Prophecy V

 Sometimes it’s not the prophecy that is false; it’s the way we interpret its meaning that falls short of the mark. I’ve seen this on numerous occasions and have had to console individuals who, having received a word of prophecy, superimposed their own desires atop it and concluded it is what the Lord meant, when it wasn’t.

In the old country, in pretty much every Christian community, there is always a house, known to the body as a place where you can go to pray, not at any particular time, or between such and such hours, but whatever the day, whatever the hour, if you show up for prayer, the person is happy to receive you, have a prayer or two, sing a few hymns, and let you be on your way. It’s an open secret of sorts, and if you’re ever in a new place where all you know is a brother or a sister, you can always ask where you can go for a prayer, and chances are they’ll point you in the right direction.

Usually, it’s someone who’s in the latter part of life, who isn’t able to travel to church, and by opening up their home as a house of prayer, they get the fellowship of the brethren that they would otherwise miss out on.

Some of these individuals are also gifted in the prophetic, and although the purpose of the visit is prayer, if God has a word for someone present, it comes forth. I’ve always attended such prayer meetings, but after my grandfather’s passing, it became more common. I needed to pour my heart out to God, cry out, weep, groan, whatever the case might have been, and I couldn’t put it off until Sunday morning or Wednesday evening, so to prayer I’d go, whether midday on a Monday or Friday afternoon.

It was in one such prayer meeting, where I and a handful of other brothers and sisters were present, that a man, who I later discovered had a bedridden wife who had been ill for the better part of three years, received a word of prophecy. The man in question was as much a stranger to me as to the prophetess in whose house we were praying. Unlike the palm readers or tarot card readers of today, there was no exposition as to why we were there, what we were praying about, or what we were asking the Lord for clarification on.

God is not a magic 8 ball where we ask Him arbitrary questions, and He gives a yes or no answer. God knows your struggle; He knows your pain; He knows why you come before Him; and if He has anything to say on the matter, He will say it without narration or backstory.

Nobody in that room, except the man and God, knew his wife was ill, yet a prophecy came forth for him, one I remember verbatim because of what later transpired between the brother in question and me.

The word itself was short and to the point: “As for the one you have come to intercede for, soon, I will take away her pain.”

The man began to weep; we continued to pray, and after the prayer, we introduced ourselves, and I was glad to discover that he’d known my mother and that she’d helped him and his wife build the house they were living in. The village they lived in was a stone’s throw from where I lived, and given the number of people my mom had helped over the years, with everything from building homes to buying cows to digging wells, and everything in between, it wasn’t surprising to hear.

One week later, unbeknownst to me, his wife died. Three days later, I was at the funeral because the pastor who was to give the eulogy asked for a ride, and I happened to have a car. I sat in the back, waiting for the service to end since I couldn’t leave the pastor stranded, and I promised to give him a ride back into town when the man spotted me.

He waited until after the service, and while the casket was being loaded onto a flatbed to be transported to the cemetery, he walked up, eyes rimmed with tears, and said, “God promised! He said he would heal her. You were there; you heard it.”

I had no desire to add to the man’s pain, but I felt compelled to point out that all the prophecy had said was that God would take away her pain. There was no mention of healing or restoration, but he had interpreted the word to mean that she would be healed and, in that, her pain would be taken away.

“I know the pain you’re going through,” I said to him, having lost my grandfather less than three months prior, “but God kept His word, just not in the manner you thought He would. Her pain is gone, she is at peace, and that is all God promised He would do.”

I could see the heaviness lift from the man, the burden and shadow of doubt leaving his face, because he understood that he’d taken the word to mean what he thought it would rather than taking it for what it was. Even now, with all the years that have passed, I believe wholeheartedly that God had made a way for me to be there that day just so I could encourage this brother in his season of uncertainty, not so much to comfort him in his loss, but to strengthen him in his faith.

When we infer or assume something not specifically stated in a prophecy, we are opening ourselves up to doubt, resentment, the feeling of having been betrayed by God Himself, when what He said is what He meant, and He kept His word to the tittle. It may not be what we want to hear; it may not come to pass as we hoped it would, but unless God specifically says it, we cannot browbeat Him into making it happen, or making it happen in the way we think He should.

If you’re up for a job promotion and get a word of prophecy declaring God will bless you, and that same week your wife tells you she’s pregnant, but you don’t get the promotion, it’s not that God lied about the blessing; it’s that you didn’t see the blessing for what it was, and you assumed it would manifest in a different manner than it did.

With love in Christ,

Michael Boldea, Jr.