "I'm sorry we don't have that in stock but we can take a down-payment. What's your name, sir?" Or when the receptionist picks up. "I'm sorry, he's not in but I can take a message. Your name, sir?"
Often God has us confess Him – who He is and what He will do – even though the situation is the complete reverse. It is when we are willing to take this stand of faith and stance of believing God for the impossible – that which cannot be perceived by natural non-spiritual perceptions – that God doesn't fulfill His promise immediately but begins a hewing-out process within you so that your container is widened as it were to contain the greatness – the "More" of God – of what He wants to manifest in your life.
A fireman who needs to put out a greater fire needs a wider fire-hose so that there is a mightier flow of water fit for the task. A person who needs to download things faster on the Internet needs a broadband connection – wider bandwidth for the greater download speed.
In some cultures the name was of special importance in shaping the destiny of the child. In Hebrew culture, the name defined the nature and the destiny of the child – and that is why there is power in God's name because His character, essence and person are defined.
The child of destiny who had, say, a Chinese name equivalent to "loser" probably had quite an inferiority complex growing up.
God will have you walk out your destiny in something called "process" and that process is one of development where often we are in a sense removed from ourselves so that the real "us" that God sees emerges – the men and women of destiny He saw in us before He created the world.
The Oyster and the Big Ugly Pearl
Can we be family and talk real for a moment? When God looks at us He sees our potential and not our failings. And even if we go through a process it may not look like we're in God's will to people because they don't see the outward blessing – they have not yet developed the discernment to be able to perceive that the non-visible workings of God are in fact fully operational in the development of your inner man (or inner woman if you're female) and therefore it's not that you're out of God's will but you're in fact on schedule in your timely prophetic development – and that is God's timing and not Man's erroneous perception of when, where or how they think God should move.
(The problem with "name it and claim it" doctrine is that it tailors to "instant Christianity" and requires no perception of God's process. Without process there is no development of faith, and without faith, the Bible says, it's impossible to please God, hence the problem with "name it and claim it" – or "blab it and grab it" – is that you're making God your chef and butler instead of your shield and buckler. — Thanks, LaMar Boschman for that one!)
Do you know pearls are formed? They occur when a foreign object utterly disrupts the comfort of an oyster such that over time an oyster needs to coat the object with mother of pearl – which is an opalescent coating – in order for the irritating object to be more – shall we say – comfortable to live with.
Many people have this concept that pearls are all spherical and perfect looking and in actuality this is not the case. The shape is determined – or pre-determined, haha – by the irritant itself. So if it's an ugly little piece of rock, after becoming trapped inside the oyster for, say, a year it will look like a prettified ugly little piece of rock with this nice opalescence all over it.
The reason why pearls as we know it are generally spherical is because a pearl manufacturer will mill a piece of shell that is perfectly spherical. They'll open an oyster up, make an incision in it and then drop the spherical piece into it and then allow the oyster to clam back up. Over time it will secrete mother of pearl all over it. After approximately one year they may shuck the oyster to extract the spherical piece and – voila! – there appears a pearl. The more expensive pearls might be left in the oyster for a few extra years. But bear in mind the core is still just the shell – something that's cookie cutter.
There is redemption for the oyster. As mentioned before, once the irritant struck the oyster, the oyster clammed itself shut and formed itself around the pain and defined its shape and destiny around that pain. But there is redemption for the oyster. If the oyster makes that brave effort to open up once again, God can remove the irritant, the point of pain. In fact, the wider the oyster opens up the greater its view of the greatness of God: your view of God is as big as you are willing to open wide.
Adrian Ko is a speaker and writer on the prophetic and the heart of the Father. His focus is on helping provide believers with a developmental roadmap to hearing God and flowing in the prophetic. In addition, he moves in the Word of Knowledge and Wisdom, and he is involved with both the renewal and prophetic steams of the Spirit. Used by permission: www.angelic.org
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