You receive a prophetic word, and most of the time, it should be a confirmation of something you already know. Your prophetic word should have the "up factor." It should build up, train up, encourage up and edify up. It should leave you hopeful for something that is coming to pass in the future.
What happens when it doesn't do the thing it is intended? What do you do with a prophetic word that doesn't make sense? There are choices to make when a prophetic word doesn't make sense.
- We can throw it out because it is in no way witnessing with our soul and spirit, and we think the person who delivered it is way off in left field.
- We can pray into it and see if the Holy Spirit confirms the word to us.
- We can shelve it. We can put it up on the shelf and see if the Holy Spirit ever brings it down or if a situation happens and all of a sudden we remember this word we put on the shelf because we were unsure if it was for us.
Occasionally, when we receive a prophetic word, we can be unsure and unsettled if the word was for us. We can react in different ways to the prophetic word that was spoken in our lives. We can become caught up in attempting to discern the word or we can dismiss the word altogether. Both options can have adverse effects on us.
When we receive a prophetic word it should witness to us. There should be some kind of affirmation within us that it is a word from the Lord. When a word is from the Lord and resonates within us we should pray into it, cover it with the blood of Christ and call it forth according to the word of God and will of God in prayer and declarations.
When a prophetic word is not witnessing to us at that moment we should shelve it. What I mean is just that, put it up on the shelf in the spiritual realm or in your mind. Don't let it consume you and don't try to figure it out. Take the word and put it in your memory bank and then move on.
Keep doing what you are doing for that season. When and if the word is for you God will bring it back to remembrance, confirm it in His Word, the Bible, or bring another person to prophesy a similar word to confirm it to you.
There was a time I received a very long prophetic word from a well-known prophet. Part of the prophetic word was, "My daughter you have a desire for prayer. Lord I feel like church has forgotten about prayer. I wish someone would reinstitute prayer in the house. Guess who I am going to use? Going to use you to rally men and women to seek me, seek me, seek me, like they have never before. Find yourself in at least one 24-hour vigil."
As I received this word I thought, "I don't feel that way, and I have been in charge of several 72-hour prayer vigils." As I dissected the prophetic word given to me that night I put this part of the word up on the shelf because it didn't make sense to me; I thought it was off and not for me. I did not throw it away. I put it in my memory bank.
A year later, I found myself teaching people around me how to pray differently, but I still did not realize that this word was manifesting in my life. One day as I was writing one of my books, I still can remember it as clear as day, the Holy Spirit shot through me. I was sitting at my desk typing and I was allowing the Holy Spirit to move through me to write.
I started writing about prayer and thinking that people don't know how to pray. That is when I felt the Holy Spirit come upon me. It felt like a bolt of lightning shot through my body. I looked up and in the spiritual realm I saw the shelf and the prophetic word. I had misinterpreted the word. I was looking at the church as a building when the church is the people.
The church is the body of Christ and that prophetic word was right! I had been complaining for months that people didn't know how to pray effectively. I took what I was seeing and hearing and started teaching people how to really pray!
The word was for me all along, but I didn't recognize it. How many words are people waiting for that they think are not coming to pass because they totally dismissed them or did not recognize them? We need to be open to how the Holy Spirit wants to move through us. We need to make sure in our pride or arrogance we are not dismissing a word or assuming it's not for us.
The most important thing is keeping our minds and will open to the Holy Spirit, so in that moment He desires to remind us of a word from long ago, we understand and hear His voice. Even though I dissected the prophetic word I still did not get the full meaning out of it. I should have looked further into every word, but that's OK because now I can use it as a testimony to you.
Stay open to the Sprit. Don't totally dismiss what you don't understand. Dissect your prophetic words and most of all don't give up in the waiting. Who knows perhaps the Holy Spirit will get hold of you like He did me and pretty soon you will see things manifesting in your life that were spoken long ago.
Be encouraged, God has a plan for you. Be diligent! Seek His presence and His word! Worship Him in freedom and truth and discover how the kingdom of God will manifest in your life and use you to manifest His kingdom in others!
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