Shekinah Glory Dust Miracle – A Personal Testimony (Part 1)

I talked about my experience of hearing angels sing during a prophetic activation workshop in KK last week here. That happened on 3 October 2012. On 10 October 2012, exactly a week after, God blessed me with another manifestation of His Glory – shekinah gold dust.

I have been yearning for such signs and wonders for a while now, as shared here. And it is partly because of these desires that I set up this blog – to be able to one day share about my own supernatural encounters. I thought I would have to press in for at least two years before I could have such experiences.  But God is so gracious.

Mark and I were in bed, listening to the following recordings of angelic worship on YouTube:

Revival Alliance Conference, UK, 31 Aug 2012

Patricia King Glory School Conference, Singapore, Apr 2011

I wanted him to have an understanding of what I had heard in KK. The singing I heard is very much like the ones in the videos but clearer and very much more audible (not so much in the background like these). When I went to the washroom to clean up before bed, I checked my hands for gold dust out of habit. I must have been doing this on a consistent basis for at least two months now.  Always nothing but not this time! I saw very fine specks of glitter on my palms. By the way, I absolutely, without a doubt know how to identify glitter from my own make up. I rushed to Mark’s bedside lamp to take a better look and Mark confirmed it was gold dust. I went back to wash my hands numerous times to authenticate the manifestation and the gold particles came back every single time. It has been three days and I still have them on my hands! Praise God!

The glitter isn't so apparent in pictures and I can't seem to insert my high reso videos here. It's basically a very thin layer of glitter-like substance. They are pretty well-spread out throughout my palm area and finger tips.

What is God's purpose for allowing this manifestation, you may ask? I strongly believe it is for the following reasons:

1)      to assure me that my angelic encounter in KK was authentic (since I received the gift while focusing on angelic worship)

2)      to confirm my new ministry in counselling

3)      to encourage me to keep moving in the direction of praying and pressing in

(There are certain events that validate the inclusion of Points 2 and 3)

God is so awesome! Every one should desire to see more of His glory! I can't get enough of it now! =)

UPDATE (28 Nov 2012): Please see my latest blogpost on God's manifestation of gold dust here for my embedded youtube videos.

Encounters with God at KK (Part 4)

Here's the continuation of my encounter with God on Day 3:

Speaking Only God's Words

After the workshop on Friday, Jessie, EW and I joined Pastor Ong (Jessie’s husband and also our Pastor) at SIB Metro as he preached to local students and young working adults there. We were brought in to assist him and five of his team members to give personal prophesy to the attendees. I had such an amazing, God-filled and life-changing night! And to think I was thinking of worming out of it just a few hours before! I’ll tell you why:

I was fearful blockages. After our hospital ministry the night before, we attended Maranatha Church where Apostle Ron Sawka (a disciple of Bill Hamon and also our workshop mentor) was invited as a guest speaker. At the end of his sermon, we were asked to give personal prophecies to the church congregation. Hundreds lined up to hear God’s messages and I drew blanks most of the time! I was so stressed out; the more I pressured myself to get something from God, the emptier my mind became. It was a horrible time where I had to depend mostly on my partner, EW for something.

I remember vividly the first person who came to us – R. EW and R already knew each other, so I was asked to start. Under pressure and conscious of potentially letting people down, I released something that could be perceived by many as generic – to go deeper into the word (I had the mental image of an illuminated bible). When I finished, I looked at her and I saw disappointment plastered across her face as she looked towards EW to add on something concrete. That image and self-condemnation latched onto my spirit until the very end of the night.

I believe that it is also important to find the right partner for such activities. Don’t get me wrong, EW and I form great partnership when it comes to certain activities like praying and worship but the jarring difference in our delivery styles when prophesying became a stumbling block for me. When she prophesies, her warrior anointing comes in strong; she commands for the awakening of man’s spirit, she calls forth God’s fire, she orders the breaking of man’s sinful nature etc. I, on the other hand, tend to be softer in approach and prefer to have some time ministering to the people I prophesy over.     

At the end of the night, a girl came up to EW, thanked her, hugged her and asked for a photo together. I instinctively withdrew myself from their midst but EW sensing my dejection, called out for me to be in the picture. I guess the girl and I had no choice but to oblige. A little bit later when we were saying our goodbyes to some local people, R who was in their midst looked like she was trying to avoid my eye. I am not sure whether she is just naturally shy or what, but I was definitely affected by it.

So, you can imagine how utterly down I was by the end of the night. I knew for a fact that Jessie would never allow me to worm out of Friday’s session so I had no choice but to leave all my disappointments and fears at Jesus’ feet. I told God my desire to bless others; to accurately communicate God’s words to the people so that they can be encouraged, edified and comforted. And I prayed hard for Him to use me to activate giftings in the young ones I minister to on Friday. Apostle Paul writes that prophecies help equip one for ministry:  

 “Do not neglect your gift, which was given you through prophecy when the body of elders laid their hands on you.” (1 Timothy 4:14)

I didn’t feel any zap of supernatural confidence from God but I knew that because my longing to bless others was pure, God would answer. As we were praising and worshipping God, I asked God to show me the potential in every single person there. Of course, I couldn’t sense anything for anyone at that point in time but I rested in the promise that God will give me the right words to say at the appropriate time.  

After Pastor’s message, we helpers went to the front of the room to help arrange chairs for ministry. Pastor had already arranged for Jessie to team up with V and for me to partner with M right from the start but because M was out of sight and EW had no idea of the arrangement, she nudged J to team up with me but before I could say anything, I saw J openly telling EW that she liked her better. Now, this came from someone I didn’t know so I couldn’t have had offended her. So I assumed she caught wind of my ‘non-performance’ in Maranatha Church. R, from the night before, started inching away from me. One minute she was next to me and the next she was pretty far off. Boy, did the devil know how to discourage a person! But this time, I dug my heels in and refused to give in to his mind games. Not long after, M joined me.

By the time the first person took his seat in front of us, I had totally abandoned every hurt and insecurity and focused on nothing else but God. And boy oh boy, did God use me! M and I prophesied over at least eleven persons and not once did I not know what to say. Here, we were allowed the opportunity to talk to and also minister to the people. Because I availed myself as His spokesperson, I became a first-hand witness to the His awesome power; I saw Him comforting those with anxieties and fears, rebuking some bad habits in others, confirming the ambitions and callings for spiritually mature ones and giving specific directions/instructions to ones that need that guidance or extra push. Three girls cried because our inspired words spoke directly to their troubled situations. It was definitely not us because we had never seen the people there in our entire lives.

God also answered my desire to activate the giftings in His people. We encouraged one brother to instantaneously move into his gifting of prophetic song writing and he sang a new song right before us; we encouraged one to exercise his prophetic gifting over us when he told us he had a vision of honey pouring over our heads; and I nudged one girl to activate the gift of prophetic dancing in her and she danced so beautifully before the Lord that it brought tears to my eyes.  Oh, how the Holy Spirit moved in that place!

It was so wonderful to witness how God moved amongst His people that at the end of the night, I told Jessie this: “I have often asked God for signs and wonders (read: gold dust, gem stones, feathers, etc.) but tonight, the most important of them all took place – being used to speak life into His people.”

Encounters with God at KK (Part 3)

There is so much for me to share just on Day 3 alone. So, I'm gonna break it up into two parts. Here's my God encounter in the moning of Day 3:

Insights into God’s Heart

On Day 3, we had a short prophetic exercise in the morning. We were asked to find a partner and to release prophetic words over our own nation. After that, Ps. Serena instructed us to each pick a country from a particular region she gave and to prophesy over it. I became rather nervous because I really didn’t know much about the country I picked. So, as Albert prophesied over P, I prayed in tongues to tune in my senses to God about SA.  Something new happened as I did that – my tongue/language turned heavy and became like groans. The groaning felt so sorrowful and full of anguish. The tongue/language was still the same one I had received two nights ago but the words were pulled longer until they sounded like groaning. The Holy Spirit allowed me to understand God’s feelings towards SA through my utterance in tongues.

In the same way, the Spirit also helps us in our weakness. We do not know what we ought to pray for, but the Spirit himself intercedes for us through wordless groans. And he who searches our hearts knows the mind of the Spirit, because the Spirit intercedes for God’s people in accordance with the will of God. (Romans 8:26-27)

The groaning represented God’s pain and aching for that nation to see the Truth. I then used that insight into God’s heart to prophesy over the nation and as I did that, the emotions I had felt earlier on when I prayed in tongues overflowed into my prophetic utterance. It is just truly amazing when we are allowed access to what God feels.

To be continued...

Encounters with God at KK (Part 2)

Here's a list of Day 2 God encounters in Kota Kinabalu:

(Temporarily) Carrying God's Burden

On Day 2 of the workshop, our first prophetic activation activity was to group ourselves according to similar prayer burdens. Naturally, some of us Singaporeans came together to prophesy over our nation.

When we started praying in tongues, I immediately saw God's Spirit, in the form of an eagle, flying over a map of Singapore, surveying a place to land. But I sensed that He just could not find a landing spot. And the ground below Him was dry and cracked, which I believe symbolise spiritual drought. 

Now, having a few seasoned pastors in my midst, I tried to quietly fade into the background (unfortunately, I am still rather conscious of how lackluster my vocab is when it comes to praying or prophesying). Have you ever experienced pockets of stone-dead silences during prayer meetings, where everyone waits for everyone else to pick up from the last person? Well, this was far from the scenario I was in. Everyone was so involved and intense when giving their prophecies. One after another, they just kept on going! Everyone else had finished their first round of prophesying and some, their second round whereas I still hadn't said anything! I felt Pastor Mary's fingers brushing against my leg, urging me to say something but I just could not find an entering. That was how intense the whole group was! A little while later, Pastor Alice (who is 82 years old btw) fully aware that I hadn't had a go at it yet, started telling people around just that =).

So, I had no choice but to inject myself in the next moment I could. As soon as I opened my mouth, God's words and emotions just flowed forth from my entire being. Before I opened my mouth, I was like a dry riverbed but as I opened my mouth in faith, God's anointing just rained upon me causing words and emotions to overflow and gush forth. It was exactly like what Jesus said in John 7:38, "Out of your belly shall flow rivers of living water." As I spoke about God's eagle having no place to land and about spiritual deadness in Singapore (I believe my exact words were 'zombies' and 'rotten flesh'), I started hearing wailing from the people around me. Well, I know for sure Pastor Mary was crying and calling out for God to not turn away from Singapore. The group just instinctively huddled closer together and Pastors Mary and Alice pulled me in closer to tighten the circle. I could feel that we had struck something in the spirit realm.

To be honest, I am not one who carries a natural burden for any community/group of people or any specific nation. That was why I chose to remain quiet as long as I could. I had no burden to speak up. But, I believe that as I availed myself to the workings of the Holy Spirit, He just caused this dry riverbed to swell up with His living water. In addition to that, I believe I was operating under a cloud of anointing of the people around me. So, the Holy Spirit could more easily operate through me.

An Increase in Compassion & Prophetic Singing
In the evening, we made a visit to the hospital where Janet's sister, Cecilia was being warded. I ran into a problem of over-spiritualising things, which I will talk about in a separate post because I want to concentrate on godly encounters here. Jessie, EW, Janet, Janet's niece-in-law and I were brought into the ICU to pray and lay hands on Cecilia. We took turns talking to her, praying over her and Jessie encouraged me to sing prophetically over her. When I received the gift of singing in tongues, I also received the gift of prophetic worship. At the hospital, it was only my second time singing a new song as the Spirit led. Now, I can only recall that it was about inviting Jesus, our Saviour and Healer, into our midst and asking for His mercy and healing to flow in Cecilia. Tears just started streaming down my face and my whole face was wet in no time. I so badly wanted Jesus to come and heal her; to wake her up from her unconsciousness; to see life restored to the listless woman in front of me.

I was shocked at my display of emotions but didn't think much of it after that until Jessie told me that she sees God increasing my capacity to love others or developing compassion within me for others (you see, I have always struggled with my lack of compassion for people and have occasionally asked God to help me see others through His eyes). When I sang in that hospital ward, I came to love a stranger...


Stay tuned for Day 3...

Encounters with God at KK (Day 1)

I had such an amazing time in Kota Kinabalu encountering the glory of God! I was given new experiences every single day I was there. Asking to encounter God in a more tangible manner was on my praying and fasting agenda for weeks leading up to the workshop and God graciously answered it. Below is my account of Day 1:

Gift of Interpretation of Tongues (1 Cor 12:10)
Before the workshop began on Wednesday, we had some time catching up with friends we have not seen since the last workshop in March. One person that I was particularly excited to see was Mary, who had given me a copy of her self-penned book narrating her face-to-face encounter with Jesus and her visits to Heaven. She had heard God instructing her to give me a copy on the last day of the workshop half a year back and the book had indeed blessed me tremendously. One very evident blessing was my receiving of the ability to sing in tongues and it happened just from reading her own account on the matter. Before that, I could try my darndest but it would come out painful to the ears! Anyways, after I shared that with her, she said that I also have the gift of interpretation of tongues. I was shocked she remembered her prophecy for me from six months ago, but she clarified that she doesn't and it was in fact a there-and-then 'download' from God. So far, I have not seen this gifting come into operation yet but I'll continue to ask God to stir it up since I received confirmation!


Hearing Angels

Yes, I heard angels sing! It was during the first activation activity where we were required to sing prophetically over our partner's "goliath" in life with keyboard accompaniment. I had finished my turn and it was midway through Annie's prophecy for me that I heard beautiful singing coming from about 5 metres on my right. At first, it sounded like only a single woman singing very professionally to the tune of the keyboard. To be honest, I was pleasantly surprised that anyone in attendance could sing so beautifully and so perfectly to the background music (it is especially difficult to sing melodiously to tune when you are required to prophesy). I turned slightly right to the direction of the singing and thought I saw one of the ladies mouthing the words I was hearing (ok, I didn't exactly catch any of the words being sung but it looked like it could match the movement of her lips). So, I refocused my attention to Annie, who had her hand on my back and head bowed near my left shoulder. A little while later, the mysteriously beautiful singing caught my attention again and now it didn't sound as if it was only from a singular source; it sounded as if two or three women were singing in harmony with one dominant voice leading them. This made me crazy curious and I turned around, as subtly as I could (I didn't want to appear rude towards Annie who was deeply committed to her prophecy for me), to see who had been influenced to sing to the lady's tune. I must say that at this point, I was already highly doubtful it could be from any of the participants there. There was a couple of participants in between me and the source of the sound. I recognised one of them to be Jessie, one of my church pastors. It didn't look like she was doing the prophesying, so if anything it would have to be the other lady. The singing was just so glorious and it went on for 5 minutes! Immediately after the activity, I rushed over to Jessie to check whether 1) her partner could sing like a trained singer and, 2) she had heard any extraordinary singing, all to which she answered no. I had heard nothing else but angels singing! Hallelujah! It was audible voices singing! What a wonderful experience!  

I believe that this is my fifth experience with angels. I will share my earlier experiences in another post later on.

 

Gift of a new language (1 Cor 12:10)

Jessie, EW and I were resting in the hotel room when EW received an sms from a Sabahan friend, Janet, asking us to pray for her sister who had been in the ICU for several days already. They were afraid that she wouldn't be able to pull through the night, so prayed we did. We started by praying in tongues, and I realised that I had received a new one. A little history here: I was baptised in the Holy Spirit about  9 years ago and ever since, I could only speak in one tongue/language. For the first 6 years or so, it sounded weak and the words lacked strong distinctiveness from each other. Because of these reasons, I was never too keen to pray in tongues. Yes, bad attitude, I know. Anyways, I pressed in a little bit harder in recent years and the words did become a little bit more distinguishable from one another but still weak. So, the number of distinct words in this new tongue/language is clearly more than the previous one, the words are markedly different from one another and the tongue/language sounds strong. So, thank You Jesus for confirming that I have indeed grown spiritually through this gift.

Disclaimer: I am not saying that a new tongue/language is conditional upon spiritual growth, it is just that I sense it is in my case.

Discerning of Spirits (1 Cor 12:10)

Ok, I am not sure whether it is accurate for me to term my experience as the above but I'll headline it that first until I fully understand it. When we were praying for Janet's sister, my new tongue/language began to sound sinister. I could sense some hissing and sneering when in uttering the words. I was so bothered by it that I had to stop Jessie and EW from their praying to communicate my predicament. I was asked to pray in tongues out loud and the moment I started, the rest immediately could sense something was amiss. Jessie started rebuking a snake/serpeant spirit (she had a mental image of that) and EW felt goosebumps travel up her skin and it brought to surface her warrior-like tongue/language. After Jessie rebuked the spirit, I could feel the hissing and sneering dissipate. This manifestation that God allowed was confirmed by Janet - when she was praying over her sister at the hospital a few days ago, she also saw something serpeant/snake-like in the spirit. We aren't sure what it means exactly or which spirit we were dealing with, though. But we believe that God was telling us something about the spirit behind Janet's sister's affliction. Furthermore, I sensed something about a time of/for mourning and I couldn't sense any peace in the situation. I felt as if the sister has yet to receive salvation and that some curses have been uttered against her. Later, Janet confirmed that she isn't convinced her sister is saved, although she was a Christian once upon a time, as she believed that she had been patronising bomohs (local language for witch doctors), thus confirming the curses I sensed. And that some of her other sisters had wanted to take her off life support but was denied permission by the doctor. So, Jessie took my sensing of mourning to mean that her sisters were already in mourning for her even though she had not passed away yet. I didn't tell them this, but I felt that the mourning part was in fact pointing towards a definite death. Like there was no escape from it. And unfortunately, she did pass away two nights later. I am not spiritualising her illness (which is a viral infection in the blood stream - EW had received this word of knowledge from the Lord) but sometimes some illnesses are caused by certain demonic spirits and it would be good if we could discern which ones so that we can pray against them or cast them out in the authority that we have in Christ Jesus. From the experience, I am thankful that God used us to pray against the viral infection, the curses uttered against her and most importantly, to pray for her salvation.

Stay tuned for more of my God encounters....

Off for Advanced Prophetic Workshop

I'm off to Kota Kinabalu from 2-6 October for an advanced prophetic activation workshop organised by Arise Malaysia. I was there in March for Level 2 where an estimated 50 participants spent five days prophesying over each other. There, we stirred up our gift of prophecy (2 Timothy 1:6). The longest time we were asked to prophesy over one person was half an hour! I wonder how long it will be this time.

I am excited but at the same time concerned that my spiritual senses cannot measure up to the rest. I want to be able to encourage, edify and comfort (1 Corinthians 14:3) those I prophesy over with greater accuracy and impact, which requires both sensitivity to the Holy Spirit and also wisdom in making sense of the message given. I know what it feels like when receiving generic prophecies. I am not discounting them, but it would be great if prophecies could be more precise to the person's situation / need at hand.

I have been praying hard over the last few weeks for a greater encounter with God during this event. I pray that to see more clearly into the supernatural, to hear Him in a more audible voice and to feel what He feels. Would be great too if I could catch a whiff of the supernatural or even taste it (to be substantiated with examples when I get back). Above all, I pray that God will use me mightily to minister and bless others there!

The Angel in Black

I intended to attend Che Ahn's "Hosting the Holy Spirit" conference on Sunday and Monday nights but in the end, I was only there the first night. Pastor Che Ahn shared his testimony and spoke a little bit on how to initiate church revival before going into a time of ministering.

The interesting thing that happened for me was, seeing an angel dressed in black standing at Pastor Che Ahn's right hand. It happened within just a blink of an eye. I immediately shrugged it off as I couldn't discern for a fact that it was from God, the fact that the angel wore black and it wasn't accompanied by awe and wonder. Furthermore, I had been yearning to see much more of the supernatural for quite some time now, so there was that possibility of my own spirit conjuring up that vision.

So anyways, a little bit later into the conference, Pastor Che Ahn shared about his moving to Pasadena. He said that he had a dream where a "black angel" called him to go to Los Angeles as there was going to be a great revival there. Oh boy, when I saw the angel in black, I thought to myself, "black angel?" Exact same words Pastor Che Ahn used to describe the man in his encounter! Of course, I later found out online that the angel he was referring to appeared to him as a black man. But come on, how coincidental is that, right?

Now, I think that my vision of the angel dressed in black could be from God. Because I am not very good at noticing details, God had to show me the angel in black robes for the 'black' to jump out at me! Hence, the term "black angel" I used to describe that vision even before Pastor Che Ahn shared about his dream.

I called my Pastor on the way home and he asked that I pray about the purpose of seeing such a vision at this point in time. At that, I scratched my head and said, "It's for my own encouragement and edification since I have been asking God to open my spiritual eyes?" But because my Pastor has an apostolic calling, he views things in a bigger and wider light. He wonders whether it has anything to do with our church direction since the angel encounter represented the start of a major shift in Che Ahn's ministry or church planting life. Will have to pray for greater discernment of spirits and also for interpretation. But, I am excited!