Tag Archives: children and the prophetic

Bringing Christ into the centre of my Christmas

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Several years ago around Christmas time, I was having a coffee with a close friend and she asked me what we were doing for Christmas. I shared how we were going to be getting together with extended family and that I had a real sense that one of the family member’s who has an issue with manipulation and control was going to create a scene and get angry at someone.

My friend looked at me and ‘gently’ rebuked me. “Jane, you are always challenging people to watch what they say as your words come true. What you put out there into the atmosphere, what you say, then has power and will come true. I think you should change what you are saying and be an atmosphere changer with your extended family.”

Ouch – that really struck me and made me think. Yes. I 100% believe that there is power in our words and we can speak life or death into situations. I had been speaking death and destruction into our Christmas day and I needed to take responsibility to see that peace would reign.

Is there anything you are not looking forward to about this Christmas? Is there anyone whom you are dreading the interaction with? Sometimes Christmas can be so stressful and something we are not looking forward to, yet as Christians we are meant to be celebrating the birth of our Saviour? Below, I have highlighted some questions to ask yourself.

1. Am I creating an idol out of Christmas with my expectations?

  • Do I have to have the house perfect?
  • Do I need to give (and receive) the perfect present?
  • Are my emotional needs being ‘filled’ or ‘unmet’ by expectations surrounding the perfect Christmas when God should really be taking that place?
  • Am I creating an ‘idol’ out of Christmas with my expectations of the ‘perfect’ Christmas?
  • Is there a lie I’m believing about having the ‘perfect’ Christmas?

2. How am I spending my time, energy, money and thought life?

  • Is too much time, energy and money being spent on insignificant things?
  • Am I overthinking situations and creating a bigger problem in my mind?
  • Am I spending an inordinate amount of time thinking about what to buy for people?
  • Have I fallen into the trap of people-pleasing?

3. What am I speaking into the atmosphere?

  • Are my words full of life?
  • Am I expecting negative things to happen?
  • Am I vocalising my negative thoughts and expectations?

4. How am I communicating Christ’s love, peace, joy and power?

  • What is flowing from my relationship with God?
  • How am I loving my extended family, those who require ‘extra time’, and those who supposedly can’t give me anything in return?
  • Are people attracted to the God within me?

5. How am I prophetically encouraging people this Christmas?

  • What do the presents I am giving communicate?
  • What have I written in cards to prophetically encourage others?
  • What message do my Christmas decorations communicate?
  • How have I extended myself with acts of kindness this week?
  • How am I making space and time for Jesus at the moment?

This Christmas, why don’t you resolve to be the change you so desperately desire within your family and community. Below I have listed five ways of doing this.

1. Be an atmosphere changer

  • When you come up against someone who is angry or manipulative or a control freak, quietly change the atmosphere by saying something similar to “I see you, spirit of manipulation and control. I choose not to partner with you and instead release freedom.”
  • A few months ago, I taught a group of children this by saying “Go manipulation. Come freedom.” The change is incredible.

2. Watch your words

  • Be careful what you say and how you frame it.
  • Speak life into every situation.
  • Be an encourager.

3. Realise what you can and cannot change and what you can bring to the situation.

  • Prepare some prophetic words to give to people that will encourage, comfort and strengthen them.
  • Be on the look out for how you can encourage everyone you meet, whether by a smile, a few words, an action etc.
  • Take time to look out for the lonely, the people left out, the refugee, the unloved, the grieving, the ‘prisoner’ (whether in actual prison or a prisoner in their feelings), the person who can’t look you in the eye. Ask God what you can do or say to show love and to communicate to them that they are important and that you notice them.

4. Do something just for the heck of it.

  • Have fun.
  • Do something with wild abandon.
  • Laugh out aloud.

5. Spend some quality time with God

This Christmas, may you know and feel the love that Father God, Holy Spirit and Jesus all have for you and may you be a blessing to those you meet and spend time with.

Prophetic Activations / Exercises to incorporate into your week:

Every week I list 5 prophetic activations/exercises under children/family, group, beginner, intermediate and advanced. The purpose of these exercises is to practice to help us hear God’s voice in a clearer manner. They sharpen our senses to hear and see and sense God and His way of communicating with us. This enables us to grow in our relationship with God and also to impart to others what God tells us for them. Feel free to use as many of these activations each week as you can. The more you practice, the sharper you become at hearing God’s voice. Enjoy! Remember that whenever you give another person a prophetic word or picture etc, please make sure that it is encouraging, edifying (strengthening) and comforting (1 Corinthians 14:3) and that it comes from a place of love.

1. Children / Families Activation:  Bake some gingerbread biscuits and decorate them prophetically with a design or a word and give them away.

2. Group Activation: Ask each group member to buy a prophetic Christmas decoration for another group member and to prophesy over that person using the decoration as the base for the prophecy.

3. Beginner Activation: Buy a Christmas decoration for yourself that prophesies into your future.

4. Intermediate Activation: Grab a bottle of hand sanitiser and spend some time looking at it. Ask God to speak to you through what you see. How does it apply to your life? What does God want to say to you through it?

5. Advanced Activation: Ask God to highlight a major socio-political issue impacting your area/country at the moment eg in Victoria, it is the conversion therapy act trying to be passed through Government at the moment. Spend time with God hearing His heart on the matter and prophesy into it, declaring out aloud the future as God desires.

A Blessing for Fathers

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My daughter and my dad

My daughter and my dad

Dad, I call your spirit to attention and bless you with knowing how much you are loved.

I bless you with deeply knowing and understanding that you are known, wanted, and loved and that people care for you and about you.

I bless you with knowing that God thought of you at the beginning of time and created you with your unique design, personality and giftings for this current time.

I bless you with knowing your true identity, who you really are and who you were created to be and living and operating from this place.

I bless you with being able to deal with the past and your own upbringing so that all hurts and longings and unmet needs and expectations can be dealt with appropriately and that you are able to move on, restored and having the ability to love regardless.

I bless you with seeing all your brokenness become something beautiful. I bless you with every weakness becoming a strength. I bless you with trusting in Jesus no matter what.

I bless you with your life becoming an amazing testimony of Jesus’ redemptive love. I bless you with seeing your dreams get wings and begin to fly.

I bless you with knowing how to show love and care for those around you, especially your family and children. I bless you with understanding each of your children’s love languages and how they best receive your love and your being able to meet them in this and express love in this way to them.

I bless you with being able to frequently craft out time to spend with each of your children one on one and that they know you care deeply about them. I bless the time you spend with each of your children, pouring blessing, love and joy into their lives and creating special memories for and with them.

I bless you with being able to speak true identity into each of your children’s lives and that they draw closer to Father God through your example of being a Father.

I bless you with kindness, tenderness, courage and strength. That when they need a kind word, you are there. When they need tenderness shown, you are there. When they need courage and stamina, you are there encouraging and spurring them on. That your children can become all that they were created to become.

I bless you with being a protector, a lover, a person full of courage and boldness, an adventurer and explorer, a provider, an encourager, a dreamer, a true friend, and having a father’s heart.

I bless you with being able to show interest in the things your kids are interested in and to draw them closer to the things you are interested in.

I bless you with being able to have fun and to bring much joy and laughter with you wherever you go.

I bless you with giving lots of hugs and kisses and loving to wrestle.

I bless you with stewarding your children in the ways of God and in loving the Father, Son and Holy Spirit with an unending passion and joy that transforms their life and those who come into contact with them.

I bless you with knowing that you and your children are God’s sons and daughters with whom He is well pleased and operating out of that place.

I bless you with leaving an amazing spiritual, physical and emotional legacy for your future generations.

Amen

Prophetic Activations / Exercises to incorporate into your week:

Every week I list 5 prophetic activations/exercises under children/family, group, beginner, intermediate and advanced. The purpose of these exercises is to help us hear God’s voice in a clearer manner. They sharpen our senses to hear and see and sense God and His way of communicating with us. This enables us to grow in our relationship with God and also to impart to others what God tells us for them. Feel free to use as many of these activations each week as you can. The more you practice, the sharper you become at hearing God’s voice. Enjoy! Remember that whenever you give another person a prophetic word or picture etc, please make sure that it is encouraging, edifying (strengthening) and comforting (1 Corinthians 14:3) and that it comes from a place of love.

1. Children / Families Activation: Give each person a piece of paper and crayons/pencils/textas and ask them to ask God what picture to draw for their dad (or significant male adult) to show how God loves them. It’s usually a great idea to date the picture and perhaps write the words on the paper that the child uses to explain the picture.

2. Group Activation: Hand out sheets of paper & pens and ask everyone to spend some time crafting a letter to their dad, thanking him, blessing him, prophesying over him etc. Encourage people to still do this even if their dad has died and to do it as a way of expressing thanks to their dad.

3. Beginner Activation: Spend time with God asking Him to show you the good stuff about your dad or your children’s dad. Spend time writing it down. Craft a blessing or prophetic word about their fathering and release it over the person.

4. Intermediate Activation: Ask God to show you someone who is fatherless. Craft a prophetic word for them about being fathered and release it to them.

5. Advanced Activation: Ask God to highlight to you a men’s group eg Men’s Shed, a dad’s group fighting Family Court for Equal Access etc. Spend time with God asking how you can formulate a blessing and a prophetic word for this group. Then release it over the group in whatever way God shows you.