Years ago, when I was first introduced to the Charismatic Renewal and the prophetic as a whole, I lived in State College, Pennsylvania.  I don’t recall when or where, but I met a woman who was highly prophetic, and gave her a ride to our church a few times.  She was very friendly and outgoing, and told me about all these very specific prophecies over her life.  It all sounded very exciting, and there was definitely supernatural activity surrounding her life, but I would be surprised if many of them came to pass, and for one reason:  She wasn’t very good at stewarding the prophetic gift.

Prophecies as a whole are usually conditional.  Most of the time they are an invitation to encounter and engage God in various areas of our lives.  I have heard it say that if someone receives a prophetic word from different people more than three times it is a “done deal” and is guaranteed to happen, but I can’t say for sure whether that is true or not.  Nevertheless, most prophecies are meant to help draw us into God’s plans for our lives, not encourage us to sit on our laurels and wait for God to dump the prophesied future upon us.  And this is where this woman went wrong—she didn’t do the things she needed to do to walk them out.

Let me give you an example:  she once had a dream where angels were lined up in a row holding number cards, much like the judges in the Olympics hold to score events.  She understood in the dream that this series of numbers were lottery numbers.  So what did she do?  She called me and left a voice message that said “I had this dream two nights ago and didn’t buy a ticket yesterday, and those were the lottery numbers.  Pray and release the angels to do it again today!”

Umm, no.  You had the dream two nights ago and watched as those exact numbers become the actual lottery numbers yesterday night, and instead of recognizing that you didn’t follow through on God’s instructions, you are just hoping to have someone else agree with you in prayer and have those exact same numbers come up again tonight.  Sure, God is able to do it, but it isn’t going to happen.  That’s what we call a window of opportunity, and even though I was fairly young in the prophetic, even I could tell that she had missed it.  I confess I was also disappointed she hadn’t called me a day sooner, because I would most definitely have bought a ticket. . .

She isn’t the only one I have ever heard having something similar happen. When I was a kid, my parents had some friends who had a similar encounter, and I still remember this story over 25 years later.  The Lord spoke to one of them and gave them a lottery number to play.  They didn’t buy a ticket, and unsurprisingly, they didn’t win.  Their takeaway?  You can’t win the lottery if you don’t buy a ticket.  Simple, right?  While I am not specifically advocating for or against the lottery, if the Lord gives you an instruction, especially if it isn’t going to hurt anyone, then just do it!  In both of these cases, the risk of buying a single ticket is so minimal that even if you heard wrong and failed, you aren’t out more than the price of a cup of specialty coffee.  Furthermore, what if you took that small risk and did hear correctly?  Consider the potential future impact that would have had on not only your life, but the lives of those around you.

If we are interested in stewarding the prophetic gift, we have to step out and take risks now and again.  If we want to see God move, then we have to walk out the things He has told us and put action to our beliefs.  When I talk about “doing things to walk it out”, some people say “Jesus did it all, so we just need to rest in the victory.”  Yes, the Bible does talk about entering into God’s rest, but that doesn’t mean we sit around all the time and do literally nothing.  Jesus, of all people, knew how to rest in the Father, but the Bible tells us that He went around doing good and healing all who were oppressed of the devil (Acts 10:38).   Sure, we need to live in God’s rest, but if God gives us specific instructions, it would be prudent to do what we see our Heavenly Father doing (John 5:19).

I have heard people tell me these amazing prophetic words they have received that speak of them having huge businesses or big ministries far larger than most around today.  And when I ask them what they are doing to walk it out, they give me a funny look.  “I’m just waiting on the Lord.”

That’s not how this usually works.

In all honesty, God is probably waiting on you.  Yes, there are times where God will give someone specific instructions about remaining in rest or some such thing, but I think that is often more about a heart posture as we walk things out than it is about doing literally nothing.  I can’t tell you the number of meaningful words I have received from high-profile people, because it seems to happen to me a lot, but I don’t just sit there and wait for them to come to pass.  I look at how I can walk them out practically.

Just this past week my wife and I were called out in a service with a very detailed and specific word of knowledge.  With that came a very detailed and specific prophetic word that covered a series of things, one of them being that God had a bigger house for us.  Not a new house, although it would be new to us, but specifically a bigger house.  This prophet didn’t know that my wife and I have been working on getting our house ready to sell and are looking to buy a bigger house.  We had some things that held us up, and more recently have just held off on listing the property.  After we received this prophecy, we contacted our realtor and signed paperwork the next day to put it on the market.  That’s what’s known as “responding in faith.”

At some point it doesn’t matter what it is that God says.  If we want to steward the prophetic gift, or any prophetic word we receive as a whole, it will require obedience, and that obedience usually requires some sort of action.  Unlike how the woman in the first story seemed to think, when God gives us instructions there are often timetables associated with them.  At times we don’t know the timetable, but with something like her dream, it was pretty clear, and she failed to do one simple thing which would have had massive ripple effects in her life.  We already felt the Lord leading us to get a new property, but had stalled out.  When we received instructions from God, the only thing left to do was act on them.

If you have received prophetic words that still have not come to pass, I encourage you to spend some time talking to God about them.  What are some practical steps you can take to walk them out?  How can you partner with God to move them forward?  Stewarding the prophetic gift isn’t, in my opinion, just about how to prophesy over others, but also how to walk out the words we have received.  After all, if we are faithful with little, the Bible does say that we will receive more (Matthew 25:23, Luke 16:10).