pat loughery

For several years I’ve been growing a relationship with a guy who used to attend my previous church and who is prophetically gifted. I say growing a relationship because the early days of our relationship were filled with conflict, strife, hurt, mistrust, challenges to integrity, and probably more bad juju that I’ can’t label.

He’s been hurt serving pastors; I’ve been hurt working with prophetic types. We’re a match made in heaven.

Last summer I was doing a brief topical series on spiritual gifts to really plug them into the DNA of our church. I had very recently seen Steve Nicholson demonstrate prophecy and mentoring (hand-in-hand) in a phenomenally HEALTHY way, and it was very healing to me. And I wanted to do more than just teach the text of prophecy; I wanted us to experience it, and I wanted to release it into our church.

So I asked a few friends to come up to our service and be available both to listen to what God was showing them and speak what they were asked to, and also to pray for others who wanted a release or an increase of that gift. The friend I described earlier was one of those people. The evening went very well, it was one of the highlights of our year.

That invitation restarted our relationship, and we’ve met maybe three times through the fall and winter, working through the old stuff and getting more comfortable with each other.

He emailed me a couple of weeks ago asking if we could get together, and I told him that last week was bad for me but let’s try this week. So yesterday we sat down at Starbucks (I bought; I’m rich in Starbucks Funds these days :-)).

It was a very good time. He didn’t have anything in particular to share when we first sat down, but 2-1/2 hours later, the Lord had shown up. He had confirmed several things that I’d seen, or wondered about, or worried about. He’d encouraged me in a few areas, some very specific, some general. The Lord through this friend ministered to me.

It was strengthening, encouraging, comforting, and for the first time between us, very natural and comfortable. I love it when the Lord restores relationships so that His greater purpose can be accomplished.