A dinner invitation to John & Martha Johney’s home? I was told prophet Amos Jayarathnam would be present too. Wonderful …great. Furthermore, I used to enjoy his late dad’s and mum’s hospitality. Even better, Amos will probably pray and prophesy over each of us.
AMOS JAYARATHNAM, A PROPHET
Amos has the marks of an authentic new covenant prophet: holy, godly character, Word-based, humble, tried and tested and found faithful in years of ministry and hardship, and many of his prophecies have substantial accuracy. This I can attest to, for he has ministered in our church over many years. He is one of the few friends of World Revival Prayer Fellowship of whom we can say, “kaki lang”, which translated from Hokkien dialect, “one of us”.
John had invited Paul and Miriam Chan, my wife Jenny, my daughter Elaine, and myself. Dinner was a feast of flavours, colours, textures, smells and the taste was plain delicious. The fish briyani was the first I have ever seen or tasted, and I liked it. Martha packed some briyani in an ice-cream tub for me to bring home, and I am now writing on that energy because I had it for lunch a few hours ago.
Amazing and amusing stories of faith and God’s interventions in the politics of Indonesia and Sri Lanka, and laughter peppered the gulps of water, roasted chicken, chapatis, curries, and mango salad.
After dessert, the gear shifted with Holy Communion and when Amos started to pray and prophesy over each one present including the domestic helper. We recorded our prophecies on our voice recorder app in our phones. This is one of the advantages of mobile phones: we can record and later transcribe our personal prophecies, and this is important, because our memory usually misses out on important details. Personal prophecies need to be prayerfully assessed, meditated upon for the Holy Spirit to throw further light on them, and interpreted in the light of God’s word and his past dealings in our life.
WRITE, WRITE, WRITE
This is the umpteenth time over many years that I have received this prophecy, and I am glad that with my recent retirement, I have already begun to write more regularly on my blog. At least I have taken some steps to obey the Lord. I was too busy earlier with studies and ministry burdens to write much, but now there is more space for me to do so.
The prophecy to me is that there is a lot I can write about: manuals, teachings, messages to the Body of Christ. That writing is timeless and can bless God’s people of different generations. God’s riches in my life can be released to bless, lead people to truth and free people from lies. Giving the balanced Word can renew people’s conscience according to the true knowledge of God and not according to the world’s values and expectations.
I like the part where the prophetic word urges that I do it slowly, not under pressure of deadlines, but according to the inspiration and motivation that the Spirit gives. I believe that discipline is important, but I have been in the place where discipline is futile, because there is no sparkplug. So I liked this bit of instruction to me about when, how and what to write.
The prophecy encouraged me to model myself after apostle John in the island of Patmos, living in solitude and prayer, giving God the space to grant revelation and inspiration, so that I could write to instruct and inspire hope in God’s people. This restfulness, focus and inspiration need to permeate my writing. As an introvert, this suits me fine. My prayer room, my home, the parks nearby can be my Patmos.
Do pray for me as I seek to obey the Lord. He has stirred my desire to write and I pray he will be in the front and back and center of all my writing – whether in this blog, in future e-books or in other social media like Instagram.
Have you received personal prophecy from others before? What do you think of them? What has been your experience?