[This is part of a series of articles on the ministry of the prophet and gift of prophecy.]

As we journey in the prophetic, we are involved in the supernatural realm, and our perceptions can help or hinder us. Fear is something that can definitely hinder.

Even as a young Christian I was oppressed with fear, including a fear of the devil.   Somewhere in my family’s past there was a very dark shadow.   As I got older I still had an unhealthy fear of the enemy.

Several years ago my wife and I prayed for a friend who had a number of issues in her life. I got a vision while praying for her. I saw a demon sitting on top of a well. God revealed that she had a Christian inheritance in her family, but the enemy was doing all he could to keep her from accessing that godly well.

I have only ever had one vision of a demon and this was it. This demon was a small stupid looking imp, and my instinct was to just kick it off of the well. This vision was to help someone else, but God often gets more mileage from a single word by having more than one application.

For me this vision made me realize – this is what I’ve been afraid of for so many years? The big bad devil is a loser, and his only real power is his mask and his lies and deception.

God by His grace gave me a vision for someone else that would also help me – awesome!

Now comes the scary part, and it was not the devil. In the fall of 1996 I was playing drums at a worship/waiting on God renewal meeting at our church. I experienced what I can only describe as a trance.

I was playing drums one moment, and all at once I seemed to be somewhere else. I was standing in a large empty black room with only one light fixture hanging from above. I was just inside the light zone on one side, and about thirty feet away at the opposite side of the arc of light someone else stood. He seemed to be about eleven feet high, standing as if at attention, just looking at me. He was clad in a silver grey armour, with dents and scrapes and dirt as if he had recently been in battle.

I was frozen in fear, assuming he was one of the bad guys. He knew I was terrified, and without using words just calmly communicated that he was waiting for me to send him back into battle. I realized then that he was one of the good guys – an angel – and found myself feeling sorry for him, with his marks of battle already on him, and waiting to go back into battle. He turned to lock eyes with me, with a connection of strength and light. He smiled and slowly turned and walked into the darkness.

Next, I was sitting at my drums, apparently not having stopped playing or missed a beat. I was out of breath and my heart was pounding. I looked around and no one had noticed anything.

The take-away from all of this is three-fold.

First – Romans 8:31, “If God is for us, who can be against us?” We win the war!

Second is what I call the garden hose effect. As God’s living water flows through you or me to another person we are refreshed as well. As the water flows through the hose to accomplish its purpose, it cleans out the hose as well. Sometimes God ministers to us as we minister to someone else.

And third, God wants us to keep praying and worshiping, open to God for His direction as we pray, knowing that God’s messengers are waiting for us to send them back into battle to see light replace darkness in people’s lives.

More in this series:

• My Prophetic Journey: The Call
• My Prophetic Journey Part 2: The Redemption Box
• My Prophetic Journey Part 3: School Starts
• My Prophetic Journey Part 4: Motives
• My Prophetic Journey Part 5: When to share or not to share
• My Prophetic Journey Part 6: Confirmation
• My Prophetic Journey Part 7: Learning the Radar
• My Prophetic Journey Part 8: The Challenge of the Roller Coaster
• My Prophetic Journey Part 9: How to minister in North Dakota and not even be there!
• My Prophetic Journey Part 10: Prophetic Protocol
• My Prophetic Journey Part 11: You Can’t Draw Water from an Empty Well
• My Prophetic Journey Part 12: Using your keys
• My Prophetic Journey Part 13: Prophetic Props
• My Prophetic Journey Part 14: The Angel and the demon
• My Prophetic Journey Part 15: The Last Word
• My Prophetic Journey Part 16: From the Hand or the Heart