The Gift of Prophecy

I enjoyed the rare opportunity on Sunday to attend RS for Mother’s Day. The lesson was on gifts of the spirit. The teacher had a few sisters present and one of them talked on the spirit of prophecy. She talked about the misconception that the gift of prophecy is given only to those we sustain as prophets, seers and revelators. She talked about how many of us also receive it. She read this scripture from 2 Nephi 25:26

And we talk of Christ, we rejoice in Christ, we preach of Christ, we prophesy of Christ, and we write according to our prophecies, that our children may know to what source they may look for a remission of their sins.

She pointed out that because we teach of Christ and of His saving and redeeming power, we are also prophesying that He will do just that. As she read it, though, my thoughts were taken a different direction. I was also given the impression that we experience this gift often and in other ways than what she mentioned, we just don’t always label it as such. Often it comes as an impression or feeling of something you should do. While you don’t see the outcome (what we conceive as the gift of prophecy), you know with a surety that you should act according to those promptings. And so we act knowing blessings will flow in the Lord’s timing. Is this not a manifestation of the spirit of prophecy? Then an experience was brought to my memory as an example in my life of a blessing of this gift.

We had been looking at homes for quite a few weeks without any success of finding something to meet our needs. One night while looking online at homes, a new one was listed. It was at the very bottom of our price range—in fact the least expensive we had looked at. It didn’t have a picture so we got in the car and drove by it. We decided that we wanted to look at it so we called our realtor and he made arrangements for us to see it the next day. When we looked at it, Tom really felt like this was the house for us, but I wasn’t convinced—in fact, I knew it wasn’t what I wanted! I wanted a bigger kitchen! I wanted main floor laundry! I wanted something a little nicer! Why spend so much money on something that you didn’t love?!? Later that day however, I was folding clothes and I very strong impression came over me that we should make an offer on that house. It was so undeniable, that I knew I must obey. We put an offer together. But apparently so did others. Over the next few days we had to revise our offer a number of times. Though this process was quite nerve wracking, we remained confident that this was the house we were supposed to be in. To make a long story short, our offer was finally accepted even though we never came in with the best offer. Our realtor who was close to retirement said he’d never ever seen that happen.

When we met with the owners to get the keys we were filled in on their side of the story. The wife, Sharon, was living in Kentucky helping their son and getting a place secured for them to live. Larry stayed to sell the house. When so many offers came in so quickly, he was very overwhelmed and didn’t know how to respond. After reviewing the offers and discussing it, they decided to go with the highest offer. After they got off the phone, however, she had the strong feeling that they should accept our offer instead. She hurried and called her husband back and told him to accept our offer. He said, “I’ve learned that when she gets those feelings, I just do what she says.”

At the time I didn’t know why we should be in this home, I just knew it was where we should be. The reasons may not all be apparent now either, but we have received blessings here that we could not have received any where else. I feel that the spirit of prophecy doesn’t depend on seeing everything . . . just enough to get you to take a step. What a wonderful blessing!