“This charge I commit to you . . . according to the prophecies previously made concerning you, that by them you may wage the good warfare.” (1 Timothy 1:18, NKJV)
Paul tells Timothy that people had prophesied concerning him, and because of those words, this young pastor could be victorious in the spiritual battles involved in ministry.
This verse reminds me of what we say about people and the impact it can have on them. I’m not meaning spiritual prophesies — where someone is filled by the Holy Spirit and given a message directly from God about someone else. Well-meaning people can do great damage claiming a direct line to God and offering His ‘advice’ to others. I’ve enough trouble running my own life and being obedient without that. My direct line to God is mostly that I would hear Him speak concerning my own life.
I’m thinking more of what some might call “self-fulfilling prophecies” where a person hears something and tends to make it happen because of what they heard. The words made a strong impression on them. One of my sons struggled with grade four math. His teacher told me, in front of our son, not to worry that he was unable to get it because “Soon everyone will be using calculators anyway.” At that point, our child mentally stopped learning mathematics. It was not until he was an adult, and wanted to pass a particular course to advance in his job, that he found out he was not so lame after all. He got the highest marks in the province — without a calculator.
Telling a child he is dumb, or even that she is the prettiest girl in the world, can affect the way they live their lives. My mother told the mother of one of my friends that I was “not as smart at the other children” meaning street-wise (I’d been ill and not at school for several years). My friend told me and I interpreted those words just as they sounded. I spent many years trying to prove her wrong to the point that even getting 100% on an exam wasn’t good enough. Once I realized what I was doing, the grace of God helped me drop the obsession but maintain the good habit of striving to always do the best I can (without trying to prove anything).
If a mere human “prophesy” made lightly or without thought has that much power, I get goose-bumps imagining what a God-given prophesy can do for a person. Actually, my first thought after reading this verse was, What has God said about me? But now that I think about it, most of the New Testament is just that. God says things that are true about His people — including me. These are given to us that we might fight the good fight, win the spiritual battles that challenge us, and be successful servants in His kingdom. How important then to take personally every word in the Word of God!
No comments:
Post a Comment