Has Anyone Ever Been Given a "Personal Prophecy" Predicting a Future Spouse and Family?

If someone gave a prophecy, real or fake, wouldn't it then be possible for a person to not like it, and do whatever to avoid, or desire it very much to be true, and take actions to fulfill it?

I'm very skeptical of people claiming to have prophecy.

I guess the lesson here is to humbly receive any word from God directly or through others and just say "I thank you, Lord and praise you for this encouragement. Let it all come to pass in your time and according to your will, Lord"

21 You may say to yourselves, “How can we know when a message has not been spoken by the Lord?” 22 If what a prophet proclaims in the name of the Lord does not take place or come true, that is a message the Lord has not spoken. That prophet has spoken presumptuously, so do not be alarmed.

Hey Everyone,

One of the things I've been trying to work through in my own spiritual life is the confusion that resulted from listening to the words of well-meaning church members. I spent all of my childhood in a conservative Lutheran church, then the next several years at an Assemblies of God church in which it was common for people to give "a word of knowledge" (presumably from the Holy Spirit) to people as a means of encouragement and guidance for their lives.

While I have no doubt that the people who prayed for me sincerely loved God and meant only the best with all their hearts, many, many years later, I am trying to sort through the aftermath of the emotional turmoil that their "prophecies" have caused in my life.

When I was 25, I went through a very unwanted divorce in which I kept hoping my husband would change his mind, but he never did, and so I relied heavily on my church family to help guide me through.

One woman told me confidently, "I honestly believe the Lord is saying that you are going to be married again in the next 2-3 years."

And so, in came the trickle of "messages", supposedly from the Lord, from people who told me things such as, "He (your future husband) is going to love you so much that it's going to make up for all the rejection you've felt in your life" to a prediction that I would have 4 kids, including a supposed confirmation of what I was to name the oldest.

This is why some people live the way that was described in the thread about putting your life on hold in order to prepare for "the one."

For example, the friend I wrote about in that thread had also been told certain characteristics about her supposed future husband ("He's going to be tall, with dark, straight hair") and so my poor friend even went so far as to reject any guy who asked her out and did not fit that description. Her heart was sincere--she simply did not want to disobey God by choosing someone else--but you can imagine the poor girl's train of thought: "Well, this guy seems really nice, but I have to say no... After all, he has curly hair, and The One God has for me is going to have straight hair..."

This is why some of us have lived in fear of making too many decisions about our lives on our own. Someone in the last thread made an excellent point that living this way is fear, not faith--but it was a total Catch 22 for those of us who believed in the words of some of the elders at our churches. If God had someone on the way for us, a life of carefree choices that didn't consider the other person (even in their absence) would be directly disobedient to what we presumed was God's will for our lives.

The other thing that made me believe (or want to even more strongly) is that the people telling me these things all told me independently of knowing what anyone else said to me and were often pastors, so it convinced me that this surely must be from the Lord! Because wouldn't pastors, of all people, be capable of hearing accurately from God?

Fast forward 20 years later... With no future prospects in site, and being well past the ideal child-bearing age (important footnote: I no longer have the desire to birth children at all), I have to look back and wonder--was the devil working overtime to whisper pretty lies into the ears of people I loved and trusted (including a family member), or were their own hearts just that eager to encourage me that they were able to convince themselves of made-up "prophecies"?

One of the things that was told to me was, "God has someone waiting for you, but not here." And so, when the opportunity came up to move out of the area, I felt the need to say yes, because surely I was on the way to meet The One God had for me!!! And once again, it's been several years... and all I hear now are crickets (literally--there's one somewhere behind my couch right now, happily chirping away.)

Now, I understand that some people will say, "But what about Sarah and Abraham? Nothing is impossible for God!" A couple of key things that I think must be considered about Sarah and Abraham is that: 1. They were extremely wealthy--no worries for them about how they would pay for Issac's daycare or education! 2. People lived a lot longer back then, and I will be 45 of my next birthday (my avatar picture was taken about 6 months ago), which puts me at a stage in life where I do not want to think about beginning to change diapers.

Even if I did meet someone today, I'd assume we'd date for maybe 2 years, get married and then hopefully have a few years to ourselves or with the family he already has, and that would put me at right around 50 years old and having my first baby.

Anyone else interested in starting a family at 50? Let's see a show of hands... Maybe a few... but for me, no thank you--unless God intervenes, I am looking to serve in other ways.

However, that doesn't erase the negative feelings I still have surrounding this whole experience. And I will never again believe any kind of supposed "prophecy" about my future marital status.

How about the rest of you?

Have any of the rest of you experienced this, and how have you coped with it? I would really like to hear your stories, thoughts, and experiences, whether from your own life or observations you've made of those around you.

I'm going to say this as respectful as I can and if I offend you I am sorry. I personally think writing and sending the letter to that couple was completely inappropriate. I understand the idea of writing it, but you should have burned or thrown it away afterwards. But we also must remember each person has their own walk and callings in life. Only God knows whether or not they have the prophetic calling and it's not fair to assume they are false because what they said would happen didn't.

Im y you had years of bad experiences but God can work in people of His choosing for whatever purpose and even perform "modern day mirickes"..again..if ANYTHING is of God..there will be decernment and confirmation but we cant put God in a box..God can heal the hurst caused by bad church experiemces too..

without reading any of the other replies first, I sure do know exactly what you are talking about

I don't think any spiritual gift was ever meant to be used in the way Pentecostal, Charismatics and other similar churches are doing

sorry, but I refer to what you are talking about as 'Christian fortune telling' and I do know people who have had their lives put on hold like you say and in one disastrous case in particular, a woman who married a man she did not love and who abused her terribly in a sexual way, because she was 'told' it was God's will they marry and she sure did not want to be out of God's will

she left him and divorced and about a year later, met a man who treated her like the decent Christian woman she was and they got married and as far as I know, she has been very happy

I have absolutely no use for this personal prophecy crap and the fallout it causes. I have had fake words spoken over me and they have had a bad effect to this day.

often, these words are no more than controlling and being earnest does not protect a person from disception

I wish it did

you have brought up a subject that badly needs attention and worded it in a very thoughtful and helpful way

kudos to you!

There was another dream I had, a bit of a nightmare really in 2015.

In it I was in my bedroom at home and I heard this terrible sound
like a pack of dogs fighting, snarling, screaming, yelping. It was
just so blood curdling the most awful sound ever. I looked out of the
window but could not see anything.

I went downstairs, only as I reached the bottom I was in this foyer/entrance
way which had glass doors in this large building with corridors.
As I looked out I saw this awful person across the road. His face was all twisted
and grotesque and he had this gun like a sniper rifle. In the dream I felt the gun
fired firey darts and the man deliberately stalked and targeted people. His whole
demeanour was very menacing and evil. The awful dog sound followed him around
the sound was coming from him that awful screaming, dog fighting type of sound.

In the dream he started to cross the road coming to the building I was in.
Suddenly I knew my aunt was in this building and I had to protect her. I ran
to my right along a corridor to find her and protect her, then I woke up.

Then a few months later my aunt had a bad fall and dislocated her shoulder.
She had to go into a nursing home for 6 weeks as she could not manage at home
with one arm. She could not go to the toilet by herself and get in and out of bed etc.
The foyer of the place she ended up in was the same as in my dream! I was gob smacked!

She also got a bad water infection in there and was hallucinating that she could
hear dogs fighting outside of the room she was in!
It was an awful place I visited every day as they kept making lots of mistakes and
not looking after her properly. I ended up writing a 6 page letter of complaint
about all the wrong things I saw.

I really did feel like I was standing as her protector in that place and was her shield.

I’m not being dramatic when I saw she nearly lost her mind and her life in that
place. It took two weeks for them just to do a water test and another week to
start treating her for it. She regularly got dehydrated and I got very angry at the
staff for neglecting her.

That dream though give me a whole new perspective on the verse about the
devil going round like a roaring lion waiting to see who to devour. Satan
truely does target people.

I've had lots of prophesies but some I learned to take with s grain. Of salt, depending whom they are from.

Sevenseas,

Thank you so much for posting, especially about your friend who was told to marry someone who was very clearly the wrong person for her. I'm so glad you gave this example because I have heard of this too--people who were pressured into marrying someone whom they felt very uncomfortable about but did not want to be "disobedient to the Lord" by refusing.

I often felt that way too--that if I didn't automatically go with what people told me was "a word from the Lord", I was being disobedient to God's will for my life. After all, such people often seem to love to throw around "The God Card"--if you don't do what they tell you, then they'll say something like, "Well, it's not me that you're rejecting, it's the Lord," or, "Take it up with God, because He's the one you're rebelling against, not me," or even, "I'm going to turn and shake the dust off my feet, because you refuse to listen to the Lord."

The problem is... They've gotten confused as to whom they are referring to as God. For new and younger Christians, this can be especially confusing because they don't want to go against a spiritual leader, whom they trust to know much more about God than they do.

It seems like some people who do this to others are more concerned about forcing their "prophecies" to come true in order to uphold their reputation as "someone who hears from the Lord" rather truly considerting the welfare of the people they're causing harm to. It's almost as if they're saying, "Well, I said that the Lord said that you are going to get married, so doggone it, you'd better get married in order to make my words come 'true'."

Thank you also for saying that there is a time to speak up as well. I personally see things like this as another form of abuse, and the only way to try to stop it from happening to someone else is to take a stand and bring it out into the open, such as with a confrontation and open discussion.

This thread has garnered more response than I would have ever imagined--which, in a way, makes me sad because it means that so many people out there have also been hurt through similar methods. Thank you all for being willing to step up and help protect the next person reading these posts. I genuinely feel sorry for new Christians or those who have been deeply hurt by churches and are trying to find new Christian families to fit into.

If nothing else, I am genuinely hoping that it will save a few others--especially young singles--from going through this kind of grief themselves.

hmmm

well I don't really hang out much in the single forums but this op caught my eye

I think bigger problems may be caused by just brushing everything under the rug

one day you trip over the accumulation under the carpet and land on your face

the last time I rejected someone's false words regarding their own actions and told them so as they were trying to convince me otherwise, their entire attitude changed and they walked away

that is basically how it goes when someone is not being genuine. you know? shed a little light and all the darkness hides

I think that writing a letter or whatever and then ditching it may be fitting at times, but the Bible is pretty clear that if we have something against someone, we should take it to them. I think it kind of relieves us of the false burden