Continuing the Conversation with Grant & Laurel Fishbook
Continuing the Conversation with Grant & Laurel Fishbook
Bonus Content: God, Me or the Chili?
In this continuation of the "God, Me, or the Chili" conversation, we dive into prayer languages and how they can affect your faith in dramatic ways!
YOUR HOSTS
Grant has been on staff at Christ the King Bellingham for the last 20 years and currently serves as the Lead Teaching Pastor. Laurel works alongside him in various ministries, including Global Missions and providing support to the pastoral team across the CTK Network.
For more on Pastor Grant:
For more on CTK Bellingham:
MENTIONS
Theme Song | Our theme song was written and produced by Stephen Folden. You can contact him via email, stephenfoldenmusic@gmail.com.
Graphic | Our podcast graphic was created by Dejah Kutrovski. To learn more about her work, visit her website.
We'd love to hear from you! If you'd like to send any encouragement, questions, or feedback about this episode to Grant & Laurel, please e-mail us at podcast@ctk.church.
Special Thanks to:
Audio Production:
Gabe Chartier
Jared Bulman
Theme Song:
Stephen Folden – stephenfoldenmusic@gmail.com
Podcast Graphic:
Dejah Kutrovski
Hi, everyone, this is Grant and we want to welcome you back to part two of a continuing conversation with Emily Jamison and her prayer partner, Becca. Really, the first half of this conversation about listening to God was so powerful. So if you missed it, please go back and listen, you will not be disappointed. In part two, we dive into prayer, prayer languages and their role in listening to God. Let's head back into the studio with Laurel, Emily and Becca and pick up where we left off. When you start declaring and taking territory, right from the beginning of the day, that just seems to open up this this conduit where it flows all day long. And you get to the end of the day, and you say I believe I lived to my identity today. How beautiful is that?
Emily Jamieson:Yeah, that is so practical so it's one of the things that our mentor had to say, like in my Google Keep every time the Lord reveals something new, I have a space where I keep writing and now in there is things that God has revealed to me about my identity, my husband and my children, and I regularly read that. So to have a place that you can see regularly to remind you because we are so forgetful.
Laurel Fishbook:Yeah.
Emily Jamieson:We need to hear it over and over again yeah.
Laurel Fishbook:That was a big part of my journey too just a couple, probably three years ago, I kept saying "Write it down, write it down.". I ignored it for a long time, because for me physically, because of my visual impairment, writing down is not easy, we have technology. So I've learned to just voice text into my phone. It's not pretty, it's raw, but it's just this is what I learned today, and, boy, it has been so amazing to go back and put pieces together and see how God's plan is so intricate. Of course, things don't always make sense in a moment, because it's part of this grand, incredible plan, though. Another thing too, for me this year that I touched on earlier, when we introduced you at the beginning was the Holy Spirit and the role that he has played in this journey throughout 2020. We do the same thing where we ask God for, you know, "Give us a phrase or a verse or whatever.", and, ironically, 2020 was "Year of the Lord's favor". We claim that over and over again, and it was it was a really beautiful thing for us and it was. We would say it was probably the most difficult year for us and the most,, the best year for us. That actually had nothing to do with COVID, really. It was just personal issues that we were that we were dealing with. So getting really personal, Grant is that a prayer language for years and years and years and he was very private about it. He didn't speak much of it, but it was something that I was kind of jealous of. I thought, "I don't understand why something that is supposed to create intimacy with you Why? Why would you withhold it from me? So I prayed so earnestly for this prayer language. "Like, I want this I want everything. I want to know you, I want like every barrier to be taken down and and so I want a prayer language. Eventually, just as we often do, I think I justified "Well, I just don't really need it. It just really doesn't matter, and you know, God speaks to me in other ways."
Grant Fishbook:Actually, in a bad way, I think I contributed to that. Because I kept saying, you know, you're so intimate with Jesus already. It's so beautiful. Maybe you don't need it. That was my nice tidy pastor answer, cause I didn't know what else to say.
Laurel Fishbook:Grant had a wonderful older gentleman who listened just to the Holy Spirit and he tapped him on the shoulder and said,"You need to you go talk to Grant & Laurel and he showed up at our place, and it was it was amazing, because he sat down in our living room
and said:"Zo I know that Grant has a prayer language.", and this is not from a conversation that we've had, but he said "I know that Grant has a prayer language and Laurel, I know that you desire one", and we're going to talk through today how you can actually develop that and receive that gift. It was the most awkward conversation ever, I mean, talk about letting go, right? He said, you actually "You actually have to open your mouth just like with faith, you know, you've got to walk for God to direct and the same with praying in your prayer language, you actually have to talk for the Holy Spirit to guide and direct you. He said "Just start off, you know, just b making sounds and just seeing." You know, so an He said just keep praying into it and just keep being open to what God is going to do, and so I again, this was followed by prayer an everything, but I started off going "ahh" and then I just went "lalalala" because I fe t really awkward and silly in front of every ody. The truth is nothing happened. I didn't r ceive a prayer language that day. did. The following days, I kept doing this, you know, kind of silly little start where I'm just I was just kind of making sounds. The first day, nothing happene, the next day nothing happened, the next day again, waiting nothing. The day after that, I did the same thing, and it was honestly like 51 years of pent up whatever just came rushing out, and it was beautiful. It has been amazing for me ever since. I had to be silly. I kind of had to be silly and just, you know, let God do with me whatever he wanted to do with me, but that has been a huge, a huge change. Just even an understanding God's Word if I'm confused by what the Bible is saying, I will just spend time in my prayer language and it just feels like when I read those words, again, there's a whole new revelation there. When I'm anxious, and I my heart won't be still even though I'm praying "Lord, calm me, just calm me." and I feel like I can't calm myself I spend time in my prayer language. So there is something so powerful about that, but the interesting thing about all of that, here I am, in my excitement that "Yes, I have a prayer language!", wanting to share it with people. I realized that people are really comfortable talking about God, the Father and Jesus, the Son, not so much the Holy Spirit. I still I'm kind of working through what to do with that because I want this for everybody, but I feel like sometimes when you start talking about the Holy Spirit, it makes people squirm and very uncomfortable. Yeah, and so I just am curious. I'm not even sure if this was gonna make it on the podcast, but just because we have you in the room, I really curious about your experiences in this with the Holy Spirit. Just, you know the difference actually allowing him God. He's here for a reason, right? Jesus said, "The Holy Spirit is here, He [Jesus] was going up into heaven and giving us the Holy Spirit, because we need that comforter, we need that friend, we need that accountability partner and I feel like we have all of this at our fingertips, and we use so little of it.
Becca Renaker:For me, I've been sharing a little bit earlier today about this, but for me, it's been less of a journey of having experienced like you, Laurel, where it comes and it's seldom for me, actually, but it's often always connected in worship. I'll be in the middle of worship and whatever the lyrics are, all of a sudden, I become my spirit becomes aware, where healing is about to take place. Like through the worship, next thing I know, I've had these moments of this prophetic utterance where I start praying something coming out of my mouth, that it's like, the Holy Spirit says you don't know how to pray into healing regarding this, but I do. It's like, this transition happens suddenly and I'm normally weepy, and I, and I feel him all over, and it's so peaceful, but I'm also going"If anyone hears me right now.." Like, you know, it's totally a moment of just letting go of control. It's been less of an experience, I guess, in my journey of like being alone in my room and experiencing him, but it's often always connected in worship. It's normally in moments when I don't know, like, I'm speechless. You know, the Scriptures say, like, he knows even in our groans, how to pray on behalf of us. Like these things where we're just going "Help me get from A to B, I don't know how to get there, and I need you to stand in the gap for me." Which is who you are, who the spirit is, he's so excited to come on our behalf at times when we feel powerless, or just not knowing a direction of how to move forward, but that's been the ways that I've experienced it. It's definitely come. The first time it happened was in a congregation that no one believed in a prayer language, and it starts happening, and I can't I'm trying to be quiet and cover my mouth and just going "Noooo", you know? and it's like, so exposing, like I know this is good, but... Um, but yeah, I think it's just something to lean into and it feels risky, but his tensions are always so good for us and he's really safe. So, Emma has a different journey that you should share on.
Emily Jamieson:Yeah, I mean, I think I'll first say cuz this is really tenuous topic because I think the moment that you enter in and start talking about being on there's literally almost a line of like the on the one side, "Gosh, I haven't received this gift." On the other side, "I have an It feels like this exclusive club.", and there's a lot of different history around this in terms of denominations and people thinking the only way that we know you're saved is if you have the Spirit of God by evidence of speaking in tongues. It's done a so much damage in the body of Christ to be the haves and have nots, quite literally or like some spiritual status symbol or something like that. I think it is so clear throughout scripture that you know, Father, Son, and Spirit, they show up in the protoevangelion. In Genesis, you know, we have Father, Son, and spirit in that place, and then you see them all present at Jesus baptism, we actually don't ever see Jesus speaking in tongues. That's interesting to me. You know, I don't, that's not something that seems to be prominent in his ministry, it's not necessary, and I, I do believe that the Spirit speaks all languages. I know that when I'm standing on a stage, and the Holy Spirit redirects me in a way, it's not in another language, it's in my language it's in, there's a sense of the Spirit. So I don't necessarily believe that you need to have tongues to have the representation of the spirit in your life, the moment that you have put faith in Jesus, it says in Scripture that it has been revealed to you not by flesh and blood, but by the Spirit of God. So I think just the mere fact that you can say"I believe in Jesus, he's the son of the living God, he died, resurrected" you know, "He is for me", you have the spirit of a living God taking up residence in you to give you the confidence and the boldness to be able to say such things that the world is absolutely against, right? So, so I think, first and foremost, like, I mean, even in 1st Corinthians, it talks about, you know, "You can speak in the tongues of angels, but if you have not love you are a clanging gong or symbol." So the goal at the end of the day is that we would have love, and yet there's this beautiful gift that God has offered to us by way of the Spirit. So, Romans 8 is interesting. There are several different translations, but here it says "At times we don't even know how to pray." this is Romans 8:26. A particular translation "At times we don't even know how to pray or the best things to ask for, but the Holy Spirit rises up within us to super intercede on our behalf. That's what you're talking about."Pleading to God with emotional sighs too deep for words. God, the searcher of our heart, knows fully our longings and he also understands the desires of the Spirit, because the Holy Spirit passionately pleads, pleads before God for us, his holy ones in perfect harmony with God's plan and our destiny." The Spirit is constantly speaking on our behalf. We have a person that's taken up residence in us with feelings and emotions you can grieve the spirit, we can sense the spirit we're meant to have the spirit lead us we're not meant to be led by our emotions, but to be led by the Spirit. So there's that sense of constantly surrendering my heart and mind. "God, give me the the mind of Christ, give me the emotions of Christ. Help me feel how you feel, help me see how you see" Then there's this beautiful gift of tongues.We look at it Pentecost, right? Where all of a sudden here's all the all the men who are just like waiting, waiting, like their best friend is left, they're terrified. Then Pentecost breaks out. The Holy Spirit come, tongues of fire, like tongues of fire on their heads, I don't even know and they start speaking in all these different languages. The purpose of the Spirit is to make the revelation of God known to people that are speaking in all different languages. It's actually very practical, and everyone there thinks they're drunk. You know, they're like,"What? It's like nine in the morning, we're not drunk, what the heck? And even still, now, there's this gift of the Spirit. So, my parents have this beautiful story where they actually met the Lord, my uncle who's now a pastor led them to Jesus. They were young, wild living to get I don't even know all the things but but they met the Lord. They went to a Baptist Church in Seattle, and they were baptized one Friday night come up out of the water. That church believed that the baptism of the Spirit with evidence of speaking in tongues was the way to go, both of them came up, I did not know the story till I was about 15. My dad comes in my room one night, we were having a lot of strife in our home, in fact, and I was just like I was questioning, I was frustrated. My dad said "Let me tell you a story." and he told me his faith journey, and he gets through the whole thing He tells me this whole story, and all I can say is "Wait, what? You speak in tongues? ike I'm 15 years old, I don't know this, it was very private, he was taught that this is a private thing. It really is clear in Scripture that this is a personal prayer language it's a way that we can be intimate and talk with Father and trust that the Spirit... We're giving voice to the to the Spirit of God who prays in a way that we can't even understand, it's this beautiful thing. So for 20 years, I prayed for that, and I so wanted more intimacy with God. There'd be nights that I would wake up in the middle of the night, and I would just want to worship. I felt like I was constipated in the spirit, you know, it was like, "Ahh" I don't even know how to express my adoration and desire and hope and like I want more, there's more. There'd be these moments that would that would cause me to pray like "God give me this other thing, like there's got to be more there's got to be something more I can do or say to express like how I feel about you. You are so amazing, like words do not do this justice." So yes, it was like a 20 year journey every so often, probably a couple times a year here'd be a moment where I was overcome to tea s like "God I just want this gift, I don't kno how..." It was probably five years ago that I was sitting with my counselor, amazing woman and met with her for a couple years. I really do believe that counseling is a beautiful thing. I think if you experience anxiety, I mean I think the Lord can use beautiful means to help us to get to places of health. So I know I said earlier like I can say "I am not anxious, but I struggle with anxiety." I have dear friends are on anxiety medication to help balance in the same way that you have. If you have high blood pressure, you take blood pressure medication, like there's certain things that help our physical bodies level out so that we can experience rightly the things that God has for us in this world, right? Absolutely fine. So just as an aside. I'm meeting with my counselor, she's phenomenal. She's sort of spiritual director, counselor, professor, brilliant. It's the last time we're meeting together before I'm about to move, and she looks at me, she said, "Emily, this is our final time to meet, what do you want?" and out of nowhere, these tears start coming out of my eyes, and I was like, "I want to speak in tongues.", and she was kind of blown away like it surprised me. She's like, "Oh, well, of course, let's do that". and I was like, "I'm sorry, what?" You know, I had a pastor pray over me when I was in middle school because I actually went to a Foursquare Church. I remember this guy with a mullet, you know, probably a ministry called like, you know, "Rocket Fuel" or something, I don't even remember. He prayed over me in like some sort of babbling thing and I sat there and I waited for something to fly out of my mouth, and nothing happened. I prayed all these different times, and, like you, had just been resolved. "Well, I have what I need I have the spirit, I know that the Spirit is present with me, I sense the Lord." I just knew that there was something more that I just wanted more. So all that to say I tell her that and she said, "Okay, here's the deal." and she tells me her story, which is wild I'll leave that for another day, but she looks at me and she says, "Here's the deal." Everyone that has a spirit, everyone that can can claim the name of Jesus puts their faith in Him, has a spirit of god and spirit's constantly interceding on your behalf. To speak in tongues, everyone actually has a prayer language, whether they know it or not. It's in them they may or may not hear it, they may or may not express it, but you have to know that the Spirit is preying on your behalf all the time. So to have a prayer language is just to give that voice utterance. That's all it is, but here's the deal, it has to bypass your carnal mind. So I call my uncle right after this. and he starts explaining to me, Romans 8 says, the carnal mind, the mind of flesh, does not understand the things of God. In fact, it cannot. So my mind is really good for things like following recipes, and doing you know, math homework with my kids and all this stuff. My mind is incredible. God has given us amazing minds, but then we have the mind of Christ, which is beyond. It's beyond, what we can imagine is beyond what we can currently understand. That is the realm of the Spirit. In fact, Caroline Leaf is an incredible brain scientist, actually hooked up a bunch of people that were praying in the Spirit to sort of different nodes, and that she was trying to figure out where in the brain lights up when someone prays the spirit. It's actually the dream center of the brain. It's not a conscious place. It's it's the place where we actually reconcile what's conscious and subconscious. It's this place that actually goes subterranean to what we actually fully understand with our carnal minds, it is a wild thing. So, I just love the way that God created our bodies and our minds I'm such a nerd. So she said, "I'm going to pray over you and I'm a part like, I just want you to know that it's already in you." Let's just see if you can give it uttering, and so she sends me up the hill. She said, I'm gonna have you go in your car, and you're just gonna start making sounds like a baby would make sounds, and you're gonna feel like an idiot. And you're just gonna go'Ba ba ba, da, da", and, and your brain is going to start telling "You're stupid, you should stop, this is dumb" The flesh, right? The flesh is going to start telling you, this is not a thing. You're going to feel self conscious, you're going to feel stupid, you're going to be by yourself, and you're going to hear all these voices. You keep going you press past and you're like, "Nope, I am not listening to you." You are surrendering to the Spirit, and there's something beyond and it's not that our mind is not good, but it's really useful for some things and not others. In the same way that I can't watch TV through radio, like it's just, it's good for some things, but not others. So I sat there and I'm literally sitting on this hilltop "baba baba da da", and all of a sudden, it's like this word starts coming out and it went beyond me making sounds to different words literally coming out of my mouth. All I was doing was opening my mouth, and this is language that sounded like Russian began to flow out of my mouth. I was like, "Oh my gosh!" It was like a floodgate had opened I didn't love God any more, I was no more righteous, I'd actually had a terrible day and yelled at my children. It was not like I was this holy, glorious person that was in the depths of worship. I just wanted more of God and was desperate. I started making some sounds and it just gave utterance to what the Spirit has always been doing in the depths of my spirit. It was wild. A So I started praying in this language, and I called my uncle and I was like "I have to tell you this", because he's what it really led me to a love of the Scriptures, and like my parents, the Lord. So he's kind of training me on this, helping me understand this is a private language, this is not something to be flaunted. It's just a way that the Lord speaks. Even in 1st Corinthians, it talks about how people have many, many different gifts, and some of them you know, some have interpretation, some speak in tongues, some have healing, like, we have this beautiful body, we all have these different things and to celebrate them all, but this is a way that you will get to experience intimacy with God. A couple weeks later, I'm like, "Lord, wouldn't it be cool if like, one day I'm in Russia, and you give me an opportunity, kind of like the disciples or the apostles to like, start speaking and people would understand what I'm saying? Like, how awesome would that be that I'd be able to proclaim in the most pure way, because I wouldn't know what I'm saying like what you want people to hear. That would be so cool I'm just sort of imagining with God.
Laurel Fishbook:So, you could actually identify that your prayer language was Russian?
Emily Jamieson:I don't know, it just sounded Eastern European. I would just say that much at this point, it just sounds Eastern European. I tried to look up some words that I would hear come out all the time, because I could hear what I was saying.
Laurel Fishbook:I did the same thing!
Emily Jamieson:And I was like, I don't know what this is, but it sounds Eastern European. So I have no idea. So I just am imagining, like, maybe I'm somewhere in Eastern Europe. That being said, so it's a couple of weeks later, and a dear friend of mine, Eddie invited me to come to a training that he was doing with a whole bunch of high school students, and he was teaching on the gifts of the Spirit. They were just doing some experiments and kind of figuring out like, "Who has what gift? How can we cultivate these things?" Let's have a baptism. I mean, this is all scriptural. What's wild about this is the body of Christ, we have ruined our theology for these things we don't ever even experience. So I think a lot of people would say, "Yeah, I read it here, I see that that happens, but because I haven't experienced it probably doesn't, or probably can't." It's the same way that we think about hearing God's voice, like, "Yes, he speaks, but I Eddi goes, "Oh, you mean like you could interpret it?" and he goes, "No, I know what He goes, he said to me, and he's talking about the spirit, like he said to me, come to me That's not because I have a prayer language. That's just because God has good knee lives to she said! It's my native tongue. It's in Russian.", and we felt like everyone just I, haven't experienced it, so there's no room for it for us. So we need to hear each other's So anyway, so I'm at this training and, and Eddie's just inviting people in, and they must quickly and release all control, and what I found out weeks later, we had a conversation testimonies each other's stories, because it was for me, it was me hearing other people y jaw dropped, my heart stopped. after he told me his story. talking about it, that felt really normal to me that I was like, "Oh, wait, you can?"within me. be coming from backgrounds or denominations where they talk about a lot of these things.because I've never been in a room with someone that's like, "Oh, yeah, I have the gift of interpretation." Like, who says that? I don't know. So I'm in this room, he says, "Hey, does anyone have the gift of interpretation?" This sweet 17 year old girl walks up and just sounds like,"Oh, I do." And I'm like, how does she know that? You know, I'm like, I'm the one that's like, 30 years older than you guys like what is happening? Sometimes it's just unfair, but that's fine. So she gets up and he says, "Does anyone want to speak?" You know, "Does anyone have the gift of tongues? D you want to come up and and she'll interpret for you because that's the one time in Scripture, it says, if you're going to speak in a public place, make sure there's an interpreter so that there's not chaos or whatever. So a young man gets up, and he starts to speak in his prayer language, and she interprets it and he cries, and he's like, convicted of something beautiful that he's like, "Oh, my gosh, the Lord's bringing me freedom in this place" and its glorious. So he sits down, and heal. And that was just what I happened to have to offer in that moment. So whether it's then he says, "Anyone else?" I find myself standing on my feet. I'm like, I'm the guest in this place. I mean, it's all these 18 year olds, and then me in the back, and I was like, "Oh, my gosh, what am I doing?" This is not for me. For some reason, I find myself walking to the front and again, this is like three, four weeks into actually discovering this. So I kind of like bow my head and close my eyes and feeling a little nervous, I just begin to prayand this language comes out. And as I opened my eyes and prayed for 30, 45 seconds, I opened my eyes, and I look at this young woman whose just as tender as could be, and she's holding herself just like hugging herself and just rocking back and forth and going, "Oh, it's so cozy." and then she goes,"Sometimes I get words of what the Lord is saying, but other times, I just get a sense and there's just this incredible piece and sort of invitation, like I just want to curl up in it." So I look up, I'm about to leave the stage, and we look to the back of the room. and there's another man who Eddie has also invited to come that day to listen. He's a man that happens to come from an orthodox home, and he had been dabbling in some things of the Spirit. His English or a touch, or a hug, or a word of knowledge, whatever it might be, I think parents were like, no, they're cessationist, do not dabble in that we're basically saying you need to leave everything that you're experimenting with. This was what I learned later was a bit of a last ditch effort just to learn a little because he was so curious and wanted more of God. So he had showed up that day to witness and both of us are, you know, years older than these high school students. And he's standing in the back with his hands raised, his eyes wide open. And it is like, "Yeah, do you have something to say? Like, do you know what she said?" and he goes, "Yes!" ultimately the goal is that people would know that they your loved and seen.
Laurel Fishbook:Well, I think just be sensitive to if there's that hunger and you keep seeking after it. I mean for me, you know exactly like you said, we have the Holy Spirit. I mean, it's the Trinity, right? We don't just ask Jesus into our heart, it's God, the Father, Jesus the son, & the Holy Spirit, when you know, we, we accept him. So we already get the full package from the beginning, but I think he does, he puts that hunger inside of you for different things. Because for me, this has been a really big life changing experience. He knows what we need in our lives. So, exactly, just seek after it, trust him, and trust what how he's going to use it, for sure. But thank you both for just sharing so personally and vulnerably. Yeah, I love your hearts and I, I know this will be an incredible message for so many people listening.
Grant Fishbook:Yeah, I want to say thank you just for what you've deposited in our community. So people that know me, I'm emotional. But what you have deposited and how you've continued the conversation with us, and we're so excited, and the fact that you do this in partnership. So Becca, thank you for all of the prayers that you've uttered, not only for our family, but for Emily, she's up speaking. Emily, thank you for using your gift. Thank you for using both of your gifts to make our community richer. You know, as we always said, everything's an invitation with God. I'm inviting you into another conversation. So if any part of this, you know, created any fear, that's a great opportunity to turn towards him and not away. So we're just so unbelievably grateful. Thank you for being a part of our family. Thank you for spending this time with us, and we so look forward to continuing the conversation.
Emily Jamieson:Indeed, a gift to be here.
Becca Renaker:Thank you. Thank you for hosting us.
Ryan Ervin:Thanks again for joining us on this episode of Continuing the Conversation. This podcast is produced by Christ the King Community Church. For more info about CTK or message content from Pastor Grant, please visit ctk.church. Join us again next time as we continue the conversation with Grant and Laurel Fishbook.