The Risk of Neglecting Spiritual Gifts
“‘You’re like… this loyal lover who spiritually leads people, right?’ she inquires, as she applies highlights to my hair.
‘How do you know that?’ I ask in bewilderment, not expecting to be touched by the Holy Spirit that morning at the salon.
The sweet stylist encourages me with poignant words that validate and build me up. A fellow Catholic, it’s clear to me she has the gift of prophecy.
She then continues on to tell me of her involvement in alternative spiritualities, unaware that they are in conflict with the Catholic faith.”
This story comes from a friend of mine, and it echoes so closely many of my own experiences over the years: meeting Christians (or former Christians) who’ve received powerful gifts from the Holy Spirit or have had profound spiritual experiences… but they were left on their own to make sense of it and navigate the way forward. And their chosen route has most commonly taken them in one of three directions:
(1) They’ve been afraid of their experiences or attempted to shut them down, (2) they’ve let their experiences remain unexplored and undeveloped, or (3) they’ve sought answers regarding their experiences wherever they could find them, which has all too frequently led them to sources outside of Christianity.
“I’ve been seeing angels all my life, but I didn’t want people to think I was crazy, so I never told anyone about it.”
“Sometimes I just know things about people, but I can’t explain HOW I know it. And I never know what to do with that information.”
“I noticed that when I prayed for people, they would get healed, so I started practicing Reiki because I wanted to use my gift to help others.”
“Sometimes someone comes to mind and I feel like I’m supposed to pray for them, and later I learn they really needed prayer at that exact moment. What does that mean?”
“I’m not religious, but I can feel the difference when I’ve distanced myself from God — I feel ‘off’ and not like myself… and then when I do re-connect with Him, everything feels right again. It’s strange, I can’t explain it.”
These are just a handful of the comments I’ve heard from people over the years as they’ve shared their backgrounds with me, from ministry clients to parish members to strangers in my local community. While each person’s story has been unique, over time I started noticing patterns and commonalities among the experiences that were being shared with me. Many of these individuals happened to be gifted with a spiritual sensitivity (an enhanced awareness of the spiritual realities around them) and/or any number of other gifts from the Holy Spirit (healing, prophecy, words of knowledge, discernment of spirits, etc.). At some point, they had a powerful spiritual experience of God working through them, and this launched them into a journey of trying to make sense of it and use it for good. This, in fact, is how many of our ministry clients have found us — in their pursuit of understanding something they’ve perceived the Lord has been doing in them.
I am thankful for the opportunity to cross paths with these individuals and to help them contextualize their experience within a Christian theology and framework, but for all those I’ve encountered, I know there are countless more who are still trying to make sense of what they are experiencing. And vast numbers of them are looking outside of the Church to do so… because the Church has not known what to do with them.
Though there are plenty of precedents for these experiences set by Catholic mystics and Saints in history, time and again, the reports I hear from individuals having similar spiritual experiences are that the modern-day Church — the flesh-and-blood members of the Body of Christ — were at a loss about how to answer their questions… if they were even willing to validate their experience at all.
The truth of the matter is that right now, God is pouring out His Spirit among us. There are people having powerful spiritual experiences, often tied to spiritual gifts the Lord has given them. And absent adequate formation, explanation, and nurturing from the Church, they are turning to other spiritual “experts” to learn about the spiritual — particularly the New Age movement, witchcraft, and the occult. This is not done out of malice or bad intent; many don’t know the dangers of these practices. In fact, most of these individuals are not opposed to Christianity. They simply don’t have anyone providing a Christian context for what they are going through. The Church is failing them.
If we as the Church are not ready to meet and accompany these people… if we dismiss them, ostracize them, or are simply ill-prepared for helping them navigate their experience and develop the gifts that God has given them, their hunger (or perhaps desperation) will drive them elsewhere to make sense of their experience and learn how to steward it.
At great risk to them.
And at the additional risk of our squandering the movement of the Holy Spirit.
My call to those in the Church is this: We need to stand ready as a resource, as a safe place, and as a source of guidance to individuals who have had experiences with the power of God. That means we’ve got some work to do. It is crucial in this hour for the Church to become familiar with the gifts and the ways of the Holy Spirit, and to prioritize the spiritual maturity of its members — mature enough to handle the supernatural. And it is time for spiritual fathers, mothers, and mentors to rise up in response to the pressing need for Christian spiritual guidance.
I only expect this phenomenon to increase. When we ask God to renew the Church, to bring revival, to pour out His Spirit… we can’t be surprised when He does. This is part of what revival looks like — an outpouring of the presence and power of the Holy Spirit and the release of His gifts. Are we ready to steward that revival?
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