Monthly Archives: October 2021

Essays and Thoughts, Things I've Learned Along the Way

The Soothsayer Spirit

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Soothsayer…an antiquated term we rarely hear today.  Scripture only translates the original language into the term soothsayer a handful of times. 

Balaam was a soothsayer, and Balaam’s word clearly carried a lot of weight.  He was paid handsomely for the art of soothsaying.  But what is it?  It’s not witchcraft.  Most of the times it is translated as “divination” or a “diviner”. 

In the reference in Joshua about Balaam it comes from the Hebrew “gacam”, meaning “to distribute, that is to determine by lot of magical scroll; to divine, prudent, soothsayer, use divination.”  [Strong’s]

Two other words in the Hebrew have been translated similarly [again, Strong’s]:

“gezar:  to quarry; determine:  cut out, soothsayer”

“Anan:  to cover, to cloud over, to act covertly i.e. practice magic:  enchanter…observer of times…soothsayer, sorcerer”

And once in the New Testament it’s used.

Acts 16:16

 And it came to pass, as we went to prayer, a certain damsel possessed with a spirit of divination met us, which brought her masters much gain by soothsaying:

This term comes from the Greek “manteuomai:  to divine, i.e. utter spells under pretense of foretelling, by soothsaying”. 

Eighteen years ago….

Eighteen years ago a stranger stopped me and prophesied over me.  At the end of the prophecy she said this, “God would warn you that a soothsayer will come against you – whether in form or spirit, I don’t know.  This soothsayer will send lies or confusion to you as to make you disbelieve His word and His calling.  He’s warning you ahead of time so you are not deceived or swayed away from Him or His call.”

When I asked her for more understanding, that’s all she had.  She was clear that the word she was given was “soothsayer” and not witchcraft.

I was in my 20s and a young mother.  I had no idea what this meant or what to expect.  It has taken me a long, long time to understand it.  This is what I have learned….

Some time after this I was working with some deliverance ministers and intercessors on personal deliverance.  At one of the sessions one of the gals told me I had a specific thought or emotion as a baby and that I needed to repent of it.  As soon as she told me the emotion I allegedly had as a baby (or small child), my inner being recoiled.  I could not for the life of me understand how I would have had that thought or emotion.  It was well over two decades later and I was not cognizant of ever thinking or feeling what she suggested I thought or felt.   She perceived my reluctance and chided me to accept the revelation of God and respond by asking forgiveness.

I actually had a visceral reaction to this.  I had no problem taking by faith elements of my earliest childhood by inspiration of the Spirit, but I had no inspiration, no confirmation that this was from God.  I had already had several other leadings that were confirmed in me, but this one I had the exact opposite reaction.  I recoiled.  I drew back from the implication and within me immediately pushed back with a resounding no.  No, I did not have that thought or emotion as a baby or small child.

When I questioned her more about it, she refused to move on or answer additional questions and stated she was following the leading of the Spirit.  I implored direction from another intercessor in the session.  That other intercessor did not get a confirmation but instead got a separate word for me that God confirmed and helped me gain deliverance with.

The fallout of that led to a standoff.  The lady declared that I was in rebellion to God by not accepting the word she had brought forth.  She told me we could not continue my sessions until I aligned with that word.  I assured her I would as soon as I got confirmation from the Spirit.  That confirmation never came.  Instead, I was in turmoil and inner conflict as I wrestled over this directive in my own being.  My husband told me to let it go, that she was just a human and could be wrong like anyone else.  He said he did not get a witness to that word.

I prayed over that for days that moved into weeks.  She refused to allow our sessions to go forth.  Because of her position of leadership in the church, no one else would help me.  I turned to self-study through Derek Prince books, prayer and some deliverance conferences.  Nearly a year later I was approached by her to “resume our sessions”.  I was shocked.  The Spirit warned me that same morning that workers of darkness were aligned against me, but I did not know what it meant until I went to that meeting.  She ambushed me by bringing two other people to the meeting to accuse me of things that were blatantly false.  One of the other attendees was a pastor in the church.  I was admonished of being rebellious to spiritual authority and told to submit to their leadership.  I walked away and never went back.  The fallout of that cost me, my children and our family dearly.  My name was slandered and lies were spread about me that took years to expose.

The same woman, in a prominent role of leadership in that church, spread flat out lies about me that would not come to the surface until I was gone.  The damage was done and I moved on.

Fast forward a couple more years.  I had moved on and away from that scene and was in a different church with no overlap of those people.  One of the intercessors from the prior church was powerfully prophetic, and got clear words of knowledge that could not be denied.  She ended up at the same church I was at, and we ministered together in leadership roles for quite a while.

I was the head of a ministry, and in favor with the pastor.  Behind my back this woman went to the pastor and cast seeds of doubt against a program I was running.  She and I had previously had a conversation about that program, and I had gone to the pastor with her stated concerns, and like me, he did not have the same concerns.  So I proceeded with the program.  When she found out, she went behind my back and slurred me to him with unfounded accusations.  When I confronted her, she told me, “I have to obey God, not man.”   Implication:  she was following God to do this.

Again, she was highly prophetic with extremely accurate words of knowledge.  I figured I must’ve missed something, and I moved on.  I didn’t talk with her for a year after that, but circumstances brought us back together.  I looked at her prophetic gift and figured I must’ve been wrong on something, forgave her, and continued in ministry with her.

A couple years later I happenstance ran into the first lady.  ALL of my antennas were up, and I was silently pleading the Blood over myself as she engaged me in small talk.  That night my dog started barking incessantly, pointed in the direction of our alley.  Our back fence was solid metal – you could not see through it.  After fifteen minutes of this barking, I walked out my front door and down the sidewalk to the alley to investigate.  As I was approaching the alley the Spirit warned me to not go down it.  He simply said, “Don’t get off the sidewalk.”  I rarely can see spirits, but there was an enormous ten or twelve foot dark spirit in the alley my dog was barking at.  I knew it was sent through her. 

A couple years later the second lady started coming to the church I was now at, and in a leadership role.  One by one, little things started happening that made no sense.  While I was praying with her, financially assisting her, and ministering with her, she was sowing lies about me in secret conversations.  I felt something off but couldn’t put my finger on it.  And then I found out she wrote a letter to the District Superintendent of our church and told a bold-faced lie about me (that I had been kicked out of six churches).  By this time the damage of her lies had started the demise of many things in that church, and people were being divided and picked off at record rate.

Somewhere along this multi-year journey, the Spirit showed me it was the soothsayer spirit at work against me.  He reminded me of his warning in 2003. 

In my experience, the soothsayer spirit worked through Christians with a strong prophetic gift.  I have no idea whether they are true Christians or not.  I would guess they are, but are being used by the enemy.  I can go back to many words given by some of these highly prophetic people and know they were spot on.  I can go back to many other words given by these same highly prophetic people and know they were dead wrong. 

In my earlier days I had no self confidence.  While I’m prophetic, it has taken me a couple decades to feel confident in the words and revelations God has given me.  I came from a place of brokenness, so I doubted myself regularly.  When those around me with titles and notoriety spoke into my life with their words, I deferred to their experience and reputations. 

One of the common arrows used against me was I was “rebellious”.  Of course I was.  I was raised by a religious spirit of control.  The only way to resist authoritative control is to rebel.  Rebellion was ingrained in me.  It kept me alive.  My adult daughter recently asked my dad why he (my parents) disowned me (when I was sixteen).  He replied, “We couldn’t control her.”  How accurate those words are.  My parents used an iron fist to control me, even down to the clothes I had to wear daily, even down to the emotions on my face and the words out of my mouth.  Personal expression was forbidden, I was punished for laughing even.  The only way to survive for me was to rebel, to push back against their authoritarian control.  Submission was death to my spirit, my inner man.  I would not do so.

Those in the deliverance ministry and with a prophetic gift would have seen that rebellion in me and use it against me, to shame me into submission to more authoritarian control and religious spirits.  It took a prophet from Kenya to prophesy over me (in one of the very churches I was debased and stripped of sovereignty) to free me from the chains they had attempted to put on me. 

So to me the soothsayer spirit is a treacherous spirit that masquerades as prophetic gifting and religious authority.  It did the very thing the prophetic word I was given in 2003 warned me of, “This soothsayer will send lies or confusion to you to make you disbelieve His word and His calling.”  This is exactly what those actions through good Christians did.  The wake of damage from this spirit working against my life has been extensive.  But God. 

There are multiple other examples of how this worked against me for fifteen years, but I don’t have space for all of them.  I tried to pick the bigger more destructive situations it manifested.  So today I am extremely cautious of the prophetic and prophetic words.  I am extremely cautious of those in church authority.  I walk a fine line between honoring those appointed by God and making sure I do not acquiesce to a spirit being used for my destruction.  I err on the side of caution every time.

Soothsayer, by original definition, uses a spirit of divination.  I learned that it can use a prophetic gift most easily, and Christians who have a mixture of flesh and spirit in their walk.  I hope that helps someone else on their journey. 

Things I've Learned Along the Way

healing from trauma, part two

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Overcoming Trauma

I went to dinner recently with one of my best friends.  He got a call when we were at dinner and the call went long.  So I got up and walked around, made a few phone calls myself and returned.  He was still on the phone.  Eventually he moved out to the parking lot when I was walking around.  I just kept circling the parking lot, walking past shops and stores, waiting for the perpetual call to end.  Since we were in a strange city and I was at the mercy of his transportation, I did not seem to have anywhere to go on my own accord.  I was pretty agitated because I thought it was discourteous.  I said my piece and left it at that.

A few days later I was meeting him at a location in another strange city where I knew no one.  I was still in the parking lot when he went into the building.  I had to deal with some issues in my car, and when I went into the (strange and unfamiliar) building, he wasn’t there.  I cannot explain the rage I felt in that moment.  I had no idea where he was and he didn’t answer his phone when I called him.

Minutes later when he resurfaced, I was furious.  I heard myself yell at him in the elevator, “Stop leaving me alone in parking lots!”  I could tell my rage was disproportionate to the event, but couldn’t figure out why.  I asked God why I was so mad.  An image flashed in my mind’s eye of my sister and me sitting in a pickup in the middle of a pasture.

It was a flashback to when I think I was maybe five or six, and she was six or seven.  My parents were farmers and we had gone to this pasture to do something for farm work.  My mom had told us to sit in the truck and wait for her to return.   It was fine at first, as we busied ourselves with playing.  As time progressed we bickered and picked at each other.  Then as more time progressed we panicked.  We were both sure she wasn’t coming back, and we both began sobbing hysterically.  Shortly after our hysteria hit, our mom showed up and was confused and annoyed with our emotional outburst.

As young as we were, we didn’t realize what prompted it.  We had been adopted at ages four and five, and we had been left by our biological mom at ages two and three.  We didn’t have that memory consciously, but clearly we had it subconsciously and it caused us great angst a few years later when what felt like a similar scenario arose.

So as recent as in this last year, being left in a strange city where I knew no one triggered some of that same anxiety.  How odd that forty years later I could still be triggered, albeit to a lesser degree.  When I saw the flashback to my sister and I in the pickup crying hysterically, afraid we had been abandoned by our second mom, I was able to understand my current anger and frustration and move on without it causing more trouble. 

What if I had not had the insight from God on why I was so upset?  I’m sure I would’ve railed on my best friend, caused a rift in our friendship and who knows what other fallout may have occurred.    

Trauma rewires the brain

The human mind is complex.  Trauma rewires your brain.  The younger you are at the time of trauma, the more difficult it is to discern quickly when it is causing a reaction.  If you don’t have the conscious memory of the traumatic event, and you don’t have an awareness, it’s improbable you will ascertain its impact years later in varying situations. 

I’ve spent most of my life healing from various traumas and learning how to walk in health.  Because of how childhood trauma wired me, I’m particularly careful who I let into my inner circle.  I can count those I’ve let in on one hand.  More on that later…

Another more recent event expounds on this.   I had traveled with a best friend to a strange city.  While there an emergency arose for “Mary”.  Mary had to fly out of the city to the emergency, leaving me alone in the strange city for a day.  She would return late the next night.  She asked if I’d be okay at the hotel without a car for a day and a half.  I assured her I would.  I’m a researcher and writer, so being alone is not a problem.  I had her take me to grab some lunch before she left, knowing I’d be limited on meal options over the next 32 hours or so.  She returned a bit later than we expected and I was famished.  Because it was almost eleven, not many places were open and I opted to just go to bed after driving to try to find food.

Mary left the next day for some meetings that took way longer than expected.  This was day three.  As the day progressed and night fell, I could tell my psyche was struggling but I didn’t know why.  I was hungry.  It was the end of the third day and I still hadn’t had a meal since the original lunch.  I finally opted to go to bed, praying the whole time trying to figure out why I was so bothered.

Mary offered to take me to get food when she returned from her meetings, but again, it was too late for any real food places to be open.  I wasn’t mad at Mary, but I was struggling and didn’t understand why.  I was tearful and wanted to cry the rest of the night.  I prayed a lot, asking God why I was so troubled, but finally opted to go to bed in hopes of waking to a new day. 

When I awoke on day four, I was indifferent.  I determined I would do what I had to do to get a meal and not rely upon Mary (she had the only mode of transportation).  I sought the Lord that morning about why I was so bothered.  I wondered if it was from some of the heavy stuff I was researching and maybe it had settled in more deeply than I realized.  Then I saw an image flash across my mind’s eye.  It was a kitchen stool sitting along a wall.

Then I saw my childhood home and the kitchen dining room area.  The kitchen stool sat along the kitchen wall, and the long table stretched in the adjoining dining area.  One of my punishments in my childhood was sitting on that stool.  For hours.  Often it would be as the family sat and had a meal and I did without.

Now I’m going to get into some details that will take some time, but it’s necessary to help understand the complexities of the human mind and the rewiring trauma does. 

When I was doing deliverance work for myself, I worked with a couple people who specialized in deliverance and intercession.   Because I was adopted, there’s not a lot I know about my birth mother other than what I’ve been able to piece together over time from some interviews and some court records.

During one of my deliverance sessions, one of my intercessors saw me as a little girl, maybe one or two, and I was beside a large tree looking up at the apple hanging down, trying to stretch out my hand to get one but couldn’t reach.  There was a ladder, but the first rung was too high for me to reach.  And she got the scripture, Psalm 145:15:  “The eyes of all look to You, and You give them their food in due time.”

As we prayed the intercessors got that my nutritional needs during early childhood were amiss.  My biological mom had alcohol, drug and sex addictions.  She smoked when she was pregnant with me.  She was in poverty and food was hit and miss in the home (from the state child welfare records).  When we got adopted a few years later, my new mom’s methods of discipline included withholding food.

So there was an early childhood trauma of malnourishment, and it was compounded by a later action of withholding food, punishment from food.  The first trauma rewired the brain, and the second reinforced it.  It’s taken me a lot of years to manage some eating dysfunctions I have (mostly binging, sometimes hoarding food). 

How are these traumas healed?  How are they overcome?

Trauma rewires the brain.  The solution and healing to the trauma is found in God.  The eyes of all look to You and You give them their food in due time.  This is the truth.  God provides even when man fails.

The events of the four days without a meal thing (I had snacks, it’s not like I was starving) created phantom pains for me, reminiscent of earlier traumas.  I’m healed.  I don’t struggle with eating disorders and unhealthy thought patterns about food anymore.  And yet, forty years later, a situation had just enough similarity to trigger a phantom pain or fear. 

Had it not been for the insight I received when I petitioned the Lord for why I was struggling (the flashback of the kitchen stool), I would not have had the awareness that this was just trauma trying to reinsert itself in my thinking and create additional drama in my life.  As soon as I saw the kitchen stool I had an immediate awareness that this was a false affliction. 

What I’m trying to do is two-fold:  address trauma triggers and address solutions. 

Because of how trauma rewires the brain, in future situations that rewiring causes dramatic reactions that otherwise would not be there.  Something gets rewired to assess situations through a trauma filter, and in the future, similar situations can trigger the trauma responses.

The solution is Christ, of course.  But that’s such a pat answer to such a complex condition.  Let’s look at it like this….

Give yourself some grace when you feel triggered.  Try not to react in dramatic measure.  When you feel yourself reacting disproportionately to the circumstances pull back and breathe in deeply.  Recognize something is amiss and give yourself time to work through it.  Don’t berate yourself if your immediate reaction is inappropriate.  It probably will be, because trauma causes that.  Just try to catch it quicker the next time.  You’ll find as time goes by the triggers will come fewer and further between.  Again, give yourself grace.

Give others in the situation grace, understanding they don’t perceive the current situation through a trauma filter.   My friends couldn’t possibly know I was having an uncontrolled reaction based on a trauma stimulus.  Heck, it took me awhile to figure it out.  Give them grace, and don’t feel like you need to explain yourself.  Trauma and trauma responses are vulnerability issues.  I hate being vulnerable to anyone, and I try to keep these things completely between me and God.  Sometimes, however, if it’s someone I love and trust deeply, I will bring them into my trauma circle for a moment.

About ten years ago I was doing dishes and looked out the window and saw the traffic police pull up to radar for a school zone.  I was immediately enraged, like I went from do-ta-do to ARGHH in a split second.  The contempt I had for those cops was off the charts.  After a few minutes I asked God, “Why do I feel like this?  They’re just doing their job!”  He responded, “Because police took you away from your mom when you were two.  You’ve hated police ever since.”

Know this:  I do not have a conscious memory of police taking me away.  I was too young to remember or I repressed it.  But the trauma trigger for me still existed.  I asked God what to do.  He told me to forgive the policeman who took me away, and to forgive police in general.  I did.  That anger left that day and has not returned.  Sometimes I have phantom twinges trying to pull me back into that anger, but I recall the truth (I have forgiven them and they are just doing their job) and I choose to walk in that truth instead.

This leads me back to the Christ answer.  Christ has the answer for each of your traumas.  He knows what was rewired.  He knows what triggers you and why.  Learn to ask Him.  He can and will heal it.  I can already hear some of you, “But I don’t hear God like you do.”  I know.  I know.  It’s not that you don’t hear Him; it’s that you haven’t recognized the way He speaks to you.

Sometimes He answers with a thought in my head, sometimes with a memory recall, sometimes with an image (like the kitchen stool, or the pickup in the empty pasture), and sometimes it takes a few days.  But if you seek Him, you will find Him.  Learn to hear.  Learn to respond.  The more you respond, the easier it becomes to hear.  You’ll eventually stop doubting and start trusting. 

Trauma can be healed.  Trauma can be overcome.  For me, God has been the surest way to do so.