Let me share with you how I handle this. Given the shifting context of our situation here in the USA, what I’ve written in the past needs a little refresher.
Eternity exceeds knowing, particularly in terms of what I might be able to write. The Lord never lets me forget that what I know is contextual. We are supposed to share what God shows us about the Spirit Realm, but at the same time we should understand that anything we say is limited to the space-time moment. We indicate; we cannot describe. On top of that, it’s important to remember that spiritual matters require seeing things on multiple levels. I can tell you that, but I can’t didactically point out those levels, because it’s more like domains that are both vertically and horizontally spread. They are also time-sensitive in distribution, with a shelf life of sorts.
In reading the prophetic record in Scripture, you are supposed to discern those factors. From an ancient Hebrew mindset, it’s patently silly to build a philosophical structure based on words and precise meanings. Thus, we say that there is no such thing as “propositional truth.” This is the single biggest difference between Radix Fidem and the mainstream American Christian religion. Even the best and most scholarly textual analysis can’t answer the question of what God wants you to do at that moment with a particular passage from the Bible. There is that essential personal element between Him and you that no one can answer for you. You shouldn’t get trapped in assuming it will be the same answer for what you perceive to be a similar situation later.
You also be very careful about whether your answer will work for anyone else. This is what Christian Mysticism is all about, if the term is going to mean anything: It’s you and God in an open conversation. At the risk of alienating everyone you know, it is imperative that you obey the Lord the best you know how.
And this is where prophecy becomes challenging. Like everyone else in a community of faith, prophets already have a running conversation with God about their lives. When does something God shows you become a prophetic word you need to share? When does it become essential to obedience to make a clear statement to others? The answer to that is a part of the conversation, because that conversation isn’t always so plain and open. Most of the time it’s a matter of very subtle impressions poking through your human conscience. At some point you realize this is the voice of God, and you become accountable for it.
In my case, a prophetic message is a warning or encouragement for others to keep moving forward in faith. It’s a shepherd thing. Whether you listen depends on whether it sounds like the voice of God for you, but I can’t get bogged down in worrying about that. I have to say what He tells me to say. The trick for me is making sure I offer full disclosure, particularly about how strong the message is for me. It’s not always the same.
My warning to the US as a whole that Iran is a trap came to me in a manner as clear and hard as any message I’ve ever shared. It was the moment I knew I was called to prophesy. It came as a vision that is hard to put into words, but involved seeing American troops and equipment scattered and destroyed on a battlefield in Iran. I’ll be the first to warn that you shouldn’t take that literally. The point is that Iran stands as a temptation, bait set out by Satan to sucker the USA into ignoring God’s will. Even saying that was a matter of how that vision has persisted over time and I get a better understanding of what it means.
Side note: The USA has already stepped in it. We’ve already done a lot of evil to Iran and we will pay for it. Every fresh evil simply adds more to our punishment, but it’s also a matter of justice based on what specifically we do wrong there. It’s all coming back on our heads.
A lot of a prophetic word comes to me in visions and dreams. On the one hand, I can tell when something like that is a word from God. I just know. On the other hand, I’m not always sure what to say about it. Some revelations are fuzzy, and some require a subsequent experience to give it meaning. That happens a lot. I currently have a good stack of visions and dreams waiting to be clarified; some I’ve shared partially and some are still too perplexing.
An substantial collection of things come as recognition, where issues are bounced off my faith and the bounce tells me what to say about it. This is something not unique to prophets, but is typical for just about everyone I know who walks by faith. It’s that business of “you know all things” (1 John 2:20) but may not be aware of what your convictions had to say until the question was raised. That same thing works for prophecy, in that I realize I need to say something about the issue.
But then there is also the issue of my calling and mission, in which I know the boundaries and what my response has to be. It’s the kind of thing where the core necessities for me are always in front of my face. That’s actually more of preaching than prophecy, per se, but I can’t separate out the two that easily. At any rate, it’s rather like a prophetic word with a very long shelf life, and I won’t hesitate to renew the message.
Once in a while I get a prophetic word from my sensory heart. That is, some exposure to a natural setting refreshes my soul and opens a channel from the moral fabric of Creation itself. Those are quite difficult to share, simply because they tend to be so totally non-verbal, and at the same time very heavy. It tends to be a really different kind of message, too — subtle and rather alien to my intellect, hard to process.
I sincerely wish I could have a lot more time to go out and just stand or sit on a remote windy hilltop somewhere. Or maybe it could be an isolated spot where the water splashes on the shore, or runs down a course. Those moments speak the loudest, and heal me in ways I’ll never really understand. It also helps me to see things more clearly. There’s never enough time when I do find those places.
In my ministry, the prophecies themselves are not the main point. Rather, it’s more a matter of a generally prophetic outlook. Among the different categories of spiritual gifts, I possess a prophetic temperament, and the effects of my work exhibit a prophetic orientation. You could say I don’t give prophecies, but that I do prophecy. I’m looking for a way to move people closer to God’s promises.
