Walking in Your Prophetic Destiny: Building Divine Relationships

Editor's note: 

Jennifer LeClaire's book Walking in Your Prophetic Destiny is an excellent tool for spiritual development. Along with discovering your spiritual gifts and fulfilling your calling, she also offers us a reminder that we can discover and live God’s unique call on our lives. Enjoy this excerpt on divine relationships!

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Building Divine Relationships

Divine connections. We all want them. Many of us pray for them. We certainly hear a lot of prophecies about them. Hopefully you’ve had a few along your narrow path.

Divine connections — those God-breathed relationships that seemingly come out of nowhere and have the potential to radically impact your life — are vital to walking in your prophetic destiny.

To be sure, these relationships can be absolutely life changing, even if they are only seasonal in intensity. The reality is, we need each other. God has not called us to walk alone, and He will bring divine connections into our lives at strategic times.

I’m grateful for the many divine connections God has brought into my life. I’ve been blessed with godly relationships that have strengthened me, opened doors for me, and imparted wisdom that would have otherwise taken me decades to glean.

• Divine connections are scriptural and necessary to fulfilling your prophetic destiny.

Part of your destiny is in someone else, and part of someone else’s destiny is in you.

Moses and Joshua

Moses and Joshua had a divine connection. Joshua sat outside the tent of meeting while Moses talked with God face to face (Exodus 33:11). Moses handpicked him to mentor him for one of the greatest battles in all of history — entering into the promised land.

Jonathan and David

Jonathan and David had a divine connection. David depended on Jonathan to help him escape Saul’s murderous agenda (1 Samuel 20). Although I am sure God could have found another way to preserve David’s life, He chose to use Jonathan as David’s divine connection for destiny.

Elijah and Elisha

Elijah and Elisha had a divine connection. God told Elijah to anoint a prophet in his place. Elisha served his mentor faithfully, as Joshua did Moses, and ended up receiving his mantle (2 Kings 13). Elisha did twice as many miracles as Elijah, but that never would have happened without the divine connection.

Paul and Timothy had a divine connection, as did Ruth and Naomi. The list goes on and on.

In each case, we see prophetic destiny arising from divine relationships. Joshua took the promised land baton from Moses. Samuel anointed David as king. Elisha grabbed Elijah’s mantle. And Timothy carried on Paul’s gospel mission. Ruth was in the lineage of the Messiah.

• You can’t make divine connections happen, but you can stay spiritually alert so you don’t miss them.

Discerning Divine Connections

So how do you discern a divine connection? While we should depend on the Lord to show us everything we need to see, we can see clear fruit from divine connections. Divine connections are just that — divine. They will bear the fruit of the Holy Spirit and show forth the heart of the Father in your life. Divine connections don’t all look the same, but they do have the common denominator of helping you to see God’s will come to pass in your life — and at times accelerating that process.

When you enter into a divine connection, it’s a next-level relationship that fuels your vision, purpose, and specific assignment in any given season. A divine connection is with a person who can see parts of the big picture that you can’t and offers solutions to problems you can’t seem to wrap your head around. Paul wrote,

We know in part and we prophesy in part. — 1 Corinthians 13:9

We know one part, but a divine connection will bring a piece of the puzzle to your prophetic destiny. It will add wisdom to your life. In other words, God will use connections to pour out His divine wisdom liberally, as we ask (James 1:5).

A divine connection may not always be a close personal relationship. It could be a door-opener relationship. I’ve experienced too many of these divine connections to count. These could be long-term or short-term relationships — so short-term in fact that you never see that divine connection again — sort of like that mystery person who picks up your dinner check in a restaurant. In this context, God gives you supernatural favor with people in positions of authority and power who can open a door He wants opened with the Isaiah 22:22 key. I would not be where I am today without door-opener connections.

A divine connection can manifest in the form of an intercessor on whom God has laid a burden to pray. Although I often say I don’t have enough intercession to adequately cover my ministry, God has used divine connection intercessors in my life at strategic times to blast through demonic opposition to birthing my next assignment. In this way, divine intercessors can clear the path to divine appointments — and other divine connections.

A divine connection can also connect you to resources you need to advance your prophetic destiny — whether that’s money, information, or revelation. I’ve enjoyed divine connection prophets in my life who have given me a word in due season that explained things I could not see. I’ve appreciated divine connection financiers who have helped me fund various ministry projects. God owns the cattle on a thousand hills (Psalm 50:10). The silver is His. The gold is His. He is all-knowing, all-seeing, all-mighty, and all-sufficient.

A divine connection can also be a friend who sticks closer than a brother. This divine friend will encourage you in the worst times and refuse to let you give up on what God has called you to do. They will lift your arms up when you are weary. They will make sacrifices for you when necessary, stand up and fight with you and for you and get into agreement with you in prayer. A divine friend is someone you can trust with anything. They walk in love and forgiveness with you even in your worst moments.

It’s important to note that a divine connection is different than a soul tie. You can have a soul tie with someone who is not a divine connection. In fact, you can have a soul tie with someone who hinders your prophetic destiny. A soul tie is when hearts are knitted together. When hearts are knitted together in love, as Paul described in Colossians 2:2, it’s a healthy manifestation of Christian family.

By contrast, when hearts are knitted together through toxic emotions or sin, the connection is fleshly or even demonic. Likewise, you can have a divine connection with someone and not have a soul tie. Some of the strongest relationships develop when both spirit and soul are connected in the love of God. Jonathan and David had both a divine connection and a soul tie, as the Bible says the heart of Jonathan was knitted to the heart of David (1 Samuel 18:1).

Divine connections come under attack.

• You have to fight to hold on to some divine connections — and sometimes you have to fight to restore them.

You can discern a wounded relationship when people who were once open to you start to close their spirit, guard themselves, restrict communication, or become defensive, argumentative, or sarcastic. There are many ways divine relationships can be wounded, but it often comes down to corrupt communication, which the Bible warns us against (Ephesians 4:29). Be careful how you listen and be careful about words, which can break a spirit (Proverbs 15:4).

If you find that you’ve wounded a divine relationship, or you feel wounded in a divine relationship, cry out to God for restoration. Ask God for His timing to have a restoration conversation and wisdom to navigate it. Pray that He will prepare your heart and the heart of others involved. Let go of anger and accusations and enter in with a spirit of forgiveness — willing to forgive and to ask for forgiveness. Be willing to yield and show mercy. Express how you are feeling without blaming, and listen without interrupting.

Embracing Divine Reconnections

For all the divine connections I see in the Bible, I also see powerful divine reconnections or full-circle relationships in Scripture that reveal God’s redemptive, reconciliatory power. Maybe the relationship was damaged, or maybe you lost touch in the hectic pace of life, or maybe God separated you for a season.

Relationship Reconciliation/ Divine Reconnection 

One of the most powerful divine reconnections in the Bible is Paul’s relationship with John Mark. When Saul and Barnabas set out to the mission field, they took young John Mark with them (Acts 12:12). For whatever reason (likely connected to the spiritual warfare that raged against Paul’s ministry), John Mark abandoned the mission (Acts 13:13).

Later, Saul and Barnabas split because Barnabas wanted to take John Mark with them but Paul thought it was better not to take him since he bailed the first time around. But God brought the relationship full circle. In one of Paul’s last letters from prison he mentioned John Mark, telling his spiritual son Timothy to “get Mark and bring him with you, for he is useful to me for ministry” (2 Timothy 4:11).

Lot also experienced a divine reconnection with Abraham that may have saved his life. Lot and his family were taken captive by five kings (Genesis 14:8–12). When Abraham heard it, he gathered 318 men from his household and set out to rescue Lot — and succeeded. Although they did not continue walking together as they had before Lot chose to dwell in Sodom, it was a powerful, divine reconnection.

Just like divine connections, you can’t make divine reconnections happen. That’s part of the reason they are called divine. It is God’s doing in His way and with His timing. When they do come, full-circle relationships manifest in His season and for His reason. I believe in this season God is bringing forth many divine reconnections and also breathing new life into established relationships so we can run swiftly into His purposes.

Excerpted with permission from Walking in Your Prophetic Destiny by Jennifer LeClaire, copyright Jennifer LeClaire.

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Your Turn

We were build for connection, for friendship. The Lord created us for iron to sharpen iron (Proverbs 27:17). Some friendships are divine connections meant to bring us favor, hope, provision, help, and healing. Are you leaning into those divine relationships? Let’s ask the Lord today to help us to see those friendships and build them! Come share your thoughts. We want to hear from you! ~ Devotionals Daily

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