Prophetic words.

I love them.

They open our eyes to see our potential.

They help us see ourselves as God sees us.

But I think there is great danger in receiving prophetic words without understanding God’s process.

Disappointment can set in when we grow weary in the waiting for God to fulfill his promises for us, but if we truly understand His process then we learn that the waiting seasons are more about developing our character to carry the largeness of his vision and less about figuring out where things went wrong.

Not only should we hold our prophetic words up to the word of God to judge them but I think we could save ourselves so much disappointment if we remembered that our enemy also wants to use our prophetic promises against us.

If he can get us into the place of trying to make a prophetic word come true – we’ve stepped out of faith and into striving.

God can’t bless that.

Why not?

Because he is a God of rest, never burn out.

Remember, come to me all who are weary and I’ll give you rest??

Yeah, he said that.

Will he use that experience down the road for our good?

Absolutely.

But the promises of God are for Him to perform.

Not us.

Our job largely is, to watch and wait.

If we blur the lines, we’ve stepped into no longer being yielded to God which verges on rebellion which opens the door towitchcraft.

Yeah, witchcraft.

The promises of God are yes and amen but not always now and immediately, because the best things take time and patience to create.

If you thumb through your Bible all of the great heroes of faith waited and waited for their dreams and promises to come true.  There was so much journey between the delivery of the prophetic word to the actual fufillment.

Why?

Because God was developing character.

This is why the Bible says, “a man’s heart plans his way but God directs his steps” (Proverbs 16:9)

Because there is character building to prepare us to carry the vision.

It is very possible that there are in fact people in your life that have held the doors closed that God meant for you to walk through.

Or it could be that maybe you’ve made some ummm, let’s call them lapses in your better judgement.

But it wont matter.

Not really.

All of this works together to build character and God is the God of the scenic route.

He’s faithful to get you to your destination.

And He can use the detours to heal some lies you may have believed about yourself, or others, or even about God himself.

Just remember to keep your heart right before him in a posture that puts him above all else. . . and trust him.

He’ll see you through.

You can purchase Joyce’s latest book, Scattered, Finding God in Your Story at Amazon.com