Have you ever wondered? Do you ever have the Lord tell you that you are a prophet? And, when the answer is "yes" ... do you know what to do next and where you fit into the Christian world and the worldly-world?
I have friends who are very prophetic... and they have visions and dreams and "see" the other world. Me? No. Well, very rarely, to say the least. BUT, the Lord has told me many times that I am a prophet. It's based on what He shows me through history or present-day activities that tie us to generations behind us, and preparing for those coming. Best way to explain that, I guess. People in my churches and in other nations have described me as a prophet, based on what I just told them historically, spiritually.
A number of times a year, I am led to read the prophetic portions of the Word. The history of some of them is fairly well known, and what they went through had to be both wonderful and horrific.
Isaiah, nearly 30 years after his prophetic involvement had ended, was martyred by being sawn in half by the son of King Hezekiah, Manasseh.
Jeremiah, after about the age of 60, with all his heavy-duty prophecies, sorrowful much of the time, ended up in Egypt for approximately 30 years before he died when about 90 years old. After being forced down there, by his own people, he talked to them, warned them about their ungodly decision to move there, leaving Israel unjustly. He didn't have a chance to go anywhere else.
Some Biblical prophets were accurately described, through the History portion of the Bible, by themselves and others, but in some cases we have very little info, if any, about them. This has been much on my heart for weeks, months, years when reading Isaiah, Jeremiah, Ezekiel, Daniel, and many others, knowing much of what they went through.
When reading Malachi last week something really struck my heart. According to the Reese's Chronological Bible, he was the prophet when he was approximately 27 years old. Over the next 66 years, the Persian power dropped out of the world and Greece had taken over. And then Malachi died. And, when you read Malachi, remember that he lived for much longer than another generation -- the average life in Malachi's time was 35 years. He died at 93. Saw much.
What do we know about that stretch of life for him? Not much. In fact, as I've seen online, there are a number of different opinions. BUT if he was truly prophetic in his 20s, and didn't die until his 90s, and for those years saw more and more of what was going on around and about him, how did he handle it? Was he heartbroken? Was he angry? Was he planting God-seed into the hearts of those around him? Was he just living his life, doin' what needed to be done, helping people, sowing seeds, harvesting, raising a family? Who knows?
Now, re: us. Do you ever wonder, when we see so much, how it strikes our hearts? We might not be able to say much to anyone, but we see what the consequences of our present-day cultures can/will be for the generation that will follow.
Do I sound serious? Yep! I am. It's a day-by-day part of life for me. Seeing too much, knowing too much, but I'm not entering very many side-doors. Only want the God-door.
So, knowing, historically, what prophets went through, isn't much different than what many of our present-day ones, world-wide, will be going through.
What can we do? Trust the Lord. Live with and for Him forever.
That's all that can ever truly count.
