Since discovering that prophets and the prophetic are alive and well today, and that God still speaks clearly to his people through dreams, visions, the small inner voice, and more, I have had two separate encounters with ovens that highlight the importance of not just receive revelation, but rightly interpreting it.

Years ago, I was a volunteer assistant for our church’s campus ministry at Penn State.  During our annual student retreat, I went to the campground half a day early to set a few things up and spend a number of hours in prayer prior to the weekend.  Sometime during the time of prayer I put a music CD on and spent time soaking in the presence of the Lord.  During this time, I had the strangest experience—my right hand twitched in a very peculiar fashion as if I was turning a knob or dial on something, and simultaneously I had a vision of an oven dial.  Not sure what it meant, I assumed I was to pray for God to “turn up the heat” in the spirit.

That evening, when it was time for dinner, we discovered the oven was broken and was taking forever to heat up.  Thus, it took hours longer than expected to cook the frozen lasagna planned for the meal.  Had I turned the oven on when I received the vision and the hand movement, it would have sufficiently preheated to avoid the problem.  Instead of rightly discerning the prophetic encounter, I took revelation that was sent by God to solve a practical problem and misinterpreted it as guidance on how to pray for the event.

More recently I had a second encounter with an oven, written about in more depth on my blog post titled When God Didn’t Tell Me About The Fire.  In this instance, God didn’t tell me a single thing about the problem with the oven-fire that was starting, but instead spoke in that still, small voice about being a good steward and returning a staff badge to our ministry storage area.  As a result of obedience, I smelled a fire in its early stages and was able to put it out before it burned a church down.

This is an example of following the clear directions God gave me and as a result of being led and guided by Him, being in the right place and time to avert a potentially serious problem.  This time it wasn’t particularly hard to discern the revelation itself, but the instructions that came by divine revelation were designed to put me in the right place at the right time for an entirely different issue than that which was revealed.

In the first oven encounter, I misunderstood and misinterpreted what God was doing and missed out on blessing an entire group of people with a timely dinner and low-stress meal preparation.  In the second oven encounter, because I rightly discerned not just the initial word, but followed through on where it led me, I was able to fulfill everything God had planned when he first gave the revelation.

Prophecy and the realm of spiritual revelation as a whole is more than just receiving revelation.  We need to receive it, interpret it correctly, as I failed to do the first time, and then choose the appropriate action.  Moses and Jonah are perfect examples of hearing and interpreting a revelation correctly, but choosing the wrong action.  Moses was told to speak to a rock but struck it out of his own personal anger, which demonstrated to the people of Israel that God was angry with them when He wasn’t.  Jonah was sent by God to preach to Nineveh so they would repent for their evil ways, but instead, out of his own hatred he went around announcing their imminent destruction.  God still managed to work things out in both cases, but His heart was not displayed properly in either case.

The fact is that we all will make mistakes as we learn to hear God, receive revelation, and practice spiritual gifts.  We are all going to miss it from time to time, and that is okay—its part of the growth process.  Nevertheless, we must understand that receiving revelation is just the beginning, and that we have a responsibility to properly steward every stage of the process, whether revelation, interpretation, or action.