What to do with Prophetic Words – part 3

What is the first thing you do when you receive a gift wrapped up beautifully? Apart from thanking the giver, you usually unwrap it. You want to see what is inside. Receiving a prophetic word is like receiving a gift. We need to accept it, unwrap it and then do something with it otherwise having a beautifully wrapped gift just sitting on the bench is a waste.

The giver also wishes you to accept and unwrap the gift so that it can be used for what it is intended for. They also usually love to see your reaction and delight.

The same applies to the prophetic words that we have received. Prophecies are useless just hearing them and laying them aside.

Our prophetic words come from God, through the lens of the person prophesying. Imagine God’s delight in seeing you start to unwrap and process your prophecies.

In my last two blog posts, I have looked at my testimony of the benefits of receiving a prophetic word and the initial steps to take when you receive a prophetic word.

This blog post addresses the next steps to take in unpacking your prophetic word, especially looking at how it impacts your identity.

The following is the process I go through to help me understand and apply the prophecies I have received in my own life.

1. Print off a copy of your prophetic word. I love to double space it so that it is easier to write on and highlight. I also carry this copy around in my handbag so that when I find myself in a situation where I need to wait eg at the Doctor’s or when picking up my kids, I can read and pray through the prophecy. This way it becomes ingrained in my soul and spirit.

2. Grab a set of highlighters, coloured pencils, textas etc so that you can highlight words and phrases with different colours.

Read through your prophetic word and highlight with different colours:

  • Any words or phrases repeated
  • Words that really impact you or are very meaningful
  • Words that keep being repeated in other prophetic words you have received
  • Any themes
  • Any promises
  • Any conditions
  • Any Bible verses – look them up and write them out fully.
  • Any sense of timing

Several years ago, a lady I was mentoring received a prophetic word from my husband. My husband had written in the prophetic word for her “It is time. It is time. It is time.” About six months later she received a word from a world-renowned prophet. This international prophet said to her “It is time. It is time. It is time.” A couple of months later, another world-renowned prophet also gave her a prophetic word and said, “It is time. It is time. It is time.” Not only was the phrase repeated three times by each person, but the three phrases were exactly the same by the three people. This lady needed to pay particular attention to those words.

Whenever I have received a prophetic word, the themes of healing and restoration are emphasized. Thus, I tend to look for them now. I also, though, love looking for new themes. We have recently received some prophetic words about promises and we are using these to partner with our faith in seeing these promises fulfilled.

3. See the opportunity

The prophetic word you receive is an opportunity to partner with God to become the person you need to be so that the prophetic word can be fulfilled. It is not an automatic process. An individual prophetic word, apart from if you were Jesus in the Bible, is conditional. We need to step into it and grow to become the person whom this prophecy speaks about. When we partner with the Holy Spirit and lean into the character and identity changes and growth, we unlock the prophetic word in our life.

I have had a number of prophetic words given to me about my gaze being awestruck with the gaze of God, my eyes being locked with the eyes of God, the Lord and I having the same gaze. This was a foreign concept to me at the time so I went on a journey of exploring this and looking at God through new eyes, trying to look into His eyes, focusing on God and drawing near to Him so that I knew where His gaze was so that I could join Him.

Partnering with our prophetic word is an opportunity to go on a journey with God to become the person He created us to be. It is an opportunity to look at our identity, that of who God created us to be. Our prophetic word usually highlights how God sees us, how we are known in heaven. There may well be a ‘gap’ between how God sees us and how we see ourselves and the prophetic word is an invitation to close that gap.

Grab your coloured highlighters again and highlight:

  • Any words that speak about who you are
  • Any words that speak about how God sees you
  • How you are known in heaven
  • Who God wants to be for me
  • What part of God’s nature is an invitation for me to grow in?

4. Get a large sheet of paper and label it “My Identity”.

Write down all those words you underlined that speak about your identity and who God wants to be for you. Use this as a working sheet. Group ‘like words’ together, draw mind-map type diagrams, be as creative as you want whilst you are drawing all the identity words out of your prophetic word. Find out how God wants to encourage, strengthen and build you up from your prophetic word (1 Corinthians 14:3 “But the one who prophesies speaks to people for their strengthening, encouraging and comfort.”) Write them down on your sheet of paper. Then look at them and see what really sticks out to you.

Part of our mandate for being on earth is for us to grow in the likeness of Christ. Therefore, look at your prophetic word and highlight any aspects of God’s nature that are spoken about and that are an invitation for you to grow in. Peace and joy are often mentioned in prophetic words. If peace is mentioned, then that is God’s provision for you. The same with joy. If you currently are not the most joyful person, but your prophecy mentions joy, then this is your opportunity to access God’s provision of joy for you and to grow into your new identity of being a joyful person. How do you do that?

  • Choose joy over misery. Make a conscious choice whenever you are feeling miserable or not joyful to be joyful.
  • Ask God to help you.
  • Find all the Bible verses that speak about joy. Read them over and over.
  • Worship God.
  • Practice turning your heart to God whenever you don’t feel joyful.
  • Meditate on God and His Word
  • Look for the joy in your everyday life. Find things to be grateful for as people who are grateful are joyful.
  • Look at practical things you can do – practice smiling, read comics, do silly things, be around joyful people.
  • Look at what hinders you from being joyful and address those issues.

Our transformation begins with how we think. Proverbs 23:7 says “For how he thinks in his heart, so he is”. What we think about ourselves determines who we become. This then influences what we do.

5. Summarize

Look at the words you have highlighted and the words you have written on your large sheet of paper. Bring it together to summarise:

  • What God is telling me about my identity
  • Who I need to become for this prophecy to be fulfilled
  • Who God wants to be for me to help me become that person
  • What God is developing in my character

Next post I am going to look at working with your prophetic word to reveal your destiny and calling.

Prophetic Activations / Exercises to incorporate into your week:

Every week I list 5 prophetic activations/exercises under children/family, group, beginner, intermediate and advanced. The purpose of these exercises is to practice to help us hear God’s voice in a clearer manner. They sharpen our senses to hear and see and sense God and His way of communicating with us. This enables us to grow in our relationship with God and also to impart to others what God tells us for them. Feel free to use as many of these activations each week as you can. The more you practice, the sharper you become at hearing God’s voice. Enjoy! Remember that whenever you give another person a prophetic word or picture etc, please make sure that it is encouraging, edifying (strengthening) and comforting (1 Corinthians 14:3) and that it comes from a place of love.

1. Children / Families Activation:  Go for a walk in a park or a bush setting and look at trees and leaves. If this is not suitable, gather a variety of different leaves beforehand. Ask God to show everyone what sort of leaf each family member would be and why. Then share that with each family member.

2. Group Activation: Ask each group member to bring a baby photo of themselves. Then ask each person to choose a baby photo to prophesy over by writing a prophetic word for that person in the baby photo. If you are meeting as a group over the internet, ask for the photos to be submitted to you prior, then make a collage from the photos and allocate people the photo they are to prophesy over. It would be easier to have them take turns speaking the prophecy out and then after they have prophesied, to identify who that baby photo belongs to.

3. Beginner Activation: Select a baby photo of yourself. Ask Father God to show you His heart for this baby and to reveal His thoughts and desires about this baby. Spend time with Father God exploring and enjoying His heart for you.

4. Intermediate Activation: Ask God to highlight to you a family who is trying to adopt/foster a child or a family already fostering a child. Write/draw a prophetic word for that family including the child. Ask God how you are to deliver it to that family.

5. Advanced Activation: Ask God to give you a prophetic word for the United States of America and for the forthcoming election. Use what God reveals to you to pray into regarding the future of the United States & the President, and not necessarily share it with anyone else.

What to do with a Prophetic Word – Part 2

Numerous times people have asked me if I want to listen to a prophetic word given to them by a famous prophet. It was usually from at least 5-10 years ago. These people then tell me it hasn’t come true yet, but they have this tremendous prophetic word over their life, and they are just waiting for it to occur, and they feel that now may be the time they see it fulfilled.

I usually ask them what they have done to enable it to become a reality. Most times, it is still on their phone, and it is something they have listened to longingly, but they have become frustrated as they don’t see the evidence in their life. They are still desperately hoping it will come true.

Just because you have a prophetic word, doesn’t mean that it will come true.

A prophetic word is conditional. Conditional on you!!

When we returned from Mozambique nine years ago, we realised that we needed to steward the prophetic words over our family’s lives. One of our children had prophetic words about healing people in the natural and the supernatural. We realised that we couldn’t expect our children to grow up and become adults and just start suddenly to pray for people and to expect them to be healed. We needed to put our children in a place where they could learn and practice and grow. So, we decided as a family to join the Healing Rooms team at our church.   Our children had eight years of faithfully turning up and praying for people and seeing people healed. They witnessed people being healed from cancer, deafness, poor eyesight, infertility, back pain, one leg shorter than the other, etc.

Part of stewarding your prophetic word is becoming the person required in identity and character and gifting so that your prophetic word ‘fits’.

Your prophetic word is a ‘working document’. It communicates that you are a ‘work in progress’. Prophetic words given to you are an encouragement of how you are seen in Heaven and a glimpse of your future. But they still depend on you becoming that person.

A prophetic word doesn’t tell you what the reality is for you right now. That is a ‘word of knowledge’ if the person doesn’t know you. If the person knows you and your situation or has googled you to find out information as occurs frequently, then it is just purely feeding your ego or encouraging you.

This blog post is the second in a series of blogs about “What do I do with my prophetic word?”. In this blog post, l address the first steps to take after receiving a prophetic word.

Habakkuk 2:1-3 says, “I will stand at my watch and station myself on the ramparts;
I will look to see what he will say to me, and what answer I am to give to this complaint. Then the Lord replied: “Write down the revelation and make it plain on tablets so that a herald may run with it. For the revelation awaits an appointed time”.

1. “Look to God to see what He will say to you”.

Do the hard work by enjoying your relationship with God and spending time with God in the quiet place. Draw close to God. Prophetic words confirm an answer to me of what God is already showing me. Prophetic words are usually not just ‘out of the blue’ random words given to you. It is God showing you through yet another way or yet another person the answer to a question you have been asking or a solution you have been looking for. Your relationship with God must come first. I encourage you to seek God, not a prophetic word. God will come through and show you the answer or give you a prophetic word through someone but seek God, not a prophetic word. Your relationship with God will unlock God’s heart for you.

Please do not chase a prophetic word from a ‘prophet’. Please pursue God instead. Spend time with God, learning to hear, see and sense directly from Him.

2. Whenever you can, try and record your prophetic word.

If you have a digital device, use that. Otherwise, try to write down as much as you can as soon as possible after you have received it. Please write it down yourself and do the hard work. Do not automatically assume that the person who gave you the prophetic word will remember it all. I know from the times I have given prophetic words, I can remember the huge stuff, but I quickly forget what I have just said, especially if I am giving several prophetic words to different people one after the other. I also know from chatting with other prophetic people that they are the same. If you do not remember any of it and the person who prophesied over you doesn’t either and you didn’t record it, God is a good God. He will bring it to you another way and take comfort that your spirit will not forget it. Ask God to bring it back to you. Spend time soaking/ meditating on God. Ask Him to reveal it to you in your dreams.

You are responsible for recording it. The person prophesying over you also has a responsibility to make sure they are not speaking prophetic words over people with no accountability, so they will usually ask you if you can record it. Be wary of anyone who just speaks prophetic words over people and has no regard for accountability.

Listen to it over and over. The more we hear our prophecy and read it, the more it becomes part of us. Listen to the language and the manner they imparted it to you as that also forms part of the prophetic word. A prophetic word is what the Father’s heart is for you.

In my last blog post, I wrote about how I used a prophetic word over my daughter when she was critically ill in hospital as an 8-year-old. That prophetic word came to my mind because I had read and re-read that prophetic word. It had become part of me as I had intentionally read it and prayed over it every day for several months. I took that prophetic word with me in my handbag, and whenever I had a few minutes to spare, I would grab it out and read over it and pray it through. With your prophetic word, go through each sentence and pray it through. Thank God.

An example is if it said that “Jane, the Lord has given you a heart for healing. A heart for restoration and reconciliation.” I would then pray and declare, “Thank you, Father God, that You have given me a heart for healing, restoration and reconciliation. I decree and declare that I am a healer, that I bring healing from the Lord and will also bring restoration and reconciliation to people.”

3. “Write down the prophetic word”.

Transcribe your prophecy. You can then see it visually. I find it helpful to type it on my computer so I have a copy I can print off. I double-space it so I can work with it easily and make notations above and below words. Your prophetic word is a working document. When someone prophesies over you, that is just the beginning. You still have to do the work and get the most out of it to benefit from it. Read it and re-read it. Keep it with you, and whenever you have a few moments, get it out and read over it again. Let it soak into you and become part of you.

When our family received our first prophetic word nine years ago, we were in Mozambique. We had no idea what to do with it. So, I transcribed it and read it repeatedly. We prayed it through and turned it into a prayer. In effect, we memorised it. This helped us when we were confronted with our daughter’s illness, and the prophetic word came to the forefront of our mind. Thus, we were able to use it in the spiritual and emotional fight for her healing. Never underestimate the power and impact of your prophetic word.

4. “Make it plain on tablets.”

This is where you begin to work on it.

  • You need to test it. Does it ‘feel’ right and does it witness to your spirit?
  • All prophecy needs to be weighed against the nature of God. Does the prophecy bear witness to the nature of God & what God says in the Bible?
  • Do you go “yes” that is right or put it up on the shelf for a while or discard it? Many times, people have thought that a particular prophetic word was wrong and not for them. They shelved it and when they looked at it again several years later, they were shocked at how accurate it was. Just be careful not to discard it too quickly!!
  • 1 Thessalonians 5:20-21 “Do not treat prophecies with contempt but test them all, hold on to what is good.”
  • Remember the purpose of prophecy is to encourage, build-up and comfort us from God’s heart. 1 Corinthians 14:3 “But the one who prophesies speaks to people for their strengthening, encouraging and comfort”.
  • A significant question to ask is, “Will responding to this prophecy bear good fruit in my life?”

5. “So that a herald may run with it.”

Is there any sense of timing in your prophetic word? Is it a ‘now’ word for today, or perhaps a word for several years? Read through your prophetic word again and look for any clues as to timing or what will be fulfilled, or who you will become identity wise before the prophetic word is fulfilled.

My next blog post will highlight various questions that are great to ask about your prophetic word as you begin to dissect your prophecy. In it, I will look at what your prophetic word says about your identity.

Prophetic Activations / Exercises to incorporate into your week:

Every week I list 5 prophetic activations/exercises under children/family, group, beginner, intermediate and advanced. The purpose of these exercises is to practice to help us hear God’s voice in a clearer manner. They sharpen our senses to hear and see and sense God and His way of communicating with us. This enables us to grow in our relationship with God and also to impart to others what God tells us for them. Feel free to use as many of these activations each week as you can. The more you practice, the sharper you become at hearing God’s voice. Enjoy! Remember that whenever you give another person a prophetic word or picture etc, please make sure that it is encouraging, edifying (strengthening) and comforting (1 Corinthians 14:3) and that it comes from a place of love.

1. Children / Families Activation:  Draw and design a mask, maybe even using material. Ask God what He would like each person in your family to have on their mask.

2. Group Activation: Join with several people and craft a joint prophetic word for a local or national television station. Speak it out aloud. Ask God if He wants you to send it to the station.

3. Beginner Activation: Draw and design a cape for you to place around your shoulders. It could be using material or draw on paper. Ask God how He would like you to illustrate it and which words He would put on it describing you.

4. Intermediate Activation: Go for a walk and choose a neighbour’s house. Prophesy over the house and everyone who lives there and will live there in the future. You can speak it out aloud as you walk. You do not necessarily have to speak to the people concerned, unless God highlights that He would like you to. You could even write it in a card/letter and put it in their letterbox.

5. Advanced Activation: Ask God to highlight someone influential in the media. Prophesy over them. Ask God if you are to personally contact them or to declare it out aloud into the atmosphere.

What to do with Your Prophetic Word part 1

It was 8pm, September 2011. 9 Years ago. I was standing beside my daughter’s hospital bed. The Doctor’s addressed me saying, “Mrs Berry. You have a very sick little girl. We don’t know yet what is wrong with her but by the morning, we should have some answers back. So far, we have tested for HIV Aids, Hepatitis B, Tuberculosis, Malaria, Cancer, Leukaemia…..” My mind went blank and I didn’t hear anything else.

The Doctors left the room and I managed to settle my 8-year-old daughter for sleep. I sank down into the chair beside her bed. Thankfully, we were in an isolated room (as they thought my daughter may be infectious) so we didn’t have to contend with anyone else.

As I snuggled into that hard plastic chair, my mind was racing. It had taken us over ten years to be able to fall pregnant. Now, I was looking at losing her. Would she die in two years, one year, four months? This was all flashing through my mind. Suddenly, my mind was arrested.

We had just returned from Mozambique, Africa where we had attended the Iris Harvest School for three months under Heidi Baker. Whilst we were there, we had received a prophetic word from a man called David Wagner. We were new to prophecy and had no idea about it apart from the fact that this guy was meant to be very accurate. We didn’t even know what to do with our prophetic word so we had recorded it, transcribed it and prayed it through. In fact, we had prayed it through so much that we knew it off by heart.

It was now that a sentence or two from that memorised prophetic word came back to me about my daughter. “I saw the Lord putting a doctor’s coat on you in the days ahead and I just saw you as one who walks who is not only going to be a physician, but one who carries the great physician and I saw you as one who ministers to people with miracles and medicine and medical missions and all of those things.”

I suddenly realised, for my 8-year-old daughter to become a doctor and fulfil this prophetic word (& for me, it is not about whether she becomes a doctor as she can have the freedom to choose whatever) but it meant that she would have to be at least 24 years old to be finished university to become a doctor. That meant that she was not going to die from whatever disease she currently was facing.

At that moment, I laughed in the face of adversity like the Proverbs 31 woman (Proverbs 31:25). I grabbed that prophetic word and I began to contend and war with the situation we were currently facing and I used it to give us hope. Jeremiah 29:11 says, “ For I know the plans I have for you,” declares the Lord, “plans to prosper you and not to harm you, plans to give you hope and a future.”

I knew the outcome. I knew that this huge ‘mountain’ in front of us was not the end. With that prophetic word, I could ‘see’ over the top of that ‘mountain’ and ‘see’ that there was a future. This mountain we were facing might be huge, but it wasn’t going to be the end. Sure, we had to get through it to get to the other side, but it wasn’t the end. The prophetic word gave us hope and a future.

Friends, please, please, please. If you don’t have a prophetic word for you, your children etc, get one. Secondly, use your prophetic word wisely and contend with the current situation you are facing. Make your prophetic word into a declaration and speak it out against your current situation. Pray your prophetic word into being.

Make sure you subscribe so that you get next week’s blog post as I am going to start to look at the practical aspects of “What to do with your prophetic word”. This is part of a 4-week series.

To prepare, grab your prophetic words out and read over them. If you don’t have one for yourself or each of your children, ask someone you know who is prophetic and whom you trust to give you a prophetic word for yourself and for each of your children.

Prophetic Activations / Exercises to incorporate into your week:

Every week I list 5 prophetic activations/exercises under children/family, group, beginner, intermediate and advanced. The purpose of these exercises is to practice to help us hear God’s voice in a clearer manner. They sharpen our senses to hear and see and sense God and His way of communicating with us. This enables us to grow in our relationship with God and also to impart to others what God tells us for them. Feel free to use as many of these activations each week as you can. The more you practice, the sharper you become at hearing God’s voice. Enjoy! Remember that whenever you give another person a prophetic word or picture etc, please make sure that it is encouraging, edifying (strengthening) and comforting (1 Corinthians 14:3) and that it comes from a place of love.

1. Children / Families Activation:  Ask the kids to go outside and gather various objects from nature that have different textures and surfaces eg bark, leaves, snail, etc. Spend time touching the various textures and asking God what He wants to reveal to everyone about Himself through the different textures. Then ask God what He would like to communicate to the other family/group members through the objects of nature.

2. Group Activation: Select a local business that most group members would be aware of. Spend time asking God for His heart for that business. Decree and declare out aloud God’s heart over that business.

3. Beginner Activation: Turn on a tap or jump under the shower and ask God to reveal something of Himself to you through the sound and feel of the running water. Spend some time focussing on God and His goodness and intentions towards you. Revel in God’s goodness through the running water.

4. Intermediate Activation: Ask God to show you someone who desperately needs God’s encouragement today. Contact this person and share what you sense/see/hear that which is on God’s heart for that person.

5. Advanced Activation: Ask God to highlight a news headline to you today. Pray into that headline and prophesy God’s outcome over the situation.

Dream Interpretation Part 1

God is so amazing. He loves communicating with us. He is extremely creative. In fact, He is the author of creativity and creatively uses all sorts of ways and means to get our attention.

One of the methods that God uses to communicate with us is through our dreams.

Unfortunately for most people, we short-change ourselves by not making use of this communication with God. We may have ‘shut’ our dream life down by an inner vow after a ‘scary dream’ or may not be aware that God even wants to speak to us during the third of our life that we are asleep.

When I am talking about dreams, I am referring to the events or series of thoughts and images seen in our mind whilst asleep.

I dream prolifically and find that they are extremely helpful to me in my daily life. Just the other day, I had a dream and on waking was unsure what it meant. Lately I haven’t been paying enough attention to them as I haven’t prioritised writing them down in my dream journal, but I knew that I needed to write this dream down. I still had no idea what the dream meant and didn’t make the time to do this. I just knew that it was a warning that Gary & I were ‘running ahead of ourselves’ in a certain area and taking possession of something before the right time. In other words, we were too eager in our timing to see something huge accomplished and pushed ahead when we should have waited. Several hours later, I suddenly realised that that my dream was relevant to that very day. I had just received news that the shipment of my paperback books had not left the warehouse and wouldn’t be delivered for several days. We had been expecting the delivery that day and all the plans I had made for the day plus the weekend and next week would need to be adjusted. Initially I was extremely disappointed and frustrated. Realising that God had tried to show me this suddenly shed a new light on the situation.

God has a purpose with our dreaming. He is inviting us to draw closer to Him. In Proverbs 25:2, the Bible says, “It is the glory of God to conceal a matter; to search out a matter is the glory of kings.” We are royalty as a child of God. As such, we are invited to live as royalty and have an invitation to search out what God is trying to communicate to us.

Dreams show us more of God. Dreams reveal more about God, more about His nature, His ways, and His workings. Dreams produce a hunger for more of God.

Other purposes of dreams include:

  • Wisdom and insight
  • Encouragement
  • Evangelism – many Muslims have dreams of a man in white speaking to them and become Christians due to their dream.
  • Show us outcomes and what to do
  • Dreams bypass our reasoning

In the Bible, we see a number of people had night time dreams where God communicated to them.

  • Abimelek in Genesis 20:3 was warned by God that he was about to commit a sin by having sex with Sarah. Abraham had not been honest with Abimelech and thankfully God stopped Abimelek in time.
  • Jacob was given a dream of a ladder with ministering angels in Genesis 28:11-22 and Genesis 31:10-13 which revealed God’s will to him.
  • Laban’s warning in Genesis 31:24
  • Pharaoh in Genesis 41 – for preparation for the future of his country.
  • King Nebuchadnezzar in Daniel 2
  • Solomon in 1Kings 3:5 encouraged to ask for anything he wanted in his dream.
  • Daniel in Daniel 7
  • Gideon, in Judges 7:13-15 was mightily encouraged by God and His faith built up by overhearing two Midianites talking about a dream where Gideon overpowering them.
  • Joseph, in Genesis 37:5-10 had the future revealed to Him.
  • The imprisoned cupbearer and baker in Genesis 40:5-23.
  • Joseph, Mary’s husband & Jesus’ stepfather was given multiple instructions by God for the care and safety of Jesus in Matthew 1:20-23, 2:13, 19-20, 22.
  • The Wise men seeking Jesus dreamt of being told not to visit Herod the Great on their return trip home in Matthew 2:12
  • Job in Job 33:14-18 shares about dreaming as a warning, preparation and preservation
  • Pilate’s wife in Matthew 27:19 had a warning dream about the death of Jesus and the implications for her husband.

Throughout history, we can also see the amazing effects of when people have had dreams and put the outcome of those dreams into action. Some fantastic examples include:

  • Elias Howe invented the sewing machine after searching for answers to the issue. He then dreamt about cannibals surrounding him and preparing to cook him as they waved their spears up and down. His eyes focused on the holes near the end of the spears and the upward and downward movement of the spears. He put that picture into reality with the sewing machine needle and found that was the answer to the invention.
  • Paul McCartney from The Beatles had a dream in which he immediately rolled out of bed and played the music and lyrics he had heard in his dream on the piano by his bed. He had just composed the song ‘Yesterday’.
  •  Jack Nicklaus dreamt of an adjustment to his golf swing which he then implemented the following day and improved his score dramatically.
  • Abraham Lincoln dreamt that he would be killed three days before his assassination.
  • Frankenstein, Kubla Khan, Dr Jekyll and Mr Hyde, Tintin in Tibet, The Terminator, and countless other books and movies have been inspired by dreams
  • Science has been impacted greatly through scientists and philosphers dream life – Descartes and his philosophy, Albert Einstein and his theory of relativity, Kekule and his discovery of the chemical benzene, James Watson & Francis Crick discovering the structure of DNA, Bohr’s structure of the atom, Mendeleev envisisioned the complete arrangement of the periodic table in a dream

I wonder what mysteries, inventions, amazing discoveries and opportunities we are missing out on by not paying attention to our dreams?

Over the next few weeks, I will start to unpack dreams and look at basic dream interpretation. Next week I will also offer some suggestions to help your dream life to be more active.

Prophetic Activations / Exercises to incorporate into your week:

Every week I list 5 prophetic activations/exercises under children/family, group, beginner, intermediate and advanced. The purpose of these exercises is to practice to help us hear God’s voice in a clearer manner. They sharpen our senses to hear and see and sense God and His way of communicating with us. This enables us to grow in our relationship with God and also to impart to others what God tells us for them. Feel free to use as many of these activations each week as you can. The more you practice, the sharper you become at hearing God’s voice. Enjoy! Remember that whenever you give another person a prophetic word or picture etc, please make sure that it is encouraging, edifying (strengthening) and comforting (1 Corinthians 14:3) and that it comes from a place of love.

1. Children / Families Activation:  Go for a walk around your neighbourhood playground and pray a blessing over the park, equipment and families who will return there after the COVID-19 lockdown.

2. Group Activation: Ask every group member to bring a small object to the meeting (whether online during this COVID-19 time or in-person). Take it in turn to prophesy over each person in regard to their object and what God is showing you as a springboard to their life.

3. Beginner Activation: Ask God to show you how to express His love to your neighbour.

4. Intermediate Activation: Open your fridge and ask God to highlight an item. Use that item as a basis to write a prophetic word for a friend.

5. Advanced Activation: Spend time with God hearing and sensing His heart for a business owner in your local area who is needing to make a decision about the future of their business.

Living a Prophetic life (amid Coronavirus)

Put yourself at the moment in this photo. Where is your focus? Looking at life or death or focussed on the fine line in the middle?

Whilst we are in the middle of the Coronavirus pandemic, there is no greater time to be the true representatives of Christ here on earth. Throughout these past few weeks, my mind has often gone to the place of “if Jesus was living as a human at this time here on earth, what would He be doing and saying and thinking?”

Would Jesus go to the place of fear or joy? Binge-watch tv or use my time wisely? Wallow in thinking about how lonely I am or stretching myself by phoning a friend living on her own?

 

What does it mean to live a prophetic life?

I believe that it means that we are both bringing heaven to earth but also out the front of society guiding and developing the way ahead. Setting the atmosphere. Setting the pace. Demonstrating kingdom values.

 

How can I live a prophetic life?

  1. Operate from a place of rest.

Inner rest and reliance on God. Not striving or pushing for changes but operating from inner peace. When I lose my inner peace, to stop and ask myself, “What’s happened to cause this loss?” “How do I get it back?” (To delve into this deeper, check out my blog post on rest.)

  1. Be full of joy.

Joy is an assurance and confidence that God is in complete control of all the details of my life, and my choice to respond by praising God in all circumstances. The world cannot give you joy. Temporary things can bring happiness but only God and focussing on Him can help me to live full of joy. (More details on being full of joy can be found here.)

  • It is choosing to turn your focus on what God is doing and not of the things of this world or of Satan. To focus on the good, not the bad.
  • It is living a lifestyle of gratitude.
  • To count our blessings, rather than our burdens.
  • To let our faith, not our feelings, dictate our joy.
  • To focus on Christ, not on circumstances.
  1. Full of faith.

Hebrews 11 is a great chapter of faith and people of faith. Verse 1 says “Now faith is confidence in what we hope for and assurance about what we do not see.” There is such a huge opportunity right now to be people of faith. To not partner with the fear that is so prevalent in our world that is magnified right now with the coronavirus. Ester 4:14b says “And who knows but that you have come to your royal position for such a time as this?” Folks, perhaps right now, at this time in history in the middle of the coronavirus pandemic, we are alive for such a time as this!!

Meditating on Isaiah 43 during the week, I had an ‘ah-ha’ moment about fear. Isaiah 43, verses 1-5 sum it up so well. God created me, and you, and commands us to not fear. Since He created me, He knows me and my inner workings. He knows what pushes my buttons and what stretches me, what brings joy to me and what I struggle with. Here He says, “I created you and am commanding you to not fear. I have called you by name. You are mine. Whatever adverse circumstances you are going through, I am with you. Do not be afraid, for I am with you.” We know that where God is Satan cannot be. Wherever God is, fear cannot be. Fear is from the devil. John 10:10 says “The thief comes only to steal and kill and destroy; I have come that they may have life and have it to the full.” Fear steals, kills and destroys. Fear does not bring life. Wherever fear is, God cannot be there so when I go to that place of fear, I need to stop and recentre and reconnect with God.

  1. Being prophetic

Spending time with God seeking what is on His heart for this time and then asking Him what He wants you to do about it. What practical action does He want you to take eg showing love to your neighbours by going to the shops for them so they can continue to self-isolate, writing encouragements on the footpath, ringing folk to check how they are going, checking in on people living alone or elderly, amusing young children over the internet to give a young mum a break, cooking meals for health care workers, praying for the government and wise decision making etc. Asking God what He would have you say, write, or create to give to someone to encourage and comfort them during this time.

Our family wrote a note for the 60 neighbours in our street to let them know we are willing to shop for them etc. At least 20 households responded. Our neighbours were totally amazed that we would be so ‘selfless’ and help others in this way. The mental health in our street shifted significantly as this hugely impacted everyone in a positive manner. The hour of our time it took to do this communicated God’s love in more ways than we could imagine. Now is the time, folks, to be asking God how we can encourage, strengthen and comfort people (1 Corinthians 14:3) ie prophesying to others.

  1. Changing the atmosphere.

We are each responsible for our attitude and the atmosphere we carry. We need to also recognise that we can very simply change the atmosphere around us. (Check out my blog post about how I discovered this here.) When I encounter someone negative, I quietly say, “Spirit of negativity I see you and I choose not to partner with you. Instead, I release a spirit of joy.”  Almost immediately I sense a shift in atmosphere and negativity flee. We are spiritual beings and the spirit within us has the power to change the atmosphere where we are. Whenever you notice an atmosphere that isn’t of God, use this method to change it. It may even be your own children being grumpy, dishonest, defiant etc. You have spiritual authority over the situation, so just quietly say, “I see you spirit of…. and I choose not to partner with you and instead I release the spirit of…..(the opposite)”. See what happens.

  1. Renewing my mind

Whatever you focus on, grows. Whatever we feed our thoughts and watch and listen to will also reap fruit. Romans 12:2 says, “Do not conform to the pattern of this world, but be transformed by the renewing of your mind.” This is not the time to have the media broadcasting into your life 24/7. Yes, we need to keep up with the latest government requirements, but we do not need to be watching and listening to news broadcasts all the time, especially not our children. Have you thought about a media fast during this time and focussing on God’s Word instead? Perhaps meditating on Scripture and filling your home with Christian music. Focussing on what the answers are for now and for the future. Looking for the good. Looking for where God is working. (Here is a great blog on renewing your mind.)

  1. The power of our words.

Life or death can be in the tongue. The words we say are powerful. Whenever we speak, we are releasing the potential for positive or negative effect into the atmosphere. Our words have the power to create, to form and fashion something out of nothing and to change outcomes. In Genesis 1, God spoke and the world was created. He has given us the same creative power that by the words we speak, we create outcomes, good or bad. Do you speak life or death? God’s Word does not return empty and our words don’t either.

  • Isaiah 55:11 “so is my word that goes out from my mouth: It will not return to me empty, but will accomplish what I desire and achieve the purpose for which I sent it.”
  • Proverbs 18:21 “The tongue has the power of life and death, and those who love it will eat its fruit.”
  • Romans 4:17 “the God who gives life to the dead and calls into being things that were not.”

Now is the time to be speaking the outcomes we desire for our life, our family, our country, the world. This is an amazing weapon. I find that a massively effective way of praying is to decree & declare that what is in heaven is done. Eg “I decree and declare that your back will be completely healed”. I find that this carries a lot more authority than praying, “God, can you please heal this person?” (Check out my blog on the power of your words here.)

Perhaps there are some things that you still desire for your family to come to fruition. I encourage you to write it down in the form of a declaration and begin to declare it. Start to use this time to change anything in your family/household that perhaps has fallen short of what you desired. Use this time to begin that change.

I would love to hear how you are finding this time and how you are managing to live a prophetic lifestyle at the moment. Please feel free to comment below.

 

Prophetic Activations / Exercises to incorporate into your week:

Every week I list 5 prophetic activations/exercises under children/family, group, beginner, intermediate and advanced. The purpose of these exercises is to practice to help us hear God’s voice in a clearer manner. They sharpen our senses to hear and see and sense God and His way of communicating with us. This enables us to grow in our relationship with God and also to impart to others what God tells us for them. Feel free to use as many of these activations each week as you can. The more you practice, the sharper you become at hearing God’s voice. Enjoy! Remember that whenever you give another person a prophetic word or picture etc, please make sure that it is encouraging, edifying (strengthening) and comforting (1 Corinthians 14:3) and that it comes from a place of love.

1. Children / Families Activation: Get some chalk or water-paints and write encouraging words on your footpath. Write and draw pictures of encouragement and tape to your front fence where people walking past can see them and be encouraged. Ask God if there is anything else He would like you as a family to do for your neighbours at this time.

2. Group Activation: Have a group member write group member’s names on slips of paper and put into a hat. Pull out one name at a time. The first name pulled out is to send a prophetic word to the second name pulled out. The second person, in turn, sends a prophetic word to the next name (third-person) pulled out etc. Before doing this, please ask everyone’s permission to participate in this plus for their email address to be shared with the person sending them a prophetic word.

3. Beginner Activation: Ask God to bring to mind all the people you know who live alone or are lonely or fearful at this time. Ask God to show you specific things that you can share with these people to encourage them. Spend time writing emails or ringing these people and sharing that which God shows and tells you for them.

4. Intermediate Activation: Ask God to show or tell you how you can prophesy into and encourage a health care worker at the moment. Then do it.

5. Advanced Activation: Spend time with God, asking Him to show you what you can pray and prophecy for the leaders and decision-makers of your state and country. Then spend time doing that. Ask God if you are to share it with them and, if so, then find a way to let them know.

When the same person keeps asking for a Prophetic Word

Like clockwork, every few months, the same person would approach me for a prophetic word. They would start by explaining how they were wanting a prophetic word from me so that they had something to hang on to in their time of struggle.

Immediately this raises a red flag with me.

Firstly, they need God to hang on to in this time. God needs to be their source of comfort, inspiration, and wisdom during their time of struggle (in fact all the time) rather than me hearing from God for them.

Secondly, they have had numerous prophetic words in the past. Prophetic words are especially for such a time as this. Just because they are going through a new season of struggle, doesn’t mean that their ‘old’ prophetic word is no longer viable. Prophetic words can be for the ‘here and now’ but they usually seem to be for a few steps time. Prophetic words are meant to be ‘encouraging, comforting and strengthening’ (1 Corinthians 14:3). Thus, they are great to get out in times of hardship and work through and see what God wants to be for you during this time.

Prophetic words usually address identity and destiny. Who you are and who God wants to be for you during this time are what identity words are all about.

Hubby also has had similar situations where a certain single lady would, on a regular monthly occasion, ask him for a prophetic word. He addresses this issue by saying that he won’t give a person another prophetic word, when they keep asking, until they have worked through their last prophetic word.

Usually when people are asking for a new prophetic word and they have been given numerous prophetic words in the last year or so, it becomes a discipleship issue. The person need to be taught that they need to go to God Himself. To put in the time and relationship with Father God, Holy Spirit and Jesus.

Please never become a substitute for a person seeking God for themselves. Jesus was, and is, the only ‘go-between’ in our relationship with God.

If a person is having trouble hearing from God for themselves, you will have a far greater impact if you help them to hear or receive from God for themselves.

Start with helping them look at how much time they are setting aside to spend with God. Do they prioritise Him each day? Are they reading the Bible? Are they looking to God for their answers?

Then, you may help them to have an encounter with God or give them tools to spice up their relationship with God.

Some of these tools may be to:

  1. Try spending time with God in a different setting eg in nature, at the beach, outside, in a different chair, etc.
  2. Try setting aside a different time of the day to specifically focus on God.
  3. Try reading the Bible a different way eg using an audio version or a new app or a different version or a DVD version. The IF:Gathering app has numerous amazing four week Bible study series on it which I have found extremely helpful.
  4. Try writing out verses from the Bible each day.
  5. Ask God to show you pictures or images of yourself or your day.
  6. Put worship music on and rest with worship filling your head.
  7. Find new ways of being in awe of God and thanking Him.We are not in the business of making people reliant on us. We are not their Saviour. We need to be pointing them to God Himself.

We are not in the business of making people reliant on us. We are not their Saviour. We need to be pointing them to God Himself.

 

Leading people through an encounter with God is effective for the here and now but it also gives them a tool for when they are stuck again.

Leading people into an encounter with God can be very simple.

  1. Ask the person to get into a comfortable position and close their eyes to help minimise any distractions.
  2. Ask the person to imagine that they are in a favourite place for them. Ask them to share with you what it looks like, smells like, feels like.
  3. Ask them to then imagine Jesus coming into that scene. Imagine that they see Jesus walking up to them and sitting, standing, just being next to them or in front of them. What is He doing? What does He say?
  4. Imagine that He has a present He wants to give to them. What does that present look like? What shape is it? How is it wrapped and what colour is the wrapping?
  5. Unwrap the present. What is it? What does that mean to them?
  6. How do they want to respond to Jesus?

Variety is the spice of life. Just how you sometimes need to vary stuff in your relationship with your partner or children or friends, it is also helpful to vary things in your relationship with God.

I would love to hear of different methods you have used when someone keeps coming to you for a prophetic word and how you have helped them refocus back on to their relationship with God.

 

Prophetic Activations / Exercises to incorporate into your week:

Every week I list 5 prophetic activations/exercises under children/family, group, beginner, intermediate and advanced. The purpose of these exercises is to practice to help us hear God’s voice in a clearer manner. They sharpen our senses to hear and see and sense God and His way of communicating with us. This enables us to grow in our relationship with God and also to impart to others what God tells us for them. Feel free to use as many of these activations each week as you can. The more you practice, the sharper you become at hearing God’s voice. Enjoy! Remember that whenever you give another person a prophetic word or picture etc, please make sure that it is encouraging, edifying (strengthening) and comforting (1 Corinthians 14:3) and that it comes from a place of love.

1. Children / Families Activation: Lead children into an encounter like the one above, imagining that Jesus has a present for them. Ask them questions to find out what the special present Jesus has for each one of them.

2. Group Activation: Buy an assortment of small chocolate bars that have different names eg Cadbury favourites. Place them in a bag deep enough so that you can’t see what you are selecting. Have each person put their hand in the bag and bring out a chocolate. The person then asks God for a prophetic word about the name of the chocolate bar for a person in the group. Hand the chocolate bar to the person as you share the prophetic word with them. If it is a large group, perhaps split into several smaller group, each group having their own chocolate assortment in a bag.

3. Beginner Activation: Open your calendar/diary before God. Ask Him to show or tell you something significant that you need to realise and what you need to do in response.

4. Intermediate Activation: Ask God to highlight a family to you. Spend time with God hearing or seeing what is on His heart for this family as a group and for the members individually. Draw or write the encouraging response and then ask God how you are meant to communicate it to this family.

5. Advanced Activation: Dream with God for one thing to change in the world this year and what the change could look like. Ask God to highlight to you your part in bringing about that change. Then ask God to show, tell or give you a strategy for your part.

Visual Reminders for Prophesying

Over the last fortnight I have taught the teenagers (ages 13-15) in our church’s Teen Leadership Academy. Some of these teenagers have grown up in our church and have had numerous teaching on the prophetic before and have also been involved in giving numerous prophetic words to people. Others were brand new to hearing God’s voice.

Our aim was to help these teens not only hear God for themselves but also for others. A secondary aim was to invite these teens to release prophetic words to individuals after our church service along with the adult prophetic team.

After we had looked at hearing God’s voice for ourselves, I concentrated on hearing God’s voice for others. To help introduce the purpose and aims of prophesying to others, I gave each teen a ‘goodies’ bag. These bags had eight items in them. They were a huge hit!! Visual cues help reinforce our teaching point so much more effectively.

These items were:

  1. Heart shaped sunglasses

So important to have love as the basis for communicating God’s heart to others.

  1. Packet of very sour & very sweet lollies

When we are prophesying to others, we want to leave a ‘sweet’ taste in their mouth. We do not want to leave a sour taste.

  1. Candle

When we prophesy, we want to light a fire within them that burns for what we have communicated.

  1. Gold medal

Each person has their own race to run and must run their race. The medal symbolised us enabling them to see, through our prophesying, what their race is that they are called to run and finish.

  1. Water pistol

When we prophesy, we are called to hit the target that God has placed on their life.

  1. Australian Tattoo

We are Australian. That is who we are. An Australian tattoo symbolises our identity.  Part of prophesying is calling people into their full identity as sons and daughters of God.

  1. Ring

Another part of prophesying is helping people to realise their full authority. The ring symbolises the ring the Father placed on the prodigal son. This means having full identity and authority as the Father’s child.

  1. Key attached to a (photocopied) computer ESC key

(This was a stretch but all I could think of that communicated the acronym ‘ESC’). 1 Corinthians 14:3 says that all prophecy should be encouraging, strengthening and comforting.

The teens loved it and the following week could remember all the objects they had received in their bag.

What are your thoughts?

What are some other items you may have included to help them remember what prophesying over others is about?

I would love to hear your thoughts. Please feel free to comment or let me know.

 

Prophetic Activations / Exercises to incorporate into your week:

Every week I list 5 prophetic activations/exercises under children/family, group, beginner, intermediate and advanced. The purpose of these exercises is to practice to help us hear God’s voice in a clearer manner. They sharpen our senses to hear and see and sense God and His way of communicating with us. This enables us to grow in our relationship with God and also to impart to others what God tells us for them. Feel free to use as many of these activations each week as you can. The more you practice, the sharper you become at hearing God’s voice. Enjoy! Remember that whenever you give another person a prophetic word or picture etc, please make sure that it is encouraging, edifying (strengthening) and comforting (1 Corinthians 14:3) and that it comes from a place of love.

1. Children / Families Activation: Have gold/yellow cardboard precut to look like a medal. Punch a hole in it and thread cord through it so that it looks like a winners medal. Have pens/pencils handy. Ask each person to make a medal for themself about what God says that they are the winner for in Heaven and here on earth. If time, ask them to make one for someone else, asking God what that person’s purpose is here on earth or the race they will win at running.

2. Group Activation: Have sheets of A4 paper and pens/textas handy. Distribute a sheet of paper to everyone. Ask them to place their name in the middle of the page followed by the word ‘is’. eg ‘Jane is’. Then ask everyone to give their paper to the person on their left. This person will write one sentence that they sense, hear or see from God about who that person is. Then ask everyone to keep passing the paper around to the people on their left until at least everyone’s sheet of paper has at least ten sentences on it about who they are, their identity. Return the sheets to their owners. Maybe even have someone speak the sentences over each person as the papers are returned to their rightful owner.

3. Beginner Activation: Spend some time with God asking Him to show or tell you how He sees you dressedAs you begin to hear or see or sense what it is, then ask God further questions. Eg Why am I dressed that way? Is this how I am seen in Heaven? What is on my head? What would you like to put in my right hand God? etc

4. Intermediate Activation: Find a community group that is struggling in its identity. Ask God for a prophetic word about this group’s identity. Ask God how to most effectively release that word to the group.

5. Advanced Activation: Ask God for a prophetic word for your nation’s first people and their future. Ask God what He would like you to then do with that prophetic word. Then do it.

Is your vision clear or cloudy?

Sitting in the car at the beach, looking out over the bay, the rain was pounding down outside. I was enjoying the atmosphere of the sound and the feeling of God being in control of the pounding waves. Seeing the relentless waves breaking upon the shore, I slowly noticed something.

The windscreen was hard to see through.

This began to rob me of some of my enjoyment and of my being able to experience the completeness of the stormy picture.

Because the rain was pounding so hard, if I didn’t turn on the windscreen wipers, I couldn’t see anything but the pounding rain.

 

I needed to clear the windscreen to see beyond.

 

What’s your ‘windscreen’ or vision like today? Is it cloudy or clear? Could it be better?

Sometimes our relationship with God and our prophesying can be like my windscreen – a bit foggy. Maybe not as clear as it could be. Maybe something is impairing the sight slightly. Maybe we can see some but not as much of the picture as would be ideal. Maybe we can see close by but not into the distant.

When that happens, who are we robbing?

  • Ourselves
  • God
  • The people we meet whom God is desiring to communicate to…

Prophesying can be like looking through a windscreen to see something beyond. Sometimes we can see the full picture, other times our vision can be impaired for some reason or we can’t see the full picture. Sometimes another person can help fill in the complete picture or more of the picture.

1 Corinthians 13:9 says “For we know in part and we prophesy in part”. Yes, God sees the full picture and we don’t have that ability to be all knowing and all seeing. But please do not let that be an excuse for letting your ‘windscreen’ get, or remain, foggy so that you are impaired from prophesying to your full ability with the help of the Holy Spirit.

Friends, we all need to take action to clear our windscreen, clear our vision. Some seasons can be harder and can require more effort to keep the windscreen clear and clean.

What action do you need to take today?

  • Spend time just worshipping God.
  • Confess sin.
  • Change an action that’s not quite right.
  • Get stuck into reading the Bible and finding what He has to say to you in His Word.
  • Listen to God and wants He wants to share with you.
  • Develop your intimacy and friendship with Father God, Holy Spirit, and Jesus.
  • Apologise to someone for your part in the relationship that is no longer right.
  • Enjoying hanging out with God with no ulterior purpose than to enjoy being with God.
  • Have a good sleep.
  • Spend time praying in the Spirit.
  • Turn off certain tv programs, stop reading certain books, stop listening to junk, or stop playing certain games that are not beneficial or that don’t encourage purity.

What is your vision like today?

I would love to know what you do to ‘reset’ when your vision is a tad cloudy. Please feel free to drop me a line or comment below on my blog.

 

Prophetic Activations / Exercises to incorporate into your week:

Every week I list 5 prophetic activations/exercises under children/family, group, beginner, intermediate and advanced. The purpose of these exercises is to practice to help us hear God’s voice in a clearer manner. They sharpen our senses to hear and see and sense God and His way of communicating with us. This enables us to grow in our relationship with God and also to impart to others what God tells us for them. Feel free to use as many of these activations each week as you can. The more you practice, the sharper you become at hearing God’s voice. Enjoy! Remember that whenever you give another person a prophetic word or picture etc, please make sure that it is encouraging, edifying (strengthening) and comforting (1 Corinthians 14:3) and that it comes from a place of love.

1. Children / Families Activation: Pass out several sheets of paper and crayons / textas to everyone. Ask everyone to draw or write on a piece of paper the stuff in their life that is putting a barrier up between them and God. Then burn, or destroy, each piece of paper. Have fun praying with your kids to cleanse everyone’s mind, dreams, imagination and heart. Then ask God to show everyone present what things they need to change or do differently to keep clean imaginations. Draw a picture each to represent this. Finish up with asking the children to pray over the adults and share what God is telling them about each adult.

2. Group Activation: Ask people to pair up. Give out pieces of paper and crayons / textas. Ask people to listen, see, feel what they sense God is communicating about a big issue that their partner is facing at the moment. Then ask them to prophesy over their partner by drawing how God sees that issue in their life in 3 years time. Allow ten minutes then ask people to give the drawing to their partner and explain the picture.

3. Beginner Activation: Put on some worship music that allows you to focus on God. Spend time getting ‘lost’ in the presence and beauty of God. Cultivate your ‘awe’ of God and His goodness. Finish by asking God what He would like to share with you and wait for His response. Try and journal God’s response and your reaction.

4. Intermediate Activation: Think about the biggest issue you are facing at the moment. Ask God to share with you His perspective on this issue and His timing. Ask God to show you the picture of this issue several years down the track. Ask God to reveal to you the next couple of steps you need to take to get from now to the picture several years down the track.

5. Advanced Activation: Ask God to reveal to you something about your nation’s finances that God would want you to know so that you can decree and declare God’s way forward in your nation’s economy.

What if my mind goes blank when I go to prophesy?

Has your mind ever gone blank when you have been faced with having to immediately give a prophetic word to someone?

Mine has.

Often.

I am on our church’s prophetic team and we are often involved in a prophetic presbytery. Our church sets it up with a number of teams comprising of 2 people who prophesy over a person for a maximum of 5-6 minutes. We have a line of people waiting to receive a prophetic word. As soon as you & your partner have finished prophesying over a person, that person leaves and the next person in line moves forward to come to an available team. We begin by introducing our names and ask if they have a recording device if they don’t already have it in front of them ready to go. I usually get a sense of something from God immediately for the person and, as I speak it out, more comes. I am also learning to wait for a minute before I speak so as to try to get more of the detail and a greater depth to it. There are some occasions, though, when I don’t get anything and my mind is blank.

I used to be often teemed up with different people who wouldn’t speak first but liked to wait for me to go first. This gave them confidence plus they were sometimes seers and saw pictures and they tended to like several minutes to ask God more about those pictures before they spoke. The last few years I have usually been teemed up with a person who is relatively new to giving prophetic words and wants to hear what I have to say first or who is not 100% confident in giving prophetic words to people. Unfortunately, since we are usually limited time-wise, we don’t have the luxury of having a long pause before we start speaking the prophetic word.

What do I do in those circumstances if my mind is blank and I don’t have ‘anything’ for them?

The first thing I do is to turn my heart and affections to Jesus. I silently worship God. Praise shifts the atmosphere. Psalm 100:4 says “Enter His gates with thanksgiving and His courts with praise”. If I want to enter into His presence and see what He is seeing and hear what He is saying, praise and thanks will do that.

I then ask God how He sees this person and how He wants to show love to them right now? If I’m still finding it hard to connect, I ask God how He sees this person dressed, what their strengths are, if the person was a tree what sort of tree they would be and what sort of fruit they would be producing etc. I also ask God what this person’s identity in Heaven is ie how is this person known in Heaven?

If I’m still finding it hard to get a prophetic word for this person, I then picture them standing under a Holy Spirit waterfall. I imagine them standing there with the Holy Spirit flowing down over them and I ask the Holy Spirit what it is that the Holy Spirit is showering upon them.

Bear in mind, this usually occurs within 10-30 seconds. If I was at home writing a prophetic word out for someone, I take a lot longer. Thus, in situations like the Prophetic Presbytery’s, I find it invaluable to have a list of questions to ask God in my mind, ready to ‘pull on’ and get God’s perspective for the person.

To summarise and put it in a list format, the questions I have ready to ask God include:

  • How does God see this person?
  • How does God want to show love to them right now?
  • How does God see this person dressed?
  • What are their strengths?
  • If the person was a tree what sort of tree they would be and what sort of fruit they would be producing?
  • What this person’s identity is in Heaven ie how is this person known in Heaven?
  • If this person was standing under a Holy Spirit waterfall, what is it Holy Spirit that you are pouring over them and filling them with and why?

Upon reflection, the times I find hard, I need to take a further moment to not rush things. I also need to look at my preparation. How have I prepared and what have I done in the preparation for giving prophetic words? These questions challenge me and help me be ‘switched on’ immediately to release God’s word out of my mouth for these folk.

I know from past experience that when I have feasted on God’s Word in the lead up to giving prophetic words to people, parts of Scripture will come back to me as I prophesy and will be relevant to that person. There is definitely a key in the preparation process to be spending time with God and nurturing my intimacy with Him.

What do you find helps you when you have a ‘blank’ mind when you go to give someone a prophetic word?

Prophetic Activations / Exercises to incorporate into your week:

Every week I list 5 prophetic activations/exercises under children/family, group, beginner, intermediate and advanced. The purpose of these exercises is to practice to help us hear God’s voice in a clearer manner. They sharpen our senses to hear and see and sense God and His way of communicating with us. This enables us to grow in our relationship with God and also to impart to others what God tells us for them. Feel free to use as many of these activations each week as you can. The more you practice, the sharper you become at hearing God’s voice. Enjoy! Remember that whenever you give another person a prophetic word or picture etc, please make sure that it is encouraging, edifying (strengthening) and comforting (1 Corinthians 14:3) and that it comes from a place of love.

1. Children / Families Activation: Have pre-prepared sheets of paper with an outline of a person drawn on them and some crayons etc. Ask everyone to select someone they are sitting opposite to and to then ask God how God sees this person dressed in God’s Kingdom. Then encourage everyone to draw what they see, hear or sense on the outline of the person. Encourage everyone to give the sheet to their partner and explain what it is about.

2. Group Activation: Break into groups of 6-8 people. Ask everyone to place something from their pocket or handbag in the centre of their group.  Ask everyone to try not to look at what people are placing in the centre. Then ask everyone to pick up an item from the centre and then take it in turns to prophesy over the object and the person whom the object belongs to.

3. Beginner Activation: Spend some time with God on your own and ask God to highlight to you your life as a fruit tree. Then ask God some questions in relation to this – what does the tree look like? Which sort of fruit? How much fruit? How deep are the roots? What does the tree need at the moment? What season is the fruit tree in at the moment? Spend time asking God further questions and seeking clarification.

4. Intermediate Activation: Ask God to highlight to you someone who lives on their own. Spend time with God asking Him to show you that person’s future. Try and formulate with God a song title that would emulate that person’s future as God has shown you.

5. Advanced Activation: Ask God to highlight to you a certain person or people who are currently in a war zone. Ask God to give you a prophetic declaration and decree that you can pray out aloud for these people.

What if I get it wrong when I Prophesy?

I have seen a number of people almost paralysed with fear when it comes to prophecy. The fear of getting it wrong or mishearing what God is communicating can be paralysing to some people and is enough to prevent them from stepping out and having a go.

One of the most common questions I get asked is “What if I get it wrong when I prophesy?”

Personally I don’t think it is the right question to ask. This question makes it all about me. What if  “I”  get it wrong?

Prophesy is not a performance. It is not about us. We are the conduit that is acting for that brief period of time between God and the person being prophesied over. It’s like helping someone unwrap a present from God for themself.

Sure, our ‘conduit’ can be mucky with sin or not hearing, seeing, sensing God correctly or to the fullest, but we can still be a conduit to the best of our ability. This also means that we need to represent Father God correctly – in our manner, the way the prophecy is conveyed plus the words we use. When we prophesy, we also convey the heart of God.

It is a great practice to never say “God told me….”. Instead, it is far more effective, more correct and less spiritually abusive to say “I have a sense that ….” No matter who we are, we are not perfect and we are not God. Thus, we need to be careful to not communicate that we are God, that we are a perfect ‘filter’ and the word we have released is a perfect representation of what Father God wants that person to know.

If you are scared that you may get the prophetic word wrong, stop looking at yourself and start looking to God. Get your eyes on God and your thoughts on God. Shift your thinking.

1 Corinthians 14:3 says that prophecy is always encouraging, comforting and strengthening. If what you communicate to someone else is encouraging, comforting and strengthening, then if perhaps you mis-hear God slightly, you have still encouraged and comforted the person.

I find that when I ask God for His heart for the person, He always shows or tells me something for them.

 

The starting point is always God, not yourself.

 

It is a privilege to be part of the process of releasing a prophetic word. In the Bible in Numbers 22-23, God used a donkey. If we don’t step up to the occasion, God will still get the message to the person but will use someone else or another means, even a donkey!!

 

How can I be the cleanest or purist conduit I possibly can be:

  1. Decrease the amount of ‘junk’ in my life.

Be careful with what I see, what I read, what I listen to, who I am around. What goes in to our mind and heart, will come out.

  1. Keep short accounts with God

Run from sin. Deal with sin quickly. Confess sin. Repent. Make restitution. Forgive quickly and completely. Then change my behaviour, my attitudes, my thoughts, my patterns.

Ultimately, God can easily bypass us and go straight to the person and this is what we need to encourage – people hearing from God for themselves. People spending time with God, reading His Word, chatting with God, listening to Him for themselves.

Prophetic Activations / Exercises to incorporate into your week:

Every week I list 5 prophetic activations/exercises under children/family, group, beginner, intermediate and advanced. The purpose of these exercises is to practice to help us hear God’s voice in a clearer manner. They sharpen our senses to hear and see and sense God and His way of communicating with us. This enables us to grow in our relationship with God and also to impart to others what God tells us for them. Feel free to use as many of these activations each week as you can. The more you practice, the sharper you become at hearing God’s voice. Enjoy! Remember that whenever you give another person a prophetic word or picture etc, please make sure that it is encouraging, edifying (strengthening) and comforting (1 Corinthians 14:3) and that it comes from a place of love.

1. Children / Families Activation: Have a present pre-wrapped and place in the middle of the table. Hand out paper and crayons, pens etc. Let everyone choose someone whom they think God would like to give a present to. Then ask them to imagine from God what is in that present to the person they selected. Draw or write on your sheet of paper what that is. Then give the paper to the person concerned, explaining what it is.

2. Group Activation: Ask people to get into pairs. Have a large bag in the middle of the room. Ask everyone to imagine themselves putting their hand into the bag and pulling something out of the bag from God for their partner. Encourage people to ask God further questions about what they pulled out of the bag and why. Allow people a few minutes then ask them to share with their partner what they pulled out and anything else God showed them about it.

3. Beginner Activation: Ask God to show you three books in your imagination. The three books represent your past, your present and your future. Ask God to show you the title of each book. Ask God any further questions you may have about those book titles.

4. Intermediate Activation: Ask God to show you someone who is angry. Ask God to then show you His heart for them and what He would have you pray or communicate to this person.

5. Advanced Activation: Identify a local area where crime is a huge issue. Begin to seek God for His heart for that area. Begin to bless that area. Ask God to give you a prophetic word for that area. Even go to that area and begin to bless it, talk to people there, prophesy over the people you meet there. Decree and declare God’s heart for that area. Release joy over the area.