The Prophetic Savant
by Chip Brogden
(*The use of
the male pronoun in this writing is for convenience only.
We mean no
partiality to our brothers, and no disrespect to our sisters.)
The prophetic
savant is a person afflicted with a heavenly autism,
making him
nearly incapable of normal relations with those around him.
Accused of
being aloof, cold, and distant,
he is apt to
hide himself from people,
withdrawing
into a world of his own.
He never
seems to be all “there”.
Even if he
forces himself to come down to Earth for a moment,
those around
him may have the sense
that there is
an unspoken dialogue
going on
somewhere inside of him,
a secret
communion carried on beneath the surface
that never
allows him to be fully “in the moment”.
How do we
explain this? As a prophetic savant he sees, hears,
and relates
to the world differently than the rest of the population.
They have not
seen what he has seen;
they have not
heard what he has heard.
And so he
finds very little camaraderie,
very little
sympathy or understanding,
no one with
whom he can open his heart and share his soul,
because he no
longer speaks the same language,
and they no
longer speak his.
Of course, he
may have surface-level exchanges with anyone:
he is
approachable, not haughty,
or
high-minded. He may even be personable and likable.
Yet there is
something so other-worldly in his demeanor
that he is
more often frightening than friendly,
in spite of
his best efforts. He is a spiritual autistic,
and no matter
how hard you try to know him,
he is
generally unknowable,
and to a
certain degree, he resists all attempts to know him.
If a prophet
is anything, he is extra-terrestrial – above the Earth.
He walks the
Earth with others, but he is not of the Earth.
He is from
beyond; he is from above.
If we trace
his history we will find that
he may or may
not have had a normal childhood.
He may or may
not have come through extraordinary experiences.
But at some
point in his life, either as a child,
or as a young
adult, or as an old man,
something
from another realm broke through the thin membrane
between
Heaven and Earth
and took hold
of him.
It may have
been a burning bush,
or a Voice
crying out to him from beyond the veil,
or a Heavenly
Vision which brought him briefly into contact
with
something and Someone that he could not completely fathom.
However it
happened, for one moment at least,
the clouds
parted and the veil was rent,
and he saw
something that is unseeable;
he heard
something that is unhearable;
Heaven itself
was opened up to him,
and he saw
into another world.
The thing he
saw and heard now burdens him
like a mantle
that has been draped over his shoulders.
He feels its
weight, for it is with him day and night,
whether he is
eating or drinking, working or resting.
It is the
impression that everything around him is a lie,
and what he
has seen and heard is the Truth, and this Truth is not static,
but it is
living, growing,
and
increasing within him from the day it comes to him in the form of a seed.
For a long
time he struggles to find words
and
vocabulary to express the inexpressible.
He cannot
explain why he feels the need to try and express it,
but for some
inexplicable reason something drives him to open his mouth,
or take up
his pen, and make it known.
Whatever it
is, it will not permit him to savor it or keep it to himself,
and it seems
intent on coming to the surface
and
interrupting the normal course of his life.
This process
can be frustrating and painful,
so much so
that he may give up several times,
content to
simply walk in what he has seen and heard
and leave it
at that.
But try as he
might,
he cannot run
away from what he has seen and heard,
and he cannot
deny the compulsion to bring it forth.
On the one
hand he cries out for a “normal” life,
while on the
other hand he knows
he cannot
deny what has been revealed to him.
When he does
achieve some modest success
in
articulating something of Heaven he is pleased for a time,
but soon
grows impatient with it,
and
eventually is dissatisfied with it altogether,
because it
cannot do justice to what he has seen and heard.
And so the
process begins again,
the continual
search for words to more perfectly express
what he is
trying to communicate
(and a subtle
fear in the back of his mind that he may never be able to adequately express
it),
which leads
him to invent words which may have never before existed,
or to look
for Spirit-inspired words in some unknown tongue
that can be
translated into something others can understand.
The prophets
of old correctly called it the “burden of the Lord”,
for it is
like a woman who must live the rest of her life being in perpetual labor,
delivering
the same child over and over again.
What relief
there is only comes in discharging the burden,
but that is
not to say it ever really leaves:
it merely
allows the prophet time to catch his breath
until the
next contraction doubles him over again.
The burden is
with him the rest of his life, and he never fully discharges it.
Even when he
tries to be disobedient to the Heavenly Vision
and flees
from the presence of the Lord
he is pursued
and hunted down like some kind of a wild animal
who has
gotten loose, knowing it is only a matter of time
before he is
captured again.
The Voice
never leaves him, the Vision never lets him go.
When he
refuses to speak
then the fire
which is already kindled only burns hotter,
until he ends
up doing what he has resisted doing all along,
just to
relieve himself of the unbearable tension and inward pressure.
He cannot
extinguish or quench the fire no matter what he does,
he can only
be obedient and find temporary relief,
until the
next word comes, and then off he goes.
He may beg
God to send someone else,
and may
protest his inability to speak, or to write.
But he is
already ruined for anything else,
and even when
he denies the Lord
Who called
him and returns to his former occupation,
it is all
dull and lifeless,
and he meets
with nothing but frustration and failure.
There is no
way to escape it.
He knows he
is called to something Higher,
even when he
is clinging with everything he has to something Lower.
Like a wild
horse, he resists the dealings of the Lord
and must be
broken before he will obey.
Eventually he
learns not to resist the Lord, but to cooperate with Him.
He becomes
pliable and bendable in order to survive.
His very life
now is bound up with what he has seen and heard.
He cannot be
disobedient to the Heavenly Vision,
and if it
means he dies, then he dies.
If it means a
renunciation of everything he once believed,
then he
renounces it – reluctantly at first, then cheerfully.
If it means
suffering the loss of all things, then he lets them go.
Over time the
one who has seen and heard
becomes the
very essence of what he has seen and heard.
The Man
becomes the Message.
He bears the
Testimony in himself,
and becomes
one with it.
He needs no
preparation to speak; indeed,
preparation
does nothing to help the message he brings,
and it often
gets in the way.
His whole
life is the preparation,
and since he
is the Message, it is with him constantly.
He can no
more separate himself from the Message
than he can
separate his head from his body.
If there is
an “On/Off” switch then it was long ago turned on
and then
disabled so that it can never be turned off again.
After many
seasons of God’s dealings he finally perceives
that this is
what the Lord has sought for all along,
not just to
GIVE him a Message, but to MAKE him a Message;
to gain for
Himself a Messenger and capture him completely,
embossing the
Message into his very being.
And so he
goes about his daily business, constantly haunted by that Voice,
torn between
the menial task at hand
which calls
for his physical and mental exertion,
and the
Higher Calling which seeks his undivided attention.
He knows he
should do all things, great and small, as “unto the Lord”.
But he also
knows that Heaven and Earth
are locked in
mortal combat over him
while he
stands there in the middle, torn between the two,
desiring to
depart the Earth altogether and be with Christ,
but knowing
that it is more profitable for his brethren if he remains.
Heaven calls
him to rise up,
but Earth
tells him to keep his feet firmly planted.
His heart is
constantly breaking and longing to go,
to ascend,
to rise up,
to stop
seeing through a dark glass,
and see face
to face,
without the
distraction of the natural,
the fleshly,
the temporal,
because he
knows the Earth is not his home.
Yet he
struggles with the fact that Earth is where he must live and work.
This accounts
for why he may sometimes seem difficult to be around.
As a savant
he possesses insight and skill which others do not possess.
But it is a
gift, not anything of himself, nothing of which he could boast of.
If you were
to ask him if he considers this to be a blessing,
he would
probably say it is more like a curse,
because it
sets him apart from others
even when he
tries his best to be hidden and to blend in.
He cannot
read the Scriptures as others do,
for after
only a few verses
the Heavens
are opened up to him again and he is lost in its depths.
A single
passage may keep him occupied for months
as Heaven
unfolds it to him,
and he cannot
tear himself away from it.
His preaching
is affected,
because he
cannot decide in advance what he will say,
and even when
he would like to bring forth something new and exciting,
he usually
ends up saying the same thing, like, “Repent!”
He often does
not say what he wants to say,
and does not
say it in the way he would like to say it.
If he wants
to be serious, he finds himself laughing.
And when he
wishes to be friendly,
he finds
himself screaming at the top of his voice
to a startled
congregation of people,
who wonder
how this fellow was ever allowed access
to their
inner sanctum in the first place.
When he
leaves a place he almost never sees the result of his labor,
and only
eternity can reveal the true significance of what was said.
For now, it
is all hidden, and he has to live with the fact t
hat his
fruitfulness will never be measured in terms that human beings,
including
himself, can see and appreciate.
He cannot go
through the motions of religion like most mortals.
It is a dead,
shallow thing to him
because it
cannot compare to the reality
of what he
has already experienced.
He finds it
difficult to listen to another person preach
when he knows
they have not yet ascended to the heights
nor plumbed
the depths that he has already navigated.
And when he
tries to lead them into these heights and depths himself
he is often
misunderstood or rejected altogether.
So either he
attends the meeting and suffers in silence,
or stays home
and suffers in solitude; but either way, he suffers.
His seeing is
affected by a sort of “spiritual dyslexia”.
While others
view things from a one or two dimensional viewpoint,
he sees them
through several dimensions at once
– forward,
backward, reverse, upside-down,
right-side
up: life and death, light and dark, Spirit and flesh,
Heavenly and
Earthly – which often puts him at odds
with his more
pragmatic and doctrinally-correct brethren.
He is so at
one with what he has seen that he speaks of it
as having
already happened,
because he
has, in essence, already experienced it and lived it.
It is the
Prophetic Tense,
which calls
those things that be not as though they were.
In his world,
the world of the Spirit, they exist already.
We call it
“prediction” because we cannot yet see it with our natural eyes,
but he simply
stands outside of Time and views Past and Future as one unbroken and continuous
Present.
His hearing
is affected
so that he is
increasingly sensitive to his surroundings,
even though
it seems as if he is not paying attention.
He is
listening, but he is listening inwardly.
He no longer
trusts his natural ears,
because the
Heavenly Voice and the inner witness are more reliable.
Thus, he is
able to hear God speaking,
while the
rest of the crowd says,
“It
thundered!” or “It was an angel!”
He is also
able to hear when God is not speaking,
and does not
get carried away with the multitudes
who claim to
speak, see, and hear things from God
when they
have not heard or seen anything from Heaven.
He cannot
bear to listen to them.
His
concentration is affected in such a way
as to make
him appear obstinate and unyielding to others.
The truth is
that he is actually quite flexible and pliable before the Lord,
but before
man he is as solid and impenetrable as a rock.
No amount of
persuasion or argument from man will move him
– but the
slightest touch from the Lord will bring him to his knees.
Having
discovered the One Thing that is needed,
he will
tenaciously and ruthlessly
shun the
“many things” which crowd in to seek his attention,
for he sees
everything else as a distraction.
Indeed, he is
quite willing to sacrifice the good in favor of the holy.
And when the
Lord has him focused on a particular thing
he is as a
beam of light fastened upon a singular point
until
everything melts before it.
Even his
praying is affected,
for he can no
longer pray as he wills and for what he wants.
He seemingly
has no will of his own.
Instead the
Heavenly Voice bids him to pray with a Heavenly perspective,
and all too
often the Heavenly perspective is at odds with the Earthly perspective.
So when his
brothers and sisters pray for blessing and increase,
he finds
himself praying for destruction and decrease;
and when they
are resisting and praying against something,
he finds
himself asking God to perform the very thing
the rest of
the world is against.
To the rest
of the world, the autistic savant is a bit of a retarded genius,
an
unfortunate mixture of idiocy and brilliance,
caught up in
a world of its own.
The prophetic
savant bears a similar stigma.
But if you
engage him at all,
you soon
discover that he sees all of this as absolutely normal;
the way it is
supposed to be.
He no longer
wishes for a normal life,
because the
life he has now IS normal:
he has lost
his own life in exchange for a new life.
He lives in
the Heavenlies while he walks on the Earth.
He does not
think of himself as special,
as anything
other than a regular person,
but often
wonders aloud why others cannot see what he has seen
when it is
all so self-evident and plain.
To him,
maybe; but the rest of us are blinded by the Light he exudes without knowing
it.
