Over and over again, I’m reading about how youth are leaving the church as soon as they turn 18. I see study after study highlighting how Christian conservative values are turning off millennials who prefer social justice to culture wars.

I guess I’m not the only one who’s noticed it. I came across an op-ed in CNN by Daniel Darling, vice president of communications for the Southern Baptist Convention’s Ethics and Religious Liberty Commission, that demanded my attention. The headline? “Millennials and the False ‘Gospel of Nice.’”

In it, Darling points out the same trends I’ve been seeing during my duties as news editor for Charisma magazine. It seems some in the younger generation are willing to water down the truth in God’s Word even as they stay busy fulfilling His command to feed the hungry. It seems some in the younger generation would rather allow a gay worship leader to take his place on the platform than stand for traditional marriage in the public square. Oh, and when more mature believers point back to what the Bible says about morality, they are labeled religious.

If you listen to my teachings on prophetic ministry for long enough—and maybe even just for a few minutes—you’ll hear me say this: “You can’t put a prophet in a box.”

What do I mean by that? Well, no two prophets are alike. I talk about this at length in my new book, The Making of a Prophet, as it relates to the office of the prophet. But you could take this saying—“You can’t put a prophet in a box”—and apply it with equal truth to prophetic people. In other words, you could rightly say this: “You can’t put prophetic people in a box.”

Think about it for a minute. God created us all as unique individuals—masterpieces. (See Ephesians 2:10.) No two of us are alike, so wouldn’t it make sense that there would be different prophetic expressions?

There are two sides to prophecy: the one who delivers the word and the one who receives it. Last week we talked about receiving personal prophecies that just don’t make any sense at all to the natural mind—or even necessarily bear witness with your spirit. Indeed, some prophetic promises are so exceedingly, abundantly above all you could ask or think that it’s tempting to dismiss them without even praying it through.

Now, let’s flip things around. Have you ever delivered a prophecy that someone flat out refused to receive even though you were convinced it was from God? The prophecy was pure. It didn’t breed fear, seek to control, or violate Scripture. The prophecy exalted Jesus and was delivered in a spirit of humility. Nevertheless, it wasn’t received—and maybe you were even harshly criticized or labeled a false prophet for delivering it.

I’ll repeat what I said last week: I believe in judging prophecy before receiving it as Holy Spirit-inspired truth, but as I explain in my book “Did the Spirit of God Say That,” judging prophecy isn’t always an exact since. That means you could be delivering a perfectly accurate prophetic word that’s perfectly passed over as false. What’s a prophet to do?

Have you ever received personal prophecy that just didn’t make any sense at all to your natural mind? Maybe it didn’t even bear witness to your spirit. Perhaps the prophetic promise was so exceedingly, abundantly above all you could ask or think that you dismissed it without even praying it through.

I believe in judging prophecy before receiving it as Holy Spirit-inspired truth, but as I explain in my book Did the Spirit of God Say That? judging prophecy isn’t always an exact science. Sure, if it violates Scripture, you should immediately toss it out the window. But sometimes you should just put your prophetic word in a drawer, so to speak, because it might begin to ring true years—maybe even decades—later.

That was certainly the case with Sarah, who laughed out loud—and then denied it—when she heard the Lord prophesy to Abraham that she would have a son (Gen. 18:10-12). It was also the case when Jacob heard Joseph’s prophetic dreams. Jacob actually rebuked Joseph for sharing a dream in which his brothers bowed down to the young lad.

Remember how excited you were when you got that prophetic word five, 10 or even 15 years ago? You set your heart to prepare yourself to walk it out. You confessed it out of your mouth. You declared it shall come to pass. You prayed it through.

You did everything you were supposed to do, but that prophetic word still hasn’t come to pass. In fact, it may even look like the exact opposite is happening in your life. It may look like to enemy has already robbed your prophecy. It may seem like the prophetic word will never come to pass.

Now is your moment of decision. Will you give up on that tried-and-tested prophetic word that you know that you know that you know is from God? Or will you go back to the author of that prophecy—Jesus—and remind Him of the prophetic word?