Episode 1: The Gift of Visions | Toffy Olowo

Toffy Olowo is a child of God with a deep desire to love Him and love people. She is also a brilliant filmmaker and director. In this episode, we talk about the gift of visions, overcoming fear to step out in boldness, navigating tough seasons, and more!

“You have to stay in the word of God—it helps with discernment. When you know what God’s word says, you’ll know what His will is. He will never step outside of His will.”

Hi, Toffy! We are a couple of days into 2025. How do you feel about the year so far?

Toffy: The year feels very different. More recently, when I started developing more in my spiritual walk, I can kind of sense what the year is bringing. This year particularly just feels very special, and it feels like many of the things that have been concerns for me for a while are being resolved this year. It just has a freshness to it.

Even though situations have come up that seem contrary to what I expected for the year, simply holding on to what God is set to do in my life has kept me unfazed. I have chosen not to complain. I have come to a place of surrender where nothing really matters like that, and there is so much peace and joy in that. Regardless, I’m good.

You mentioned earlier that this year, for you, is about loving God and loving people. Let’s talk about the first part, loving God. How did your love for Jesus start? What’s your coming-to-the-faith story? How did Jesus become the center and meaning of your life?

Toffy: I was one of those people, growing up, who had visions. I have always had the gift of dreams and visions. I’ve had supernatural experiences from a very young age. The easiest one I can recall was before my mom gave birth to my baby brother. Before she was even pregnant, I wanted to have my own baby sister. My parents didn’t know the gender of the child when my mom got pregnant.

One day, we were in the dining room, and we put a mat on the floor. I was lying there with my mom, and we fell asleep. In my dream, I saw an angel bring a baby boy with the same complexion and form as my brother when he was born. The angel brought him into the dining room where we were. When we woke up, I told my mom the baby was going to be a boy. That was my mom’s miracle baby, and there were some complications, but eventually, she gave birth, and it was a baby boy. That’s just one example, but I’ve had countless supernatural experiences.

Regardless of all those experiences, I still steered off and did my own thing. To summarize, I looked to all the broken cisterns and different things I thought could fill me. I thought if I was intelligent and got all the A+s, I would be satisfied—but that wasn’t satisfying enough. Maybe fulfillment was in a relationship, but it wasn’t there. Maybe in money—no. I tried different things until I realized I had something special that I had forgotten until I remembered it again. I credit this to the Holy Spirit.

It’s hard to pinpoint a time, but there was a moment in high school when a Chemistry teacher answered a question I had about God. In my life, I have experienced things that are enough to break a person, and the only place I saw true joy and peace was with God. Towards the end of 2022, I was broken to a point where I would sit on my bed and just weep. At one point, I felt like Jesus was with me. I started speaking out more, sought therapy, and started listening to the Word [of God].

At the beginning of 2023, I stopped going to church physically and was just attending online. In September 2023, I heard God tell me, through the Holy Spirit, that it was time to go back. There are so many ways God speaks to me, and one of them is through confirmations. I had several confirmations that it was Celebration Church. I even had a dream about Celebration Church that I didn’t realize was about the church until later. There are so many people involved in my salvation story, like my sister, that it’s hard to pinpoint. But God has been faithful.

Let’s go back a bit to what you said about praying away your visions. Was it out of fear?

So, when I ‘prayed away’ my visions, I was in SS1, Grade 10 in the West. I remember it clearly because that was when I had just gone to boarding school.

Prior to that, I had supernatural experiences that were scary, but I would run to my dad and tell him what I saw or felt. We’d pray, and everything would be good. Before going to the hostel, there were certain things I started seeing—God exposing certain works of darkness to me. I saw that once and was like, “No, no, no.”

One particular experience, which some may not interpret as scary, involved a family friend who was a very powerful deliverance minister. She was a rock for my parents, very solid, and they would pray together. At some point while I was in boarding school, I had a dream. In the dream, I saw that she had passed, but I just ignored it. A few days later, my mom called me, crying. I asked what was going on, and she mentioned the woman’s name, saying she had passed. I could hear the brokenness in my mom’s voice.

It was so painful, and when that happened, I told God that I didn’t want to see anything like that again because it put such a heavy burden on me for a very long time. That was when I stopped dreaming and seeing visions.

Now that you are older and mature in the faith, is the gift of visions something that you actively walk in now?

Toffy: A hundred percent. When I remembered in 2022 and reached a place where I was more conscious of God, I knew I could have seen some of the things happening to me coming. I could have known. Then, I started crying out to God to bring back the gift of visions.

The Spirit of God led me to do a Daniel fast at the beginning of 2023, after many confirmations. It was for 21 days, and towards the end of the fast, that’s when I got the visions back. The gifts of the Spirit are for the work of God and the advancement of His kingdom. The fear of the unknown or not knowing how to manage the gifts can sometimes drive people away from them. But no—it’s a gift, and it’s very powerful in the life of a believer.

How does someone with the gift of visions reconcile God’s sovereignty with their desire to know things before they happen?

Toffy: I’ll answer this in two parts.

First, there is a Bible verse that God brought to my mind during my devotion: “I have loved you with an everlasting love, and I have called you with unfailing kindness.” Part of the guilt or disappointment comes from feeling like you’ve let God down—the giver of the gift, by not seeing something before it happens. But God is sovereign, and He causes everything to work together for our good, according to His word. He doesn’t lie. Recognize that if you needed to know that information, God is faithful and kind. He would have made sure you knew. Look at the nature of God. If you didn’t know what it was going to happen, you likely weren’t supposed to.

The second part is that sometimes, it’s a matter of not being in the word enough or not being consecrated enough. But you shouldn’t feel guilty about this. You need to have deliberate and consistent times when you step away. There has to be fire on your altar. You have to stay in the word of God, it helps with discernment. When you know what God’s word says, you’ll know what His will is. He will never step outside of His will. Pray. Prayer does more in you than it does for you.

The full interview is available on Spotify and Apple Podcasts: Creatively Curious by Saphar Collective

Cover image by David Kwewum