In 2006, I attended a Christian Women’s Conference hosted by a person whom I felt was a great prophet of God. The Conference was an awesome experience, in that I learned so much about myself and what the Kingdom of God should look like here on earth. But the best thing about the Conference, for me, was the way that the Holy Spirit spoke to me, used me, and taught me during the time I was there. That is the experience that I want to share with you because if you ever doubt God, I pray you will be encouraged through what I reveal to you about what was revealed to me and God working through me. But first, I ask that you have a very open mind because with God, you have to. He taught me that His Spirit should not be boxed. If you want to get the full revelation, you can’t second guess it.
This lesson will give you a glimpse into the realm of miracles and the movement of God which are so subtle that you will miss them if you’re not paying attention. You have to catch the whispers of God. I will try my best to explain it to you, enough for you to understand. Just thank God for revealing a Kingdom mystery.
The Conference was good. I decided to take notes during each service because I didn’t want to miss anything. The conference lasted four days, beginning on a Wednesday and ending on Saturday. Early Thursday, reflecting on the service the night before, I had written in my notes about how I felt there was a religious spirit in the Conference but I could also tell that there were women there who were really authentic and on fire for the Lord. I also wrote a sentence that was peculiar to me. A lot of times my prophetic gift is working and I don’t realize it until afterwards. Frequently, I write or speak prophetically without noticing until God reveals it to me. Anyhow, the sentence that I wrote was, “I do envelope all the revelations of these leaders that they are depositing into me”. The word envelope sounded like an awkward verb to use but I left it in the sentence. On Thursday evening, I attended the last service for that day. When I came into the auditorium, I walked around to look for a seat. As I approached a certain row, I asked a woman next to an empty seat if anyone was sitting in there. She said, “Yes, you are. I’ve been praying over this seat for you.” The seat was the third seat in the row. So I thanked her and sat down. The service was so great. I felt truly blessed by the message.
Throughout the conference, each service requested offerings of $40 and $20 on several occasions. People had already paid registration fees, hotel fares, airline fares, food for each day, car rentals, and so on just to be at there. So the money had to be monitored constantly by those who were attending, including myself. This particular night, first the speaker asked for an offering of what we could give. All who were in my row put what we were contributing in the envelopes provided by the usher. The speaker then decided that she was going to change the free-will offering to a requested amount. She told every row, which consisted of about 15 people, to choose an apostle of that row. The apostle of the row was going to tell the rest of the row what to give in the offering. The choices of the amounts of each row would be $1,000 - $1,500 - or $2,500.
With that assignment, you could tell that everyone became uncomfortable because they’ve probably gave more than they could afford already. They had to be very careful to make their money last on a conference that lasted four days. We were only in the 2nd day. The chosen apostle of our row, very hesitantly, made a decision for our row to give $1,000 because she was sensitive to the finances needed for this mini vacation. Now the message that blessed us so much was aborted; it had went down the drain, overshadowed by fear, guilt, anxiety, and shame. Guilt of not feeling we had enough faith, Fear that God would not bless us if we couldn’t go all out, anxiety about how much to over stretch ourselves in an amount to give, and shame that we really didn’t have it. To top it off, we didn’t feel right at all about what was happening.
We proceeded to take the envelopes that we had put our free will offering in, combine it, and put it in one envelope. The woman sitting next to me was the apostle of the row. This is the same woman who said that she prayed over my seat. She’s second in the row and I’m third. Anyhow, all the women passed their envelopes down and I opened each envelope, took the money out, and gave it to our apostle to put in one envelope. Needless to say, we only raised $400 for our row. After the offering, service was over. We all left the conference spiritually depleted rather than spiritually filled. I walked back to the car very distraught. I could not stop thinking about what just had happened. My mind went back and forth, thinking all kinds of thoughts; the fear, guilt, shame, and anxiety that I described previously. I couldn’t help but become emotional about it. At the end of the day, you want to please God. Of course, you question your faith. I got into the car and began to drive. I felt the need to talk to someone so I called my Godmother (at peace is her soul). She talked to me and was explaining to me that we do not serve a greedy God like that; that I should not feel guilty about what I don’t have; that she learned a long time ago that some preachers have the spirit of greed; that God was using this experience as an opportunity to learn about His true character. She also reminded me that God’s blessings were not dependent upon how much I could pay or give in monetary form; we could never repay the greatest gift of Jesus. As I pulled up to the place where I was staying, my Godmother and I finished our conversation and said good bye. When I began to gather my things together to get out the car and go into the house, I realized that I had taken the empty envelopes of the women in my row with me. They were in the passenger seat. And there was a strong pressing on me to not throw them away because I knew I was supposed to have them. I just knew it. I actually spoke out load and said, “Okay God, show me why I have these envelopes.” I went to sleep that night. Friday morning, I awoke and I knew that I would not be attending the morning service. I wasn’t sure about afternoon service either. I sat up in bed and began to think about the previous evening again. And as I was thinking, the Holy Spirit took me back to my notes and I remembered that word “envelope”. So I began to ask God what I was supposed to do with the envelopes. He took me back to the sermon of Thursday afternoon. The sermon on Thursday afternoon was about Samuel and Saul. So I got out my bible and read it again. (1 Samuel 15)
Continue by reading Part II.