Deuteronomy 18:20

"But any prophet who fakes it, who claims to speak in my name 

something I haven't commanded him to say, 

or speaks in the name of other gods, that prophet must die." 

Deuteronomy 18:20 (The Message)

Ok, so these days we can't just go around stoning everyone who breaks God's commands. However, I chose this verse tonight because, well... sometimes people say God told them something about you or your family, and they share it with you, but they heard wrong - perhaps it was their own wishful thinking they heard. And as someone who had this happen once, I just need to say - keep your prophetic musings to yourself. 

Don't get me wrong. If I'm going through a hard time and a friend tells me they heard a word from God - such as peace, wisdom, long-suffering - ok, go ahead and share that with me. I've had this happen and it has almost always been something I've asked the Lord to reveal to me.

But folks, if I'm pregnant, already having problems with the pregnancy and I'm only 7 or 8 weeks along, please don't tell me the Lord told you to tell me I was going to have a healthy baby girl. Because with my history, most likely that "healthy, baby girl" will be healthy because she was born to Heaven. 

By the way, I may sound like I'm bitter over this, but really - I am sort of chuckling as I write this. A few years ago, yes... I'd have been saying this with words dripping with bitterness, but the Lord has healed my broken heart just enough that I can now look back on when someone DID tell me this and just shake my head at it all. 

I think the better thing for that woman to have done, was waited until she saw me with that baby girl in my arms and THEN told me what God had revealed to her in a vision. Instead, her "vision" left me feeling like I had done something to really tick God off that he changed his mind about giving me a healthy little girl. 

We need to be extremely careful when we're acting as God's messengers. It can be very difficult, with all our distractions and desires, to really hear God correctly. And if we get it wrong, as the woman did with me, we can cause extreme heartache to the people we share our visions with. Thankfully, the Lord has allowed me to now pretty much laugh the whole thing off, but it took years to get to this point.