In Part 1 of My Journey I shared how God used many people in my life to pull me into my destiny in Him. My first experience with the prophetic resulted with me becoming a “prophetic junkie” ready and willing for more. While my wife Waverly has since left me for another man – Jesus – this part of my journey was woven with hers. Here is Part 2.
By 1988 we had gotten many prophetic words, and to this day I have yet to see them all fulfilled. Bishop says that this is a good thing. If all the prophecies had been fulfilled, I would be home with the Lord by now. In the late 80’s / early 90’s, the passion to learn and do more grew and we began to step out in the prophetic. That year our Plano pastors announced that they were going to teach from a manual that Dr. Bill had developed, called the Manual for Ministering Spiritual Gifts. I remember thinking “Wow, God! This is so cool that they are going to teach us how to hear your voice.”
Waverly and I were literally chomping at the bit because this training was exactly what we had been believing and praying for. It is what drove us to seek out the prophets at every opportunity. Every Wednesday night of that 13-week class we were instructed on how to hear God for ourselves and others. A passion to have God use us grew even greater, and we knew that we had to find a place to hone our skills. We needed a place of servanthood so that we could understand how to lead prophetically and in Him.
The Journey Continues
By 1990 we had been to four conferences at Christian International’s headquarters in Santa Rosa Beach, Florida. We would schedule our vacations around these conferences and drive from Dallas to Florida. We would spend the time soaking up the training and equipping provided by the trained prophets of CI. In June of that year CI was hosting the Family Emphasis Conference and we planned again to use vacation time to attend. On the road that year I experienced the audible voice of the Lord for the first time in my life. I am not saying I had not heard God’s voice before, but this time it was so clear that I literally began looking around the car to see who was talking to me.
When I realized that my family was sound asleep, I realized that I was hearing God’s audible voice. He was telling me that He was going to make Florida my land of opportunity! I remember telling God, “Florida? I live in Texas how is that going to work? How is my wife going to like that idea? She always says there is an eleventh commandment ‘Thou Shall Not Move’ so God you’re going to have to speak to her!” He did just that and the next day we shared together all that God was speaking to us and realized we were both hearing the same thing. God wanted us in Florida, and He wanted us serving at Christian International.
The Sunday after the conference, Pastors Tom and Jane Hamon asked us to share our testimony with their youth group. After youth we went to the morning service and Pastor Jane singled us out and gave us a prophetic word confirming what God had already spoken to us. I have found over the years that, especially for Waverly and me, God uses his prophets to confirm the word He has already spoken. After Sunday Church we took the opportunity to spend some time relaxing on the beach as the actual conference was not scheduled to begin for a couple of days. When the conference began we were assigned to receive prophetic ministry, and this time Prophetess Sharon Stone (the prophetic team leader) prophesied over us and confirmed what God had spoken days before – Florida was our land of opportunity.
We returned to Dallas and prepared for our move to Florida; by early 1991 we were planted under Christian International Ministries. This began the next level of prophetic training for us. I remember that all we wanted was to be saturated with the prophetic anointing and to glean from Dr. Bill and Evelyn Hamon, Tom and Jane Hamon, Sharon Stone, Leon Walters, Tim Hamon and other Prophets of God.
The first six months in Florida seemed somewhat uneventful. Our Pastors asked us not to get involved right away and to sit and soak. But someone like me, called to be a servant leader, found it difficult to just sit and soak. So, we started serving whenever and wherever we saw a need: helping families move, working on our days off for the ministry, and always looking for a place to plug in. It was in this season that many life-long ministry relationships and friendships were formed.
Part of my upbringing, those things instilled in me from my parents, was to take care of the widows and orphans. Because of this willingness to serve in this way Waverly and I made life-long relationships with Martha Lucia, Founder of Watchman Intercessors, and Barbara Collins. The relationship with these ladies, both called to intercession, would mean more than Waverly and I could ever imagine as God’s plans for our ministry began to unfold.
God’s Plan To Change My World
Over the years I have come to realize that God’s plan does not always look like my plan. I had a cookie cutter plan that I just knew God was going to make happen overnight because I had planned it. Boy did I ever have a rude awakening. God spoke to me one day and said. “I want you to put your plan on the shelf so that you can serve Dr. Bill and his ministry.” So, I put all my self-made plans on the shelf and followed the leading of the Lord. What I found was that as I was serving and watching those leaders around me serve others, a principle was being birthed in me. I call this principle Servanthood Leadership.
The principle is simple; there is a transformation that begins to happen in us as we serve Him first. As we learn how to serve by watching our leaders, we become more like Christ. As we become more like Christ, we become servants first. It is an easy thing to transition from servant to leader or leader’s serving. The Word of God says that promotion comes from the Lord, and I have found this true especially as I have served my leaders. As I served them and others wholeheartedly my leaders began to see me not as an employee but as a servant. The process is at times slow. In our “microwave society” if things are not happening fast enough human nature wants to take over and speed things up – especially mine. But I have learned that we must wait patiently for God’s process so that our metamorphosis from servant to leader is complete. Trust me on this. It will happen, and when it does you will never look at yourself or God the same.
I hope you have enjoyed Part 1 and Part 2 of My Journey. Stay tuned for more on Servant Leadership. Jimmy