If you’re reading this post after seeing the title, I guarantee that it’s going places you didn’t expect. Sorry, it’s not that juicy. If anything, it’s more… strange. The other day my wife shared a story that I’m sure she’s told me before, but I had no memory of it… like most things I hear (I have the memory of an 90 year old… or maybe I wasn’t really listening; it could go either way). My wife said she distinctly remembers as a teen being in her high school hallway outside of her art room looking at some art work on the wall and a very clear internal voice told her that she would one day marry a guy named Chad. She thought this was stupid because the only Chad she knew was a red head – ew (no offense to people like my sister) – and a stoner (arguably worse than being a red head… at least for someone like me who hates the smell of pot). My wife also remembers the voice saying that this Chad would be in a church ministry position (aka make poverty level income – sexy). What’s funny is she had this moment that stuck with her, but even when she met me my first day as a youth pastor at her church, she didn’t put the two together: (wife) “Here’s a Chad who works in church ministry and I’m single and the perfect age to date him… I don’t see any connection to anything in my past. I must be blinded by his gorgeousness and/or be the worst detective ever.” What’s crazy is my wife didn’t even consider this memory until we were getting married… nine years later. She said the problem was I was so incredible she didn’t believe marrying me was possible… or it was because there were too many things about me that she hated, which meant she had no interest in marrying me. One of those is true. (Hint, there’s a reason we dated for nine years, and it’s not because we were perfect for each other.) What makes this even funnier is at our church there was another Chad there who was the worship leader, and he had been there long before I was, so she had two Chad’s in ministry at her church from which to choose. This thought had never crossed her mind until I pointed it out in our conversation 15 years later – she really is a terrible detective. That being said, when I met the other Chad, he was engaged, so I guess I was my wife’s choice by default. Although it’s funny to picture my wife interrupting his wedding by yelling, “You can’t get married because God told me five years ago I was supposed to marry a Chad in ministry, and I don’t want a youth pastor!”
The topper to this story is my wife said there was another thing the voice told her, and that was she needed to save herself for marriage because the guy she was going to marry was also going to save himself. For the record, God never told me to save myself. My guess is He knew how stubborn, uptight, and goody-goody I was, so He didn’t need to encourage me to wait until marriage… that and I had zero game, so there weren’t a lot of options. What’s strange is this voice would’ve said this to my wife around the exact time I started dating my first girlfriend who was a wonderful person and protector of my goody-goodiness, but clearly someone God knew wasn’t going to last… maybe He knew she was a lesbian –that’d make sense. Either way, my five years with her were a wonderful blessing and something I’m sure God wanted as it protected me from doing stupid things while preparing me for my wife, so I’m forever grateful for that relationship.
After that moment in her high school, my wife ended up dating a lot of guys none of whom were named Chad – that would be a strange Online Dating filter: only guys named Chad. She never gave this voice experience much thought besides feeling compelled to wait until marriage for sex. From my experience, this is an example of Biblical prophecy, which is different than fortune telling because prophecy is meant to encourage and/or guide. Fortune telling has a way of getting in someone’s head and pushing them to do things they shouldn’t be doing to try to make the fortune come true like in Macbeth.
I learned about Biblical prophecy when I was invited to a prophecy night a friend’s mom was holding back when I worked at a church. It was fascinating. Each visitor like me who showed up was put with a small group of people trained in prophecy who would pray and share what images they saw in connection to the visitor. The host was excited when I showed up and handpicked me to be in her group. It was crazy because she started saying things about me that she could never have known. The one image that stuck with me was she saw me on a horse with people throwing tomatoes at me, which was a perfect description of what I was going through at the time. She said that God was proud of me and wanted me to keep going despite being discouraged; it was incredibly encouraging, so whether it was real or not (I believe it was), it was a wonderful gift from God. Near the end of our time together, the host burst out laughing and said “I can’t say that!” Of course, I told her she now had to because my curiosity was bursting. She said it went against the rules to share this kind of message and I had to promise not to use it against her in the future. She then shared what she heard: “Marry the girl, already.” Can you see why she wouldn’t want to tell me that? If the marriage didn’t work out, I could blame her in some way. What’s crazy about this was around that time I had been looking at a ring and planning my proposal, but I was struggling whether I should do it or not. This message was the most encouraging message I could’ve asked for because I had some doubts (nine years has a reason).
It’s pretty cool that we both had an experience of prophecy about each other, and they were very different… or a sign that one or both of us is crazy – I claimed this post would be different than you expected.
As encouraging as prophecy can be, it’s dangerous if you start to over think it. For instance, what does it mean that God talked to her about a Chad and not me about my wife? Did God tell her that because she was at risk of making some bad choices? Was she so attractive (because she was) that He didn’t need to encourage me to go for her? Isn’t that basically saying I wasn’t attractive enough to naturally win her over? That’s nice; thanks God. You could’ve just made me better looking. This message could also make me over think the God telling my wife to wait or why her at all? Is our relationship a reward to one of us or is there something we’re supposed to be doing? Was it because He knew that my wife would be valuable in inspiring blog topics? Did God tell my wife to wait until marriage because I have such a strong jealousy problem I couldn’t have handled her not waiting? Was it to protect me from my own potential weaknesses? Why doesn’t He offer more guidance? It’s easy to over think something even if it’s simply meant to be encouraging.
What I do know is when I was a teenager I dreamed of big things… so much for dreams. Could this prophecy experience simply be God’s way of saying it didn’t matter that I didn’t do anything that special? He simply wanted me to know that I mattered; my simple life mattered. He didn’t need me to be the famous performer or writer I dreamt of becoming when I was younger. He just wanted me to know I’m loved by Him and to be faithful to Him. In the end, that’s all that matters. When I’m dead, it doesn’t matter what I achieved or what adventures I had in this life; what matters is my connection to God… even though that’s far from what I dreamed of experiencing. Sometimes dreams are simply meant to inspire us to work harder and have purpose.
Bonus: It’s easy to wonder if God loves us, and why He doesn’t perform more miracles for us, but I believe God gives us the space to experience life like a good parent should. God wants us to be responsible and recognize how strong and resilient we are. He also believes in repercussions for bad choices, and He’s not going to bail us out of every bad situation like a stereotypical rick person does with a spoiled hedge fund kid who’s a waste of life. Struggle can build character. At the same time, we will never know how many times God adjusted something to protect us whether delaying us from being on the road a few seconds so we would miss a fatal accident or how He doesn’t give us our dreams because sometimes that’s what saves us from becoming terrible people and losing our connection with Him.
This week may you consider that God wants us to be encouraged even if it’s in the simple things that go on around us, and sometimes we don’t hear from God because we don’t put ourselves in places to hear Him (e.g. like how I went to a prophecy night).
Rev. Chad David, ChadDavid.ca, learning to love dumb people (like me)