Tag Archives: what to do with a prophetic word

What to do with Prophetic Words – part 3

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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

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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.