Years ago, when I was cutting my teeth on the spiritual gift of the prophetic, I noticed a phenomenon I will call hyper-prophecy.
Hyper-prophecy is when your need for prophecy is greater than your need for time in the Lord’s presence hearing His voice for yourself. What I witnessed was an insatiable need for some to hear a new prophetic word every 5 minutes.
I saw individuals treating the prophetic like a slot machine. Instead of putting quarters in a machine they would constantly seek a new prophetic word from any source they could find one. Yet, they would never really process, test, respond to God or steward the words God may have been giving.
A true prophecy deserves to be stewarded. God speaks with intentionality and purpose. He is not casual. So, when a true word of prophecy is released it won’t just be the popular thing people think they need to hear. Rather, it will carry weight, have authority and often inspire people into a deeper pursuit of hearing God’s voice for themselves.
Prophecy is an extremely subjective gift. Handled maturely you will find people doing just what scripture says it can do…edifying and encouraging the body of Christ. Handled immaturely, and people claiming to hear God’s voice can do a ton of damage.
A church I attended several decades ago took bold steps to learn how to walk in the gift of prophecy. The prophecy I speak of here is not necessarily the kind that tries to tell the future, though that can happen, but rather a simple prayerful listening to God’s heart and then sharing what they hear with other people in order to encourage them.
Often, prophecy simply confirms to people what they, themselves, were already hearing from the Lord.
The election of 2020 seemed to spark a ton of big-named prophetic voices, and some wanna-be big-named voices, to share what they were hearing from God.
How those voices have handled the accuracy or inaccuracy of their prophecies tells you a lot about the character of a true prophet and often helps me decide who I may be able to trust.
Personally, I recall giving a woman a word years ago. She immediately told me the prophecy was wrong. It didn’t make sense to her nor did it resonate with her heart. She literally told me I had missed it. Her response crushed me. Yet, the only appropriate response was to apologize to her and thank her for listening.
A few months later that woman caught up with me and apologized. She mentioned that at the time I prayed for her the prophetic word I gave her didn’t fit in with anything or confirm anything to her. Yet, as time progressed she watched as the Lord changed her circumstances and fulfilled the word I originally felt for her.
The lesson in humility I learned from that experience was invaluable. Even though the word was later proved to be accurate, I still had several months of wrestling with hearing from her that I had gotten it wrong. I had to make a choice between humility and pride.
The point I’m making is this, sometimes you’ll get prophecy wrong and there will be others times people will think you got it wrong but the word is accurate. A humble prophetic voice will be comfortable apologizing because he/she trusts that either they will learn something from the encounter or God will prove the accuracy of the word in His timing.
A prophetic voice who humbles himself and acknowledges that a word they gave may be wrong has more character, to me, than those voices who would simply try to deflect and distract from the fact they got it wrong. No one should be flippant with the prophetic but we also must acknowledge there are times we’ll get it wrong.
Nonetheless, the caution I feel in my heart is this, never let the subjective prophetic words of others replace your own authentic pursuit of God. Be jealous to hear God’s voice for yourself. Listening for and responding to His voice as you live in His presence each day. Don’t settle for letting other voices chew your food for you, chew your own food! Hah.
The person who finds his foundation in the secret place of his/her own relationship with God will never find the prophetic words of others as satisfying as the joy experienced when you hear God for yourself.
Perhaps it needs to be said, God wants to speak to YOU directly. He didn’t die on a cross so you’d have to go through other people to hear Him and speak with Him. No, He died because he is jealous to speak to and listen to YOU and YOU alone.
Don’t believe me? If you haven’t read it yet, pop over to Who are we really following? to discover just a few scriptures that show just how jealous God is to speak with you, train you, disciple you and equip you directly! What could more exhilarating than taking baby steps into a life of hearing God for yourself!!!