Comments on: How Do I Know a Personal Prophecy or Dream Interpretation is From God?

By: Helen Calder

Helen Calder — Sun, 13 Sep 2009 11:04:58 +0000

That’s great Sandi,
I believe one of the difficulties we can have as prophetic people is when we believe we have received ‘discernment’ from the Lord about the person we are praying for or prophesying over.
It may be true discernment (not opinion,as in the earlier example), but if it is NOT shared in the redemptive way that you have illustrated, it can be harmful.
The Lord gives us gifts of discernment to heal, not hurt.
I remember someone saying when praying for me at an altar call that they discerned a demonic spirit (named it) at work in my life. I was devastated! If they had used that information to pray a redeeming prayer over me, or to prophesy God’s purposes for the opposite to occur in my life through His Holy Spirit, how different the ministry would have been. Then they could have gently directed me towards some Prayer Ministry to be set free.
The reality is, that however diligent we are, this kind of thing will happen occasionally. It may be worth us including this discussion in future training sessions on prophecy and altar ministry…

By: Sandi Bonavita

Sandi Bonavita — Sun, 13 Sep 2009 04:33:10 +0000

Excellent advice Helen. I am sorry that this has happened to this person. The person did the right thing by bringing it to leadership and openly discussing it with the person (prophet), good for you (that will always help in the healing process of a hurt or wounded heart). This letter will also help those of us with a prophetic gift to evaluate what a word spoken can do to someone when it is not given in a way that edifies the person, so again thank you for sharing what would have been very painful for you. We may well get words of instruction when prophesying for a person, but our responsibility is to ask the Lord what He would have us say to the person, it should never come from our own feelings, although unfortunately it sometimes does, but if we ask the Lord, He will always have you speak it in a way that blesses and not curses. I will give you an example – the Lord is showing you that this person does not have a teachable heart and takes any form of criticism poorly, you would not speak this into their life like this, you could however say, that “the Lord is showing me that you will grow in maturity and humility as you travel through this journey, you’re heart will open up to learn and receive the wisdom and training from others that will grow you in your calling”. You have now spoken a blessing into this person’s life instead of a curse, with a little thought, we can always make a word be a blessing. Let us all be wise in our treatment of others.

By: Malcolm

Malcolm — Sat, 12 Sep 2009 22:29:08 +0000

Helen this is so practical and wise!! This issue is one that causes so much confusion at times for people and you have given a fantastic teaching here.

By: Helen Calder

Helen Calder — Sat, 12 Sep 2009 09:58:47 +0000

Thanks so much for sharing this! I’m sure that many people have had a similar kind of thing happen to them too.

I so agree that prophecy should lift and build up, and impart life, and it’s so sad when the opposite happens. When we have positioned ourselves to receive a word from God, we have opened our hearts and are often vulnerable. Then, the missile fires at us. Prophecy should be a gift that reflects the heart of God towards someone, not tear him or her down.

You have brought out a great point about going to the person who brought the word—with a witness present—to share your hurt (Matt 18:15-16).
If the person who ‘prophesied’ harmfully is in your church and has not recognised or acknowledged their (intentional or unintentional) wrongdoing and prayed with you about it, then it may be best to find a safe person outside of your church to process this with.

Some things that can be prayed are:
· Express forgiveness towards the person who brought the harmful word
· Pray and proclaim the redemptive opposite of the word, i.e. God’s true heart, love and affirmation of you as a person.
· If the negative word has resulted in you feeling wounded, pray for healing of your heart and a fresh infilling of the Holy Spirit
· In some cases, the ‘prophecy’ may have resulted in a curse that needs to be broken. You can tell down the track when this happens, because the negative outcome of the word begins to eventuate in your life. If a ‘prophecy’ is negative, breaking a potential curse through prayer is a wise precaution early on.

Even if the incident took place a long time ago, this process can still be helpful.

The further I move in the prophetic gift, the more I’m aware of the potential to get something wrong, through a blind spot or pride, or through filtering the word through my own opinions. These days I like to give people who have received a personal prophecy (whether the prophecy is from myself, my team or a visiting ministry at our church) a brochure that explains how to weigh up the prophetic word and what they can do with it.

By: Anonymous

Anonymous — Sat, 12 Sep 2009 07:46:50 +0000

I received a prophecy from a respected church elder that devastated me.
She spoke of God’s plans and provision for me, but also pointed out my character flaws and areas I needed to improve.

In retrospect, I believe this was a mix of prophecy and her personal opinion. At the time as a fairly new Christian, I thought it was all from God, and it devastated me. She was not kind in the words she used.

I went home in tears from the public perception of me, and couldn’t stop crying. I felt dreadful, and tried to talk to God about it, but received no response that I recognised.

In order to regain some perspective, I asked to speak to the pastor about the prophecy – with the prophet present. I asked her to repeat what she had said, and filled in the details that hurt me that she had missed. The meeting was a debacle, with her walking out and saying she refused to talk while I was so upset.

The pastor explained to me that when God creates something new and beautiful in you, an attack from the devil is often around the corner, trying to tear you down. Somehow, the message from God – which was supposed to be uplifting – got dragged down and filtered through human concerns, and all I heard was criticism passed as prophecy.
As with all good lies, there was enough of a grain of truth to make it seem plausible – although some of what was spoken was in regard to past behaviour that I had already conquered.

What made it harder was that this prophet was very high in the church hierarchy, was someone in a position of respect and trust, and not someone I felt I had to be wary of.
I guess the moral is not to trust any one person when it comes to messages from God, no matter what their past record. ALWAYS test prophecy against the source before taking it as truth, particularly if there is anything of a critical nature in it.

I have since learned more about the nature of prophecy, that it is used to edify and build up the church, not to tear people down. If someone offers you a prophecy that really hurts… TEST IT!