God in the Teeth Brushing, by Monica Schlange

Have you ever been completely blown away by God? It’s been happening more and more to me. Don’t get me wrong, I also have times when things are blah. Recently I yelled at God. “You supposedly answer prayer, and I’ve been praying a ton for lots of things, and you said our faith can move mountains, and I’ve done a lot of things that you’ve said in scripture and I’M NOT SEEING ANYTHING HAPPEN!!!” I woke up the morning after to two texts from two people I’d been praying for and God had made a big change in both of their situations. “Okay God, so do I yell at you to get you to move? No? Okay, well let’s keep at this relationship between You and I. Sorry I yelled. Thank you for hearing me and being gentle with me.” 

So apparently God and I have this thing where He blows me away, even when I’m yelling at Him. Sometimes He blows me away when I’m praying for someone at church. Sometimes He blows me away when a friend tells me something He just did in their life. Most recently he blew me away while I was brushing my teeth. Go figure. I might start brushing my teeth 8 times a day. 

It was 10pm and I got a text from Mike and Shannon Nickel who shared the coolest story about how God worked through a prayer time they’d just had with a friend. They shared with me partly because they knew I love to hear God stories and partly because I had the privilege of making the connection between them and the person who needed prayer. 

After I read the text I felt so much joy inside for what God did, and then began reflecting on a word God gave me last month about my identity as royalty in God’s kingdom (co-heir with Christ!). And just like that this thing happened in my head that I’m not sure I can fully describe. Have you ever seen one of those videos where there’s a bunch of random parts separated out and then all the parts join together really fast and make some whole thing that you weren’t expecting? It was like that. All these specific parts of my life just zoomed together and God showed me that I have the spiritual gift of administration. AND, He showed me that it doesn’t look like what I’d always thought that gift was. What?!?!?! With toothpaste in my giant grin I blurted out to Eric, “WHOA! Shumfeen coo jush happen!” (that’s what I sound like when I’m excited with a mouth of toothpaste) After cleaning out my mouth we sat down and I animatedly told Eric about the parts all coming together in my head. 

I also explained to Eric what I thought God was saying the spiritual gift of administration looks like. He was intrigued, and enjoying the excitement bubbling out of me. I needed to check on what the Bible said about it all though before I got ahead of myself. I knew I needed to look up the original word that was used in 1 Corinthians 12:28. That verse says, “And God has appointed in the church, first apostles, second prophets, third teachers, then miracles, then gifts of healings, helps, administrations, and various kinds of tongues.” The original word for “administrations” is “kybernesis” whose root word is “to steer.” That makes sense!

I felt like the Lord was saying I get to steer people to each other. Just like I did with the Nickels and our friend. It’s actually been happening a lot lately and I didn’t even put it together! I find out about someone with a need and God will give me a person who is empowered by the Holy Spirit to help with that need. Most of that so far has looked like prayer in various ways. But sometimes God has brought someone to me who isn’t sure what to do with a situation…each time I’ve either been through something similar or I know someone who has. I then get to share the testimony of God working in supernatural ways and it brings some sort of breakthrough for the person.

You guys, I get to connect people who want more God with people who are empowered by God! That’s what the spiritual gift of administration gets to look like in my life! I’m so excited!!! Blown away by God yet again! Okay, that’s the end of this blog because I need to go brush my teeth again. Just in case.