Because prophetic words come directly from the Spirit to our spirit they almost always have a sense of immediacy. We get excited and think they’ll happen right away. One of the hardest lessons to learn about prophecy is that most of the time prophetic words require us to wait.

Since, like most people, I have a hard time waiting, it’s been necessary for God to drive the point home to me!

It wasn’t that long ago that I had felt that God had spoken something to me that seemed impossible, and the longer I waited, the more impossible it seemed!

Most nights before I go to bed I pray that God would “instruct and inform me through my dreams.” I don’t want to leave you with the impression that every time I have a dream I think it’s from God because that’s simply not the case, but on this particular night I did feel like my dream was from God. He used the dream to teach and illustrate to me an important lesson about timing when it comes to the fulfillment of prophecy.

In the dream God showed me through the scriptures the impossibility of two situations which involved Elizabeth and Mary: Elizabeth’s womb was barren and Mary had never been with a man, yet both were told they would have a child.

Both pictures represent “birthing impossibility”.

Both situations were IMPOSSIBLE outside God. Both situations also required God’s TIMING.

Whenever God says, “I will give to you…”, there is a proper time and season to receive it.

Could it be that we often think we’ve missed hearing God’s voice, when what we’ve actually missed was God’s timing?

What I’m about to say may seem like common sense, but neither Elizabeth or Mary expected to see their babies before they were born. In the natural world we do not expect things to manifest before their proper time. We need to understand that the same principle applies to the spiritual realm.

 

Tuning in to God’s timing

Now if a football game is scheduled to be on TV at 6pm and you turn on your TV at 2pm to catch the game, you’re not going to find a game being played are you? It’s not that the game isn’t going to actually be taking place when it was supposed to, you just tuned in and showed up at the wrong time!

You may hear God’s voice telling you something, but if you do not respond at the proper time, you’re not going to find the thing that God promised you!

God has a schedule, AND HE DOESN’T CHANGE IT FOR YOU! Timing is not a side issue. Timing is THE issue when it comes to prophecy!

God will always do exactly what He says He will do, but He will not do it before the proper time.

“For still the vision awaits its APPOINTED TIME; it hastens to the end—it will not lie. If it seems slow, wait for it; it will surely come; it will not delay.” -Habakkuk 2:3