Wrong Words

Do not treat prophecies with contempt but test them all; hold on to what is good,reject every kind of evil.
1 Thessalonians 5:20-22

The Bible is clear that we should not treat prophecies and prophetic gifts with contempt. Healthy church cultures should make room for every follower of Jesus to hear from the Lord for themselves. The priesthood of the believers means that we don’t wait for the super-gifted to tell us what God is saying. Instead, we each cultivate an intimacy with Jesus, and that includes hearing from the Holy Spirit ourselves.

When each person is hearing the Lord in their own lives, this creates a prophetic culture where we can “test” whether what someone is saying is from the Lord. Just as our own personal study of scripture helps us to know if the preacher is preaching a sermon that is biblically sound, hearing from the Lord in our own lives helps us to test whether someone is giving a prophetic word that is actually from the Lord.

So while we don’t want to stifle prophetic gifts in the church, we also don’t want them to be used without checks and balances. Accountability and feedback are important tools that help a prophetic community stay healthy. Untested prophetic words are not biblical. If there are going to be people hearing from God and operating in prophetic gifts, then there also needs to be a community of those who are discerning and testing those words.

If someone has the gift of prophecy, why do they give wrong words sometimes?

First, we need to understand that every prophetic word has three parts to it. There’s 1) the word, 2) the interpretation of the word, and 3) the application of the word. The core revelation from the Holy Spirit is the word. It could be an actual word, a sentence, a mental picture, a mental movie, an external vision or a dream. And that word can never contradict the Bible because scripture has ultimate authority.

After the word comes, it has to be interpreted. Interpretation answers the question, “What does this mean?” Finally, it must be applied. Application answers the question, “What do I do?”

Sometimes a prophetic person gets the word right but the interpretation wrong. Sometimes they get the word right and the interpretation right but the application wrong (most of the time the application should be left to the person the word is for). Because there is a lot of room to have the flesh of the prophetic person get in the way (even if they get the word right), there needs to be discernment and testing of every word.

There are also times that it isn’t about the interpretation or the application. Sometimes the prophetic person simply gets the actual word wrong. The core revelation isn’t from the Lord. How does this happen?

In the new covenant, prophecy is different than it was in the old covenant. The Holy Spirit isn’t just resting upon us (like Old Testament prophets) but is now dwelling within us. That means, in the new covenant, God has chosen to use us, His Church, as conduits of ushering in the Kingdom of God on the earth.

What this means for prophecy is that when we get a word from the Lord, it is flowing through us. Most of the time, we aren’t hearing the audible voice of God and then simply repeating what we heard (like Old Testament prophets). One way to put it is that we aren’t “receiving” the word in a simple form, but instead we are “perceiving” a word from the Lord. God’s communication isn’t hitting our ears, but instead it is flowing through our spirit and through our soul (our mind, will, and emotions).

Because God’s communication is coming through our mind, will and emotions, it is coming through our personality. It’s like light pouring through a lens. Those lenses are often colored with our thoughts and our emotions. And, sometimes, those lenses are cracked. If we’ve been hurt and haven’t totally healed emotionally from that hurt, it creates little cracks in the lenses of our heart and mind.

Now, as the light of God’s revelation comes pouring through our cracked lenses, sometimes it will come through clean with maybe just a little coloring of our personality and vocabulary. Other times it will hit one of those cracks and skew the direction and content of the word. That means the same person could sometimes have a word that is actually from the Lord and other times they could be totally off. This is why discernment is so important in the church community.

Here are some things that skew words that the Lord gives us:

hurtful experiences
prejudices toward particular kinds of people
emotional pain, especially a perpetual feeling of rejection
strong political opinions (notice this in election years)
unbiblical theological views, especially of end-times
chronic sin (unrepentant)

It’s one thing to realize that God is okay with our personality slightly coloring the words that He gives us (metaphorically giving the light a tint of blue or yellow or green). God actually designed the gifts of the Holy Spirit to be like that, to have a little bit of our personality mixed in. He wants the gifts of the Spirit to be incarnated in us and through us.

But it’s a different thing to operate in the prophetic with a cracked lens. With cracks in our heart and our mind, some of the words that come through end up being entirely wrong. And it’s not just the interpretation or the application that end up being wrong but the core word itself.

So, if a prophetic person gives a wrong word, does that make them a false prophet?

Well, if we were in the old covenant, that is what that would mean. But in the new covenant, we all have the Holy Spirit and are called to test and discern the words. They didn’t have this ability in the Old Testament so the accountability had to be more severe.

But, no, if a person gives a wrong word it doesn’t make them a false prophet. What makes a person a false prophet in the new covenant is if they reject Jesus as the Messiah, the Son of God, God-incarnate, the Lord and Savior of the world. Those who deny that Jesus is who He said He is are false prophets. But a prophetic person who gives a wrong word is simply a “wrong prophet” not a false prophet.

There needs to be accountability for wrong words, but we don’t need to stone the person to death or throw them out of the church (like in the old covenant). We need, instead, to pastor them. If a person consistently gets wrong words from the Lord, it means they’re operating with cracked lenses. Most often it’s a sign of a broken heart born out of continual rejection, biased political views, unhealthy end-times theology, or chronic sin in their life. They need pastoring and accountability. They also need to put a pause on the use of their prophetic gifts to ensure the enemy doesn’t continue to hijack the gifts and use them for his purposes.

A Different Kind of Evangelism

Always be prepared to give an answer to everyone who asks you to give the reason for the hope that you have. But do this with gentleness and respect…
1 Peter 3:15

I drove up to Pennsylvania by myself to go to a conference meant for pastors. On one of the dinner breaks I didn’t have anyone to eat with, so I went to a local pub that had outdoor seating and good online reviews. Sometimes when I am eating alone in a restaurant or sitting alone on an airplane I use it as an opportunity to stretch my wings and take a risk. I try to practice using some of the gifts of the Spirit for the sake of sharing the gospel.

I ordered my food and then asked the Lord for a word for anyone around me or the waitress. I didn’t get anything at first as my mind was distracted by the sports bar environment. Sometimes, if I ask the Lord for a word and don’t get one, I just let it be. But in this case I pressed in and asked again, trying to focus my heart on how God saw my waitress.

As I prayed I heard the phrase, “hurting sister” in my mind. I pressed in again and asked for another word. In my mind I heard the word, “genuine.” Things were flowing now so I asked again for anything else the Lord wanted to share with me. Finally, I heard the word, “diploma.”

That’s it! Now I was left to prayerfully interpret what I heard. I’m not an expert at this, but here’s what I did. When the waitress (her name was Caroline) came back to check on me, I engaged in a conversation that went something like this:

Me: Hey, can I ask you a question? Do you have a sister?

Caroline: Um, yeah.

Me: Okay, let me tell you why I asked. Sometimes the Lord will give me a word for people and, while I was sitting here, He gave me some words for you. I basically asked Him how He saw you. Do you want to hear what He said to me?

Caroline: (looking a little confused and unsure) Um, I guess so.

Me: Well, first I heard the phrase “hurting sister.” Is your sister going through something hard right now?

Caroline: No. Not that I know of. I mean, she’s a mom with two little kids at home so maybe that’s something hard.

Me: Oh okay. Well, maybe she’s going through something or maybe I just missed it. Sometimes I just miss it and mishear what God is telling me. The other thing I heard was the word, “genuine.” I feel like God is saying that you are a very genuine person, you don’t like to be fake with people. Is that something you’d say is true of you?

Caroline: (a bit more surprised and open now) Yes, actually. That describes me really well. My friends are always saying that about me. I just like to be real with people, and I don’t like it when people are fake.

Me: Okay, yeah. I think God loves that about you. (Caroline smiles) And the last word I got was the word “diploma.” Are you thinking about getting a degree or something in school?

Caroline: Oh, man. Well, I probably have enough degrees, but I have been thinking about getting this certificate that would help me change jobs. I’m an elementary school teacher in Harrisburg. I teach the third grade. But I want to be a resource specialist that helps schools with technology. To do that I need to go back to school to get this certificate. And I’ve been debating whether I should do that.

Me: Awesome. I think you should go for it! My wife was a high school teacher for years and now teaches in a university setting.

Caroline: Yeah, these kids in the city have it rough. Teaching there is really hard.

Me: Yeah, as a blond hair, blue-eyed girl my wife was the minority in both schools she taught in. I remember her talking about some of her students getting recruited into gangs.

Caroline: Yeah, it even starts in elementary school. It’s so hard to watch it happen.

Me: Well, I think God loves your heart for those kids and loves your desire to make things better in those schools.

Caroline: (with a big smile) Well, thanks so much! I have to go help that table over there, but thank you for saying that.

Me: Absolutely!

You can probably notice the progression in this conversation. My goal was not to get her to “pray a prayer” or “accept Jesus as her personal Lord and Savior” right there at work. My goal was to let her know, through a few prophetic words, that she is known, seen, and loved by God. That’s it. Seeds were planted that will potentially cause her to doubt her doubts. And while she was hesitant to engage with me at first, the more accurate the words got, the more she opened up.

The final thing I did to make sure I left her feeling the love of God was to tip her the amount of my meal. So rather than doing a 20% tip, I did 100%. I did this because Christians have gotten a bad reputation for leaving gospel tracts with waiters with very little tip. I wanted to do the opposite. I wanted to bless her not only with prophetic words but also financially. Again, my goal was to reflect the love of God and leave an impression that would be hard to forget.

As I drove away from the pub that night, I prayed that Caroline would contact her sister and ask if she was okay. And if I heard the Lord correctly, maybe her sister would open up about a current struggle she’s going through. And if she did, Caroline would remember the prophetic word she got at work. Maybe she would be hit with how much God knows and loves her. That was my prayer.

This is something you can do too if you are willing to take a risk, practice the prophetic, and be willing to admit when you get it wrong. It’s not easy, but the payoff is worth it. Jesus is worth it.

Words on a Plane

But the one who prophesies speaks to people for their strengthening, encouraging and comfort…
Therefore, my brothers and sisters, be eager to prophesy…
1 Corinthians 14:3, 39

I sat down in my seat for my flight home from Texas. Missy would stay in Texas for a few extra days for a girl’s trip. The kids where already home with my parents awaiting my return. I’m not often by myself on a plane so this was a good chance to stretch my faith a little and see what God would do.

I sat in an aisle seat in a row with one guy already at the window seat. He was a young, African-American guy, maybe in his twenties. He had a durag on with a hoodie pulled over that. He had earbuds in listening to music from his phone and a mask on his face (though masks were optional on this flight). He had sweatpants on and slide-ons on his feet. His socks were some sort of cartoonish design. His posture gave the over all message, “Leave me alone.”

As more and more people filled the cabin, and seats were running low (this was a Southwest flight where you chose your own seat), a young woman decided to claim the center seat in our row. She looked to be in her twenties as well, fashionably dressed, and either Puerto Rican or mixed race. She had a lot of make up on but it was well done. Her nails too. She had one of those looks that could be confused with a number of different ethnicities.

We all settled in and I decided to tilt my head back onto the headrest, close my eyes, and begin to pray. I began with some prayers of gratitude and praise. Then I shifted into asking the Lord what I have asked Him a hundred different times when praying for people, “Lord, how do you see him/her?”

In my estimation, if this question works in church environments it should work everywhere. Meaning, if I can practice hearing what the Lord says about fellow Christians that I pray for in church, then I should also be able to hear what He says about the people around me in daily life. For some reason, the latter seems to demand more faith from me than the former.

As I began listening, I started with the African-American guy in the widow seat. The first thing I heard (“heard” meaning: a conversational thought that came to my mind that seemed not to be my own) was, “His IQ is very high, much higher than the people around him.” I don’t know what I was expecting God to say about him, but that definitely wasn’t it. Then I saw a picture in my mind’s eye of him at a computer. It seemed like he was playing video games on his computer but based on the first word, it could have been him doing programing or something. I wasn’t sure.

Feeling bolstered by what I heard for the guy by the window, I asked about the girl next to me in the center seat. I got a picture of her with children. She was helping them in some way. Then I heard, “She is good with kids. She helps kids who are forgotten and on the margins. She’s good with kids because she wasn’t allowed to have much of a childhood.”

This was all going so well, but I wasn’t sure any of it was accurate and I wasn’t sure when or how I would share these words with these people. I prayed for an opportunity to share and the courage to step out in faith.

I also asked about the lady across the center aisle from me who was sitting in the aisle seat directly next to mine. She was a heavyset hispanic lady that looked closer to my age. In my mind’s eye I saw a picture of her cooking tons of food for a big family. Nothing about her necessarily signaled that she was a mother, but it was as if she brought her family joy and connection through her cooking. Maybe a grandmother? I didn’t know.

The final word came for the lady sitting diagonally across the aisle from me in the seat in front of the hispanic lady. She was a well put together white lady in a business suit. I wondered if she had flown somewhere for business. The only thing I heard for her was, “The business deal will go through. It will work.” I had no idea what this meant or even if she was a business person. She could have been a teacher for all I knew. It’s just what I felt like I heard from the Lord.

I held on to these words waiting for opportunities to share them. After an hour, I was still waiting. It wasn’t until the girl next to me needed to get up and go to the bathroom that I felt like there was an opening.

After she left, I mustered up the courage to tap the guy in the window seat on the arm. He looked up surprised and took one of his earbuds out. I greeted him and explained that sometimes I’ll pray for people around me and ask God how He sees them. Then I asked, “Do you want to know what I heard Him say about you?” Still a little confused, he said that he did.

I said, “I heard the Lord say that your IQ is really high and that it is higher than the people around you. Then I saw a picture of you on a computer either programming or playing video games. Are you a computer programer or something?” He said, “No. But I do play a lot of video games.” I nodded, “Oh, okay, I must have mixed that up a little. Can I ask what you do?” He replied, “I’m going to be a doctor. I’m finishing up med school to be a radiologist.” Laughing I said, “Oh wow, that must be the whole thing with your IQ. I just want you to know that God has given you your intelligence as a gift and he wants you to use it for good. And it sounds like you already are!”

He thanked me for praying for him and asked about me. I shared that I was a pastor. He asked a few questions about my church just as the girl from our row returned from the bathroom. That seemed to go well and gave me a little more courage to try out the other words.

The plane landed and parked at the jetway. I stood up to stretch my legs as people prepared to leave the plane. I didn’t want the girl next to me to leave before giving her the word. So I decided just to jump in and explain to her that sometimes I pray and ask God how He sees the people around me. I asked her if she wanted to know what I heard God say about her. She looked very skeptical. And with more than a little attitude she said, “Sure.”

Unexpectedly, the guy next to the window chimed in and said, “He did the same for me. And he was right. Trust me, it will be good.” Now I was the one a little shocked. This guy who I just met was helping me out. So cool. The girl confirmed again that she wanted to hear what I had to say.

I said, “I heard the Lord say that you’re really good with kids. I saw a picture of you helping kids who had been forgotten and on the margins. He said you are good with kids because you weren’t given the chance to have much of a childhood.” Still looking skeptical, she nodded and said, “Okay?” She seemed to be processing it all and not knowing what to do with it.

I asked, “Can I ask you what you do?” She said, “I’m a nurse.” Pointing to the guy next to the window I said, “Oh great, he’s a doctor.” Surprised, she turned and had a short conversation with him about what he was doing in medicine. She then turned back to me and said, “Yeah, I’m a travel nurse but I used to work in pediatrics.”

This was a gracious lifeline to me. She could have left that detail out, but she decided to throw me a bone. I was so encouraged by this little detail because it meant that I wasn’t totally off in hearing the Lord. I said, “Oh wow, so you are good with kids, and probably some of those kids were really struggling.” She nodded in agreement. I said, “Well, maybe God will give you an opportunity to return to pediatrics. Clearly, you are really good with kids and God loves that about you.” She was still reserved in her response and didn’t seem totally convinced, but I considered that conversation a win.

We were all getting off the plane before I could deliver the other two words to the other two ladies. But then I noticed that the heavyset hispanic lady was walking right beside me as we entered the airport terminal. I tried my best to give a quick, 30-second summary of how I listen to the Lord and that, for her, I got a word about her cooking for her family. She looked a little freaked out and nodded in a way that said, “Please leave me alone.” Ha! She quickly darted in the the women’s restroom before any conversation could happen, and I was off to baggage claim. I never caught up with the lady in the business suit.

Two out of four ain’t bad. But it confirmed to me that God has thoughts about every person on the planet (read Psalm 139:17-18). He knows us intimately and in the most detailed ways. His heart posture toward us is love, not condemnation.

As followers of Jesus, not only is God willing to share his thoughts through the Holy Spirit (read 1 Corinthians 2:9-13), but He is willing to share his feelings as well. When God gives me words about people, I find that I can’t help but love them in that moment. It’s like God’s love is so big that the residue of His love sticks to every prophetic word He gives. Each word is just a fragment of all the thoughts He has for that person, and each one carries a tiny fragment of His love with it. As His word for them flows through me, the residue of His love for them rubs off on me and changes my heart for them.

Prophetic words weren’t designed to come as raw data. They were meant to come wrapped in His love. They are a kind of incarnation. The word becomes flesh, even on a plane.

A Word for A Stylist

When I pray for people at church, I often ask the Lord how He sees the person I’m praying for, I listen, then I share what I hear the Spirit put on my heart or an image that comes to mind. But these kind of prophetic words aren’t just meant for inside the walls of the church. So I do this same exercise in listening when I interact with people throughout the day.

For instance, I’ve made it a practice to ask the Lord how He sees the person who is about to cut my hair. I go to one of those places where I have a new hairstylist just about every time. Here’s what I heard the Lord say yesterday when I got my hair cut.

Usually, my stylist is a woman. Yesterday it was a heavily-tatooed African-American man. I asked the Lord, “How do you see him?” Here’s what I heard, “He’s an artist but he grew up in an environment that didn’t appreciate art. He’s creative like me.” (When I say, “Here’s what I heard…”, I don’t mean the audible voice of God. I mean a conversational thought goes through my mind–a still, small voice–that I recognize as not my own.)

A few seconds later I mustered up the courage to start a conversation with him by saying, “So what other kinds of art do you do?” He looked shocked and said, “What makes you think I do art? How do you know I do art?” Instead of telling him the real answer just yet, I told him I assumed because of his tatoos that he was an artist. He told me he paints and draws and wishes he could do more with his art. We then had a conversation about art and artists. I said to him (based on the other part of the word from the Lord), “You probably didn’t have people around you who really appreciated art, did you?” He confirmed.

Later, when he was shampooing my hair, I heard the Lord say, “His mom is a praying woman.” When the Lord speaks to you, He often wants you to do something with it. Since I heard the first word correctly, I knew the Lord was asking me to step out and take another risk with this second word. After I mustered up the courage, I asked, “Is your mom a praying woman?” He said, “Ohhh yeah. She definitely is.” Then I said, “She’s a church lady, huh?” He opened up a little, “She very much is. But I’m not fully convinced.”

That’s when I decided to let the cat out of the bag. I told him I was a pastor and that I usually prayed for whomever cut my hair. I told him how I would ask God how he saw the person and then try to listen.

He asked, “What did He say about me?” I told him, “God said you were an artist but you didn’t grow up in an environment that appreciates art. That’s why I originally asked you about your art. God also told me your mom was a praying woman. I want you to know that God gave you that creativity. He loves that about you. You’re creative like He’s creative.”

After that we exchanged some small talk about my church and about his vacation coming up. But I hope that he has a better picture of how God sees him. God loves him and is for him. God created him uniquely and with purpose. I hope that he got a glimpse of how God sees him through the gift of prophecy. Prophetic words aren’t about “thus saith the Lord.” They are about revealing the heart of the Father to a world who needs to know how much they are loved.

Hearing God in a Crisis

Do not quench the Spirit. Do not treat prophecies with contempt but test them all; hold on to what is good…
1 Thessalonians 5:19-21

My family and I are in the midst of a tragedy. We are walking through grief and loss. My older brother has just died at 47. He was in a car accident. He left behind a wife and three kids. We feel like so much has been stolen from us. So much time and so many memories that were yet to happen were ripped away from us in an instant. My nieces and nephew lost their dad. I lost a brother. My parents lost a son. My sister-in-law lost her husband. My kids lost an uncle. The pain is real and intense.

During these kinds of seasons we need the presence of the Lord to be near to us and comfort us. We need Jesus to bring His peace that passes all understanding. And it is extremely helpful to hear from the Lord as He speaks to us about what is happening. Yet, many people report that during difficult times, they don’t hear from the Lord. It often feels like the Lord is silent.

I have some thoughts on this. I believe the Lord wants to speak into these situations in our lives. I don’t believe the Lord wants to be silent. But I believe we often experience a kind of silence for a couple reasons.

Have you ever been on a video conference call and someone started talking while they were still muted? You can see their mouth moving but you can’t hear anything. It’s not that they aren’t talking but the mute button is keeping you from hearing them. I believe we sometimes interact with God this way. God is speaking but we don’t hear him. We have a mute button on in our spirit.

The thing that opens communication with the Lord is trust. If we can trust him implicitly in good times or bad, no matter what happens, then the communication lines stay open. Lack of trust shuts down our ability to hear from the Lord. So if personal crisis causes us not to trust the Lord, then we are shutting down the very thing we need in that moment–the voice of the Lord.

Not only does mistrust shut down our ability to hear, but it will sometimes cause God to stop speaking. He stops speaking because He loves us. That may sound strange but just think about it for a second. Imagine you are grieving an incredible loss in your life. Now imagine someone you don’t trust starts talking to you. In that moment, do you want them to keep talking? No. It doesn’t matter what they are saying. It doesn’t matter if they are saying all the right things. If we don’t trust them, we don’t want them speaking to us while we are in the midst of deep grief. It would be better if they were just silent.

God knows this. If we don’t trust God, it doesn’t matter what He says to us in that moment of grief and pain. If we don’t trust Him, we will misconstrue whatever it is He wants to tell us. We will doubt it, question it, and misinterpret it. Our lack of trust toward God often means it is more loving for Him just to be present with us and not speak to us in that moment.

Yet, in the midst of grief and pain, we are willing to hear from people we trust. So if we trust the Lord no matter what, we are willing to hear from Him in the midst of our pain. God speaks and we listen. And when we hear the word of the Lord in the midst of our tragedy, it is so helpful, so comforting, and so clarifying.

This may sound strange to some, but here’s the truth: God has not been silent during this tragedy in my life. In fact, the only way to describe my interaction with God right now is that God has been downright talkative. In the midst of my grief, pain and loss, He has had so many things He’s wanted to say to me.

He has spoken to me directly through scripture, through prayer (His still small voice in my heart), through friends, and through prophetic words from others. When I didn’t know what to pray, the Lord gave me different themes and things to focus on that directed my prayers. When I was confused by what seemed to be missing pieces of the puzzle, God dropped a puzzle piece on me that brought understanding.

My wife had a prophetic dream in the middle of our crisis that brought tremendous clarity. My good friend had multiple prophetic visions that he shared with me that were hard to hear at first but brought a level of comfort and understanding. This is why the above verse of scripture says, “Do not treat prophecies with contempt but test them all.” If we can learn to receive and process prophetic words on our normal days, then they will become lifelines during a crisis.

Trust is what keeps those communication lines open. When God begins to speak, and He says something unexpected, trust is what allows us to receive His word without being confused or offended by it. Jesus is the most trustworthy person I’ve ever met. We owe Him our unconditional, implicit, unyielding trust.

We need to stop believing the lie that God is always silent during hard times. Not true. God loves to talk us through a crisis. He loves to speak. He loves to speak words that bring clarity, understanding, comfort, and peace. If God is quiet, it may be that He knows what we need in that moment is His tangible Presence and not His words. But it also might mean that our inability to trust Him has shut down communication. Let’s make sure our trust in Him keeps those lines of communication open. Even during a crisis, He is worthy of our trust.

Years From Now

When Jehu came to Samaria, he killed all who were left there of Ahab’s family;he destroyed them, according to the word of the Lord spoken to Elijah.
2 Kings 10:17

Jehu is anointed King of Israel and goes about destroying the entire family of wicked king Ahab. Both him becoming king and his campaign to rid Israel of Ahab’s family was prophesied by Elijah. What struck me about the above passage is that Elijah had been gone for sometime. Roughly 15 years had passed from the time Elijah prophesied this to the time it actually came about. Fifteen years!

The Lord told Elijah to anoint Jehu king when Elijah had run away and was hiding on Mt. Horeb. This is also when the still, small voice came to him. It was also when Elijah was told to anoint Elisha as prophet to succeed him (1 Kings 19). A couple years after this Elijah would prophesy the total destruction of Ahab’s family. Yet, Elijah didn’t get to see any of this.

Elisha became prophet of Israel, and Elisha is the one who anoints Jehu as king. Elisha gets to see the fulfillment of a word that came to Elijah.

What did your life look like 15 years ago? For me, I had just started pastoral ministry. I was dating my wife but was not married, and I didn’t have three kids. I was a brand new pastor with no wife, no kids, no house and no idea what the next 15 years would hold. If someone had given me a prophetic word about the coronavirus during that time, would I have believed them? And even if I believed them for the first few years, would I have continued to believe it after so many years?

Jesus did something similar in His own ministry. The disciples are overwhelmingly impressed with the splendor and grandeur of the Temple. Then Jesus prophesied about the destruction of the Temple, something that wouldn’t happen for another 40 years.

As Jesus was leaving the temple, one of his disciples said to him, “Look, Teacher! What massive stones! What magnificent buildings!”
“Do you see all these great buildings?” replied Jesus. “Not one stone here will be left on another; every one will be thrown down.”
Mark 13:1-2

In our fast-food world, prophetic words like this are really difficult for us to process. It seems that in ancient cultures there was a better understanding of how things take time. Maybe personal experience with farming helps a culture understand cultivation and the nature of time. There was a generational approach to things. It was assumed that one might not see something in their lifetime but that it would be important to build toward it for the sake of children or grandchildren. Today, that idea seems so foreign. We don’t plan and build with the next few generations in mind. We want things now.

Maybe God has given you a word or a promise that hasn’t come to pass. And maybe you’re starting to doubt that it ever will. But God’s timing is very different than ours. It could be coming years from now. It could even be coming in the next generation, something you won’t see firsthand. But one thing we can trust is that God keeps His promises. He keeps His word.

How God sees you

The angel of the Lord came and sat down under the oak in Ophrah that belonged to Joash the Abiezrite, where his son Gideon was threshing wheat in a winepress to keep it from the Midianites. When the angel of the Lord appeared to Gideon, he said, “The Lord is with you, mighty warrior.”
Judges 6:11-12

The Midianites would regularly come in and destroy the land of Israel by consuming all of their crops and livestock. This left Israel impoverished and afraid. Gideon was so afraid of having no food that he was threshing his wheat crop inside a winepress to hide it from the Midianites.

Then the angel of the Lord shows up to Gideon and says two things that are completely contrary to the situation. He says, “The Lord is with you…” And then calls Gideon, “…mighty warrior.” Both parts seem to be very untrue at this moment in Israel’s history. God seems very far away from Israel and from Gideon. And, riddled with fear, Gideon is in no way a mighty warrior.

This is what God does for us. God sees in us who He created us to be, not who we are in the moment. God speaks the future over our lives when we are still in the present. By the end of the Gideon story, it will become obvious that God is with Gideon and that he is a mighty warrior. But when these words are spoken in this moment, they sound ridiculous.

God’s words have creative power. So words from God that declare our future have a way of pulling us into that future. What God says about us in this moment is more true than the circumstances that we see around us. His words about us are more true than our own self-image or self-perception. Our job is to believe His words above everything else we see with our physical eyes.

I’ve had this personally happen to me. I’ve had people come up to me and give me a prophetic word from the Lord. When they said the word to me, it sounded ridiculous. It sounded outlandish and fanciful. Yet, looking back years later, I realize that every bit of that word was true. And more than that, because that word was spoken, it had a gravitational force to it that pulled me into that future.

God still does this with me today. There are moments I’ve had in prayer where I sense God saying something over my life. Yet what God says seems unbelievable. But what God is teaching me is to trust His word over the circumstances I see around me. I’m learning to trust His words about me more than I trust my thoughts about me.

So, what is God saying about you? What word does He have for your life? If you don’t know, ask Him.

Ask this question: Father, how do you see me?

Then sit quietly and listen for spontaneous thoughts that enter your mind that don’t feel like your own. Or look for mental images that come to mind that seem to appear spontaneously. This is often how the Holy Spirit will respond to the questions we have for God. You may be surprised at what He says, but choose to believe His word over your own self-perception.

Total Recall

Timothy, my son, I am giving you this command in keeping with the prophecies once made about you, so that by recalling them you may fight the battle well, holding on to faith and a good conscience, which some have rejected and so have suffered shipwreck with regard to the faith.
1 Timothy 1:18-19

Paul wrote to Timothy as his spiritual son knowing the prophetic words that had been spoken over Timothy’s life. In order for Timothy to fight the good fight and continue in the faith through hardship, he would have to remember the words spoken over his life.

Sometimes prophetic words–words from the Lord about who we are and who we are becoming–come to us through our alone time with God. Sometimes God speaks to us through a highlighted passage of scripture that the Holy Spirit illuminates. Sometimes God speaks to us in our prayer time, calling us into our future through His still, small voice. And sometimes prophetic words come to us through other people who speak a word from the Lord about our lives.

Life can come at us in a way that makes us forget what God has said about us, our identity, and our future. The Israelites were continually getting into trouble because they forgot–forgot what God said, what God did and who they were called to be. Paul needed Timothy to remember the prophetic words spoken about his life so that he would have the confidence to move forward in faith. Remembering what God says about us emboldens us to break through what everyone else is saying about us.

So, if you get a word from the Lord, either through other people or through your alone time with Him, write it down. Keep a journal. And make it a practice to go back and read through them, remembering the words that God has spoken to you and about you. This is essential in fighting the good fight of faith. This is essential is avoiding a shipwreck of faith.