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Discerning the Times

by Honey Stone
09/29/18
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Many years ago I found myself seriously disliking a woman in my church. I come from a Finnish subculture and one of the highest values in that culture is to be real. You are to: say what you mean and mean what you say.

This gal seemed like a phony to me, but I realized my subculture’s trump card because I once took a class on multiculturalism. This was not a lecture but a hands-on experience in which we played a card game or so it seemed...

Actually, a group came into a room with four tables. We were individually given instructions and then each table began to play the game.

What we didn’t know what that each table had different rules. Different cultures have different rules.

One table had hearts as their trump card and another had spades. You could say that the Finnish culture was a spade culture using the expression: you call a spade a spade. This means to speak truthfully, frankly, and plainly without beating round the bush.

There was the table of clubs. This would represent a violent culture – just kidding. And then there were the diamonds. This could represent a worldly culture such as Babylon in America.

When someone won the hand at one table then they got to go to the other table. That's where the confusion set in. Have you tried to go into another culture and you found people glaring at you. You just stepped on their trump card.

You could get ostracized from the Finnish culture for being phony but that doesn't mean I could judge her according to the American standard as fake. I asked God for help me to like her and to love her.

I had a dream in which I saw her in her transformed state. I actually really liked her that way and so I asked God to change her into what I saw. She hasn’t been totally transformed but I’ve seen some real fruit from my prayers.

THREE LEVELS OF DISCERNMENT

I learned that basically there are three levels of discernment. The first is the natural realm. We can see that someone may be phony but that doesn’t take real spiritual sensitivity.

Then there is the second realm where you may see demonic activity affecting a person.

I tend to see demons in people’s eyes. That’s not so fun. I have been trained in discernment to feel the presence of different demons as well.

For example, lust feels like dirty contacts. Confusion feels like a headache. Arrogance shows up in how someone holds their neck. Seducing spirits feels like I am walking off-kilter.

One of my pastors had a similar gift and said to me: It makes you want to just smack someone when you see the demon in their eyes. But it is not them.

Many years ago after a time of worshipping, I went into a Jimmy John’s and immediately a feeling of stark emptiness took hold of me. I knew I was discerning something. You could even call it a prayer/prophetic/intercessory burden.

I looked around the room and saw a gay man with his partner. His face had some anguish to it but it did not reveal the profoundness of the emptiness that he felt. It was like a black hole of emptiness. Talk about the bottomless pit.

I prayed: Father heal him, save him, deliver him, encounter him, etc. I am not sure which prayer hit the target but I knew I nailed it because the feeling ceased.

I have also gone places and felt the presence of God. It was like a soft-caressing atmosphere with gentle light flickering and floating. I’d look around and perhaps a few people would be soaking God in but the majority were not moved.

I was annoyed with the preacher for rambling on. When God’s presence comes you really don’t want words. In fact, I was scolded for not participating in worship. Quite frankly I was deeply involved in worship. I was looking into my Lover's eyes.

I realized that I personally encountered God and some people had no tangible encounter.

I had another second realm experience when I was in a season of praying in tongues. Mike Bickle’s teaching inspired me to tithe my time to God. It was simply a challenge and not a mandate. So, I spend over two hours a day praying in tongues.

One day I remembered to pray in tongues and stopped in the parking lot of a government building. In my car I began to pray in tongues. I had to roll up the windows of my car because the wind began to howl.

I realized that was spiritual warfare. I listened and could hear angels fighting in front of me as I was praying in tongues. To my left was a gruff grabble-ly sound and to my right was this light and precise ping sound. As I prayed in tongues I could hear and feel the dark side decrease and the light side dominate and take over.

I am not sure what I was praying in tongues for but the kingdom of God won that battle. That was a second heaven battle handled in a third heaven (secret language) manner.

So, If you catch a second realm burden then you can turn to God and catch the third realm possibility. It’s like, okay God, what do you want me to do with this. You can pray for the opposite or you press in for something specific.

When I started flag-dancing, it was a natural evolution. That doesn’t sound very religious does it? I gradually learned things like what the color of the flags meant. Symbolically, red could represent the blood of Jesus. If there was a song or a moment when the blood of Jesus was needed, then I’d go grab that flag.

But along the way I learned other ways of flagging but I got confused and lost my own. That’s why you will always hear me say: find your way into your anointing.

I didn’t lose my anointing but I just started operating in something I had no capacity or passion for.

I also felt pressure to flag at moments when I didn’t feel inspired or guided. I felt that others wanted me to “be on” all of the time.

It was at this point when I ran into a friend who had a similar anointing to mine. God to the rescue again because I came alive again in worship.

I realized that I am just the person who brings the beauty realm into the atmosphere. Mike Bickle does a teaching on this. This is where you take what is in Heaven and you bring it down to Earth visually, emotionally, vocally, and through movement.

That’s a third heaven realm thing.

Last night I was at a service under a tent at the Minnesota Capitol during the Feast of Tabernacles. Some people were not comfortable with it, but there was prophetic group worship.

I sensed an ease in entering into God’s presence. I knew that something was happening because I could just flow and glide in the Spirit. I could go straight into prophetic sound and song. I had never been in that kind of atmosphere before. Yes, I have heard individuals sing prophetically, but I mean that kind of encounter and prophetic-ness in a group experience. And i have had group prophetic encounters before.

I realize that not everybody experienced it. In order to feel/sense God there needs to be a certain degree of healing and deliverance mixed with a relationship. That is not always the case because God may want to encounter someone so they can get a taste of the Spirit-life.

That night, our bellies of Living Water were spilling out all over the place. I sensed that this was happening all over the United States. This was one of the many ways that God was invading our region.

Words were shared that the temple was rent from top to bottom when Christ was resurrected. And the anointing of Aaron poured from the top of the head on down. These were emotive-pictures of how God was moving in the North Star State and how that would affect the rest of the U.S.