Moms know things. Not only do they know that your dreaded history test is next Friday (because they talked to the other moms at soccer practice) and that you’ve been swapping your turkey sandwich with Sarah for her PB&J (because your lunch box smells like peanut butter every day), but they also intuitively know things. My mom knew the day I got my first kiss because she could sense it when I walked in the door.
But my dad had a different kind of knowledge. He knew things he had no reason to know. He was given knowledge about things that he had no way of simply intuiting or deducing. For instance, he woke up one morning and told my mom to turn on the TV because a plane had just flown into the side of a mountain (this was pre-9/11). Sure enough, the news channels had just picked up a story about a plane crashing into the side of a mountain.
Stories like this permeate my childhood, such that I grew up thinking every dad had a superpower of just knowing things. So it freaked me out when I got older and realized what a rare gift my dad had. And it freaked me out even more when I started showing signs of the same.
A couple of years ago, my friend Jill had her first child, and although she and her husband revealed the baby’s name to no one else, God revealed to me two weeks before his birth that the baby’s name would be Elijah. When the name came into my mind, it wasn’t just a good guess. It wasn’t something I’d intuited from something Jill told me. It was a supernatural revelation, and I was so sure of the knowledge – had such a deep-seated certainty of its validity – that when Jill texted me she was going into labor, I wrote back, “Say hi to baby Elijah for me!” She was stunned. And so was I. But God still speaks.
A couple of weeks ago, I was in a conference room with about sixty colleagues, participating in a “get to know you” session with senior leadership. The facilitator of the meeting was asking each leader a personal question, like “What is your favorite movie?” or “What book are you reading right now?”
When time came for the last leader in the row to respond, the facilitator asked, “What’s the bravest thing you’ve ever done?”
And boom. Into my brain popped the knowledge of what he was going to say. It wasn’t just a good guess. I knew that I knew the exact words that were about to come out of his mouth. So I leaned over to Bethany and whispered, “He’s about to say, ‘Getting married to my wife.'”
Bethany laughed, thinking I was being funny, but as the leader echoed my words into the microphone – “Getting married to my wife.” – Bethany’s eyebrows shot up, and her head snapped to me, eyes wide.
As more of these instances have occurred in my life, I’ve often asked why. Why reveal this knowledge to me? My dad knowing about the plane didn’t change anything. It didn’t save lives. Knowing Elijah’s name didn’t enact anything in his life. Same with this leader’s response to a seemingly pointless networking question.
So what is the purpose of such revelation? I have determined that it is God’s way of growing my faith. It’s so hard for a control freak like me to relinquish my plans to God and genuinely believe His ways are better than mine (what pride!). These revelations remind me of God’s omniscience, that He still speaks, and that I can know His plans and hear His voice if I but listen.
Authentically Aurora
Authentically Aurora 
Fascinating!
Of course, as you might likely surmise, I don’t believe there is anything supernatural involved, but my daughter and I have shared what seems to be a psychic bond for years, repeating each other’s thoughts, thinking of calling her, only to have her call me, etc.
But the day of her college graduation was the most vivid example of that phenomenon. There were hundreds in her graduating class, and though I knew from my own graduation, they were likely seated alphabetically, I still had no idea where she would be sitting, and as I didn’t want to miss a second of the experience, I went to the second floor, to watch from the balcony so I could get a bird’s eye view of everything.
The ceremony began, and she marched down the aisle, single-file, with the rest of her classmates, crossed the stage, received her diploma, and began back down the opposite aisle to resume her seat. Throughout, she had looked straight ahead, but on her way back, for a brief second, she looked up, directly at me, smiled, and continued on her way.
I hadn’t told her of my plan to stand in the balcony, it was a last-minute decision once I’d seen how crowded the lower level was and how difficult it would be to see her. And even had she somehow reasoned – on that day when her mind was filled with the excitement of graduation – that I might move to the balcony, that balcony was U-shaped and extended around 3 of the 4 sides of the auditorium, she would have had no idea as to exactly where, in that expanse, I might be standing, and what’s more, she didn’t search the balcony with her gaze, she looked directly where I was and smiled.
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I’m glad you shared that moment.
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God just gives certain people gifts and that is clearly one of your many. Just make sure you cultivate it, or you’ll lose it. (You know which parable I’m talking about.) And by the way, you probably knew I was going to say that. 🙂
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No, it seems to operate only between my daughter and myself, and only she among four daughters. Being as I am, an atheist, I’ll pass on the god explanation.
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I’m not exactly sure how to “cultivate” words of knowledge since I don’t control when they come, but I’ll keep telling people about it and thanking God when they come!
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You always just seem to have the Spirit guiding you when to do things, so I think you are definitely on the right track.
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