Before the race, I had never heard of listening prayer. As I understand it, listening prayer is the practice of turning a one way monologue into a two way dialogue by allowing room for God to speak through placing words or visions on our hearts. For most people, these references are prophetic as they usually apply to an upcoming season in one’s life, or are words of encouragement to share for another. Needless to say, I was very uncomfortable with the idea of receiving prophetic words from the Lord because I doubted that I even knew how to distinguish God’s voice from my own. This blog is a personal testimony of how God spoke to me through listening prayer and used prophetic words to strengthen my faith and initiate sharing the gospel with people from all over the world.
During the debrief in Guatemala, our leadership told us to split into teams and go ask the Lord for words or visions for our time in Romania. As I said before, I was pretty uncomfortable with the idea, but I was willing to give it a try and hoped that it would work. My team and I went to a coffee shop and sat down to consult the Lord in quiet prayer. I tried my best to clear my mind and asked God to give me specific words or images for our time in Romania. Much to my surprise, some things actually started coming to mind. Most of them were images that seemed to refer to light in dark places or peace amidst war. Those were not very shocking to me since they related to things we were already learning about Romania. However, there were two words, one in particular, that startled me because they were very specific. The words Joshua and Xzafia. When I got Joshua, I figured it could be referring to a name or the book of the Bible, but I had never heard of the other word before in my life so I was sure my mind was making it up. Despite my doubt, I wrote everything down, shared them with my squad and decided to wait and pray that the Lord would bring those words to fulfillment somehow.
Fast forward, we get to Romania and after several weeks of serving, many of the images I had gotten started making sense. I won’t go into detail about all of them but one of our ministry opportunities was called the Joshua walk. This was a day where we took time to intercede for the local university and the students by walking around the school 7 times while praying and worshipping. This turned out to be a very powerful/ emotional experience for me that God used to reveal a lot about the power of intercession. I also read through the book of Joshua and it turned out to be very applicable for my time in Romania. So, the word “Joshua” ended up having great significance for my time in Craiova as well as many of the other visions, but the one that still was not making sense to me was the word Xzafia.
I had pretty much given up that God would do anything with the word as I had reached the second to last day of my ministry time in Romania. It was a dreary day and me and my teammate Olivia had just spent several hours going to different clinics trying to get me medicine for some infected bug bites. After walking around all day, we decided to take a break at one of the new coffee shops called Shakespeare & Poetry. We had just settled down into one of the corners with our Bibles and English tea when two young people all dressed in white walked in and sat directly behind us. A few minutes later, another young woman burst in the shop being fairly loud and ran up to embrace one of the young people in white. Clearly they were old friends who had not seen each other in quite awhile and surprisingly they all started speaking English. They also had much to catch up on evidently, because they were being so loud and chatty right behind me and Liv as we were trying to enjoy our peace. I did my best not to be annoyed at the situation and tried to zone them out so I could read. Right as I was starting to focus, I heard the young man say a phrase that rang out clear as day, “Yes and my friend Xzafia….” Immediately me and Liv looked right at each other and she was like, “did you just hear what they said?” And I responded,”they literally just said my word!”
After that, I started freaking out. Partially because I was so excited that the word was actually from God and not just my imagination, and also because I realized that meant He was highlighting these people to me and I needed to talk to them. My plan was to smoothly initiate casual conversation with these three strangers while on my way out. Of course, it was more awkward than that since a random person approached their table and said, “So you guys speak English?” Despite my failed efforts to be casual, they were really inviting. They seemed very interested in the fact that we were Americans and why we were in Romania. After a couple minutes of candid conversation, they invited us to sit down with them. This led to having several hours of more in depth conversation addressing all kinds of topics. Before long we had to move to a bigger table because more of their friends joined us and then some other random people from the coffee shop became intrigued by our conversation and also joined. By the end, the conversation had gone from 4 to 9 people from 4 different countries (Spain, Romania, Switzerland and the U.S.) talking about a variety of educational, theological and environmental topics. How cool is God!? To bring about such amazing connections and an opportunity to share the gospel with people from all over the world just because He gave me a random word that spurred the courage to talk to these people. Naturally I was curious about who this Xzafia person was since no one there had that name. The young man in white, named Kai, ended up sharing with me that she was a friend of his from school. Looking back, it was so ironic that the name I was given was not the name of the actual person/ people I met, but merely an acquaintance.
The conversations that came out of that evening were so rich and beautiful. Everyone I spoke with was very open about their faith or what their thoughts were on all things relating to divinity and religion. Me and Liv were able to deconstruct several false perceptions of who God was and introduce truth back into their understanding as well as challenge them to seek things out deeper for themselves. The two in white happened to be twins from Spain. Our conversation was especially in depth and I was able to grab coffee with them again at a later time even after we had switched cities. They and all the people I met that evening, have no idea how big of a blessing they were to me and how God used them to strengthen my faith and trust in His ability to speak to me. I also felt like that was the night I discovered that I have the gift of wisdom for words and discernment in conversation and the gift of prophecy in receiving things from the Lord. Neither of these gifts are predictable or within my control, but are completely at the mercy of the Lord and when He sees fit to give them to me.
Listening prayer has now become a part of my weekly routine. It always looks different and sometimes I am more confident in what I receive than others, but I always learn something new about God and myself in those times. It is a powerful and important way in which the Father has allowed us to communicate with Him, and Him with us. I have learned to be an expectant follower of Christ in knowing that He will show up in amazing ways and invite me to partner with Him. Learning to lean into listening prayer and creating that space for Him to speak is another way I have given my best “yes” to this experience even though it is not often comfortable. Since leaving Romania, I have asked for more specifics words or images for Albania. Please be praying that the Lord uses those words to bring about more conversations and connections for his glory and that He reveals Himself in new ways to the people we have already met. I’m excited to share of all the stories that I’m sure are to come!
Much Love, Tris🫰🏼
