What do you do when you have a word from God — or think you have one? Hearing is one matter. Processing the prophetic is another: judging the word, returning to God for interpretation, knowing when others should speak into it, understanding delay, and knowing how to wait without drifting into passivity.
1. What Are the First Steps When We Get a Word From God?
As written in Acts 2:37, “Now when they heard this, they were cut to the heart, and said to Peter and the rest of the apostles, ‘Men and brethren, what shall we do?'” (NKJV). In Acts chapter 2, God moves; the people ask what this signifies; then they ask what they should now do. So what is the first step if you think you have a word from God? I would say: evaluate. Judge. Have you really got a word from God? Do not simply run off certain that you have.
If somebody comes to me and says, “I have a word from God for you,” frankly my default is “No, thanks.” I do not allow any Tom, Dick, and Harry to prophesy over me ad hoc. If it is someone I know, trust, and walk with, I am more open. Even then I go back to God — and first ask: is it biblical?
If the word is “Rob a bank” or “Leave your spouse,” reject it. Anything that does not line up with “It is written” goes out. Satan told Jesus to throw Himself off the temple and turn stones to bread. Jesus answered, “It is written… It is written… It is written.” We judge everything by the written Word of God.
Often something is not unbiblical, yet may not be from God. Someone might say, “Graham, God wants you to spend the rest of your life in China.” I cannot find “Go to China” or “Do not go” in my Bible — yet God has called Hudson Taylor and many others there. So: is it biblical? Then come back to your relationship with the Lord. Do not sit in fear and doubt. Ask, “Father, is this really You?” Listen. Usually I hear yes — or no.
Isaiah says you will hear a voice behind you: “This is the way, walk in it.” I am not led by prophecy, feelings, goosebumps, or prophets on a screen. I am led by a relationship with God. The same Spirit who testifies in Romans 8 that I am a child of God testifies that this is the Lord. Colossians 3:15 says let the peace of God be the umpire over your heart. Come looking for peace.
Let me qualify that. If you do not practice your peace — if you mainline the news and doom-scrolling; if you live more under the world than under the peace of God — you will find that peace hard to recognize. Like an ear learning the subtleties of a language, the nearer we get to His peace, the more we recognize His voice. Judge: is that word really from God?
2. What Do I Do After I Receive a Prophecy?
As written in Proverbs 3:5, “Trust in the Lord with all your heart, and lean not on your own understanding” (NKJV). Go back to God. Do not lean on your own understanding. Do not get a word and go off into the woods to figure out interpretation and implementation alone — because when you do that, you will usually get it wrong.
Everything God gives us should bring us into greater dependency and surrender to Him. Our flesh wants God on its own terms. Most of us would like a gift of healing we can switch on and off apart from God. The more we walk with Him, the greater our dependency.
Jesus — fully man, fully God — said, “I can of Myself do nothing.” As the voice comes from heaven, so He hears and so He does. That is how we should live. You get a word from God: go back to God.
3. What Role Should Others Play in Discerning a Word?
As written in Proverbs 11:14, “Where there is no counsel, the people fall; but in the multitude of counselors there is safety” (NKJV). It depends on the context. If I am at Walmart and the Lord says pray for somebody, I am not gathering the elders. I go do it. Offering prayer or speaking of Jesus is biblical. If He says buy someone a coffee, I buy the coffee. Worst case I lose five dollars — unless five dollars is all you have, in which case double-check.
With words concerning you, there is a place where the consequences of getting it wrong are worth praying over with others. If the word involves others — prophesying over somebody in a local church — do it under leadership and covering. It no longer involves only your decision. If you get a word for yourself wrong, you suffer. If you give a wrong word for somebody else in my church, I — or the church — suffer the consequences.
About eight to ten years ago a guest speaker called out a visibly pregnant young couple I had married and gave what I call intergalactic prophecies: the baby will change the world, slay giants, ride the whirlwinds. Everybody clapped. The next day she miscarried, and the baby died. Was it because of the word? I am ninety-nine percent sure it was not. My point is simply: the speaker was mistaken, and there was no real context to set it right. No apology came. When other people are involved, the rules of the road change. Honor covering and public judgment.
4. Can a True Prophetic Word Be Delayed?
As written in Habakkuk 2:3, “For the vision is yet for an appointed time; but at the end it will speak, and it will not lie. Though it tarries, wait for it; because it will surely come, it will not tarry” (NKJV). Yes, it can. I think most words — not all, but most — are contingent on our response to them. The level of our engagement with the word will determine the level of its fruitfulness in our lives, and sometimes how quickly it happens.
Jesus said in Mark 4 — in the classic Amplified, around verses 19–24 — that the measure of thought, study, and meditation you give to the word you hear will determine the measure of virtue and power that flows back into your life. Your response determines the measure in which it works, and sometimes the timing. There are many words God has given us that seem delayed — and yet when we get our spiritual act together, things happen.
About fifteen or eighteen years ago in France, needing a vehicle, I prayed, believed I received a car, and put it on a newsletter. If I am honest, I forgot all about it and drove my old car. A year later, preaching in Northern Ireland, driving to Londonderry in pouring rain, the Lord said, “Repent.” “Of what?” He said there were lies on my newsletter: “You are telling people you are believing for a car — and you are not. You believed, and you forgot.” I had sat a year in neutral.
I pulled over in the rain to mark the moment, repented, and asked if I should start again. He said, in effect, I have forgiven you — put your faith back in action. I thanked Him that a year ago, by faith, I received a car. That very evening a couple offered Leah and me an amazing car we kept for years and later gave away when we came to America.
Is there timing? Yes. But active faith meets God’s timing. At Cana, Mary tells Jesus there is no wine. He says it is not His time. She tells the servants, “Whatever He says to you, do it.” Suddenly it was His time — because of the correct response to the word.
5. What Should I Do While Waiting on a Prophetic Word?
As written in Luke 1:38, “Then Mary said, ‘Behold the maidservant of the Lord! Let it be to me according to your word'” (NKJV). There is a difference between peace and passivity. I do not think we wait for God. I think we wait on God. Nearly every word you get from God has a goal beyond showing you what will happen. It is to change you and create in you the person God wants you to be so you can step into and experience what He says will happen.
The Lord tells Mary she will birth the Son of God. Mary does not say, “Okay, great — I will just wait for that.” She receives the engrafted word: “Be it unto me according to your word.” Over nine months the word grows in Mary until she births the word. In a very real sense we need to birth a prophetic word — nurture it and let it grow inside us. So often God is speaking about something He wants to do with us, but that word first determines what He wants to do in us. When you allow Him to do in you what He wishes, what He will do through you happens more speedily, in an expedited manner.
Conclusion
Processing the prophetic is not a technique for controlling outcomes. It is a path back into dependency on God: judge by the Word, return for peace, know when counsel is needed, stay in active faith when a word tarries, and wait on God rather than for God while the word grows in you as it grew in Mary.
Let me challenge you: take the word you are holding — or the word you think you are holding — and walk these steps. Is it biblical? What is the Spirit saying in your relationship with the Father? Who needs to cover it if others are involved? Where does your faith need to come out of neutral? What is God forming in you while you wait?
Scriptures for Study
Acts 2:12, Acts 2:37, Isaiah 30:21, Romans 8:14, Romans 8:16, Colossians 3:15, Proverbs 3:5-6, Proverbs 11:14, Proverbs 15:22, 1 John 4:1, Matthew 4:4-7, John 5:19, John 5:30, Habakkuk 2:2-3, Mark 4:24, Luke 1:38, Luke 2:19, John 2:1-5, 1 Thessalonians 5:19-21, 1 Corinthians 14:29, James 1:22, Psalm 27:14, Psalm 37:7, Hebrews 10:36, Galatians 4:19
10 Questions for Reflection
- When someone offers you a prophetic word, is your first instinct to receive it uncritically or to judge it?
- How practiced are you at recognizing the peace of God as umpire over your heart?
- Where has leaning on your own understanding after a word led you astray?
- In what situations do you need counsel, and in what situations should you simply obey a clear biblical nudge?
- How does involvement of a third party change the way you would handle a word?
- Which prophetic words in your life may be delayed because your faith has slipped into neutral?
- What would “putting your faith back in action” look like for a word you once believed for?
- How does Mary’s “Be it unto me” reshape your waiting?
- Where are you waiting for God when you should be waiting on God?
- What is God seeking to form in you before He fulfills what He spoke through you?
