Unlike the Other Spiritual Gifts

Last week I was talking to a dear friend of mine and hashing through through some of my frustrations with prophetic feeling and I had a profound revelation.  Well it was profound revelation for me anyway.  Maybe other Feelers already were aware of this principal.

Here it is.  With teaching, with speaking in tongues, with prophesying, with healing the sick and leading worship the more tired I am (or most people are) the more difficult it is to operate and move in that gifting.  When I physically or emotionally tired,  the more difficult it is to speak in tongues for any length of time.  When I am weary the more I struggle to gain a prophetic insight to pray for someone or to speak into a situation.

Not so with the prophetic feeling!  With prophetic feeling the very opposite is true.  When I am tired, or weary=the more I pick up on other people's emotions and troubles.  The more weary I am the easier I get bowled over by oppressive atmospheres or environments.  When I am exhausted my emotions and body become a veritable freeway for other people's stuff.  At work by Friday, I can run through a gambit of emotions from sadness, to frustration to boredom, anger and joy all inside of 60 minutes depending on the people I am interacting with.  It drives me crazy!

I'm not sure what is next, but I plan on hearing from our Heavenly Papa on why this is true, what it means and how to operate differently because of it.

Prophetic Feeling as A Gift

Prophetic Feeling, like all gifts of the Holy Spirit was intended to be a gift of and for the Kingdom of God.  Since beginning this journey to embrace, understand and then move in this gift of prophetic feeling I have discovered others just like myself.  Walking in relationship with other Feelers has helped tremendously in identifying aspects of my experience and struggle that are rooted in Prophetic Feeling.  All four of us struggle constantly with how to not be completely drained and overcome by emotions and intense situations we find ourselves in on a regular daily basis.  Many of us end up put more energy into trying to manage and survive the gift, than moving in it intentionally to release and build into the Kingdom.  We are not immature or new believers and many of our company have walked with Jesus for 20-30 years.  This is why I began this blog.  The ultimate purpose of this blog is to grow in understanding, wisdom and revelation for how to embrace and move in Prophetic Feeling as a powerful gift. Having said that, here is a some brief bullet points highlighting the times that I have been able to appreciate and move in the gift of Prophetic Feeling.


* At work in a meeting with a client, I was talking and suddenly felt the client shut down and leave.  Felt like an empty space, standing in a room that has just been emptied of a crowd.  I then stopped and asked the client if she had shut-down and left the conversation.  Indeed she had and I was able to then stop and ask her what caused her to shut-down.

* Another time, a client telling some of the most shameful and painful details of her life.  She could barely find the words and I had a hard time  understanding what she was saying as she wept. Shifting my focus to feeling, I could feel intense shame, vulnerability, felt dirty and stupid.  This was not fun to experience, but I was able to understand and speak life into one of her most painful moments from her past.  I simply said, "I can see how that would cause you to feel dirty, cut down and demeaned".  When she nodded, I had confirmation I was on the right track and spoke life.

*Working with kids, small children I can easily sense what is upsetting to them. I can tell if they are embarrassed, overwhelmed, excited or angry.  When a child, especially a young child cannot find or does not yet have words to explain or understand what they are feeling, I am able to reach out and feel what is going on and then help and provide an appropriate response.  Kids put their emotions and experience on blast, there is no filter, which is why it can be very rewarding and highly draining at the same time.  I love kids.

* Another time I walked into a situation with a large meeting at work where the Holy Spirit was moving on one person and she was manifesting a mix of things. I could feel the distress and confusion of the crowd.  I was tired and honestly did not want to deal with it, so I left and the HS told me to "Get back in there!"  So I did and took leadership of the moment, offering some guidance and pastoring of the moment for the women who had never experienced anything like it before and were frightened and confused.

* At times I can feel the presence of Angels around me in groups or individual angels.  I am learning to feel the difference at times between an angel, or the presence of God and the Holy Spirit.

* Practically while driving, I can change lanes and feel when other drivers are about to cut into my path, or feeling lethargic. I can sense when groups of people in cars fall under a mindset of caution, of traffic or fear and go out and around (have done this without realizing I am).

* I often can sense the general direction geographically of my friends or group in a crowd, in a restaurant, or at the mall.  This is not fool proof but often I head in the direction I am sensing and then zero in on them as I get closer. I can feel when a friend of mine arrives or enters my atmosphere especially at home.  I first discovered this while waiting for a friend at a restaurant, something pricked me to awareness and I realized my friend had arrived.  Minutes later she walked into the door.

Alright that is all for now.  If you have any questions or want to share your own experiences feel free to leave a comment. I will not be able to respond to all of them but when I can respond I will.

Inside Pass to Prophetic Feeling

My last post gave a little history and foundation for the whole concept of prophetic feeling.  This post will cut to the chase and explain a few of my recent experiences as a prophetic feeler.  Before I go on, I first want to say that I am discovering there is great diversity among the prophetic gifts as well as great diversity within the same prophetic gift.  A gift and how it is expressed and experienced can vary greatly from person to person.  That being said, please don't be discouraged or make harsh comparisons if your experience is not the same as mine.

Today I woke up anxious.  I felt like ants were running all over my little emotional nerves.  I had no reason to be the feeling nervous but the feeling reminded me of how I felt during finals week in college.  I pushed away and set about making coffee.  I put on some worship music and began to sing but quickly got distracted.  The discomfort drove me and I could not sit still.  I did not know if I was feeling something in the atmosphere, in the spiritual realm or one of my close family or friends.  I did not know if it truly came from me.  Finally, I gave up trying to concentrate on God and went for a walk by the water.  The feeling continued unabated.  For me prophetic feeling is strongly tied to physical sensations.  My body acts like at translator of prophetic feeling.  This morning, my stomach was in knots, and I was slightly nauseous.  My head hurt and my skin felt itchy and irritated.  I pushed all of these things aside and chalked it up to being tired and worried about work and being behind in my paperwork.  Then I stepped into work and the uneasiness continued and intensified. I work for a recovery program and today was graduation day. Today there was 50+ women excited and nervous to be graduating from another semester of program.  I could barely concentrate.  Again, I dismissed it as my own internal stress and concerns.

Eight hours later I stood and clapped for the women as the graduation event was finally over.   The women were all smiles and some happy tears.  As the last woman exited off the stage, I felt a moment of huge relief.  The nervous feeling left and the antsy feeling dwindled away.  My stomach relaxed and my skin did not feel as irritated.  I could not believe it.  It seemed that much of my struggle the first part of the day was from the women and the community I am deeply connected to.  The shift was so sudden and dramatic that I could not help but notice.  I am sure there are other factors in play that I have yet to discern or identify but the experience was remarkable.  I know that the HS does not desire for me to struggle as I did but I still have yet to discover how to find relief when I become overwhelmed by the intense emotional riptide that I was drug into. 

From my experience, part of the issue is struggling to identify where the input is coming from, and  the potential for multiple levels of input.

So this thing called Prophetic Feeling

Five years ago, I was sharing with a friend about my experience of how certain things tended to impact me deeply and it could take days for me to get my equilibrium back.  She responded and said, oh you must be a feeler like me!"  When she said it, something rose up inside to meet her words with a yes!  This statement started me on a journey to understand this thing called a prophetic feeler.  One clue, led to another to yet another God appointment and connection till I well and truly understood that I was a Prophetic Feeler, that I was not alone.  A year after the conversation with my new friend I was able to understand that my ability to feel things so deeply was an ability given and powered by the Holy Spirit for the purpose of the establishing the Kingdom.  However, looking back it has become clear that through much of my life this ability had been a significant source of suffering and heartache.

So what is prophetic feeling or a prophetic feeler?  In all reality it is a made up term prophetic folks came up with to describe what a section of prophetically gifted folks were able to do.  It describes how some people are able to experience for themselves, the feelings and struggle of others and God, through their own emotions or being.  A few years ago prophetic feeling was not that well known or discussed.  However,  something has shifted in the last year or two and more and more people are aware of this gifting and or familiar with the term.



Prophetic Feeling = Overwhelming + Draining

For me prophetic feeling as been a real source of suffering and presently still is.  My hope is that through this blog, I will remember and grow in greater revelation from the HS of what it means to be  a feeler.  I hope that other prophetic feelers can benefit from my experiences and have hope for how to manage and use their gifting instead of having it crush them.  I also hope that those who know  prophetic feelers might be better equipped to cover, challenge, collaborate with and understand the feelers whom they know and love.