Quite a few years back, I had a rather unique experience to witness first-hand how our perception flavors what we see.
I was at a church meeting that ended by breaking people up into 5-member prayer groups. Each group was given one specific subject to pray about, and each of the five members was to pray.
At the time, I was involved in a deep study of five-fold ministry gifts, and it just so happened that group contained people who confessed to each of the five-fold ministry gifts. I know this because they each had a name tag with their spiritual calling, as they believed it to be.
In this particular group, one person identified as an evangelist, one a pastor, one a prophet, another a teacher, and the last an apostle.
What I witnessed was quite amazing!
As I listened to each person in the group pray, each one prayed about the same subject but from a different perspective. Here is how it went.
- The teacher prayed that people would learn and be enlightened about the situation.
- The prophet prayed that people would be warned about the situation and rectify it.
- The evangelist prayed that the situation would yield a harvest of souls.
- The pastor prayed compassionately for the protection of the people; and
- The apostle took a warfare stand against the situation.
The dominant gift in each person flavored the perspective from which they approached the subject matter. Even more interesting was the fact that each perspective was necessary.