Keep seeking our Lord again and again when you have questions.

My wife, Mary, does not have the freedom that I do in hearing our Lord's voice. So we do exercises periodically to hone our skills. We quiet ourselves in the presence of Jesus and ask Him the same question and then write down what we hear. Here is one of our sessions:

Lord, please tell us about the very great numbers of people who were killed by Your people and others as recorded in the Scriptures. The numbers are overwhelming. Did You cause them to perish, allow them to perish, or what?

Ben, as you know, My people have been rebellious from the very beginning. Because I gave them a freewill, they want to exercise that for their own benefit. With the passage of time, great numbers of peoples came into being. I would plead with them to walk in My ways and they would choose not to. After judgments, they would return for a while, then go back to doing their own thing. Yes, Ben, I did allow judgments to come upon them to bring them back to Me. And yes, Ben, in their own wickedness they chose to destroy one another. So you see a mix. On the large numbers killed as recorded in the Scriptures, these are factual, rounded out, counts of the people involved. People do reproduce quickly and in time great numbers are developed. Look what has happened to the earth’s population in the last few years.
 

Mary recorded the following as part of her journaling: "... in those stories there is a great exaggeration that has been made through the millennia." "My journaling had said: "... these are factual,rounded out, counts of the people involved." My next question is, "Lord, how can these both be correct?"

Ben, you both are correct.
 

Lord, then how do we resolve this difference?

Ben, it is not necessary to resolve this. The numbers involved are not the important issue. The rebellion and restoration of My people is what I am wanting My people to be aware of.Lord, I wrote down factual rounded out counts of people involved. Mary wrote down exaggerated counts. How can these both be correct?

Ben, I am glad you are pursuing this in your training exercise. You both reflected your backgrounds and it affected what you recorded. This is why I want both of you to keep coming back to Me for verification and explanation of what you have written.

Lord, I see that our ability to effectively walk in the prophetic can be affected by our knowledge of the Scriptures, of Your spoken (Rhema) words and our fellowship with You.

Ben, this is why you took so many years to get to the stage where I could move through you prophetically. What is sad is when My people do not spend time with Me,in My Scriptures, hearing Me speak, and proceed to be "prophets".

Lord, I still do not see how both numbers can be correct.

Ben, what is correct is what each of you recorded. Mary wrote down from her heart. You wrote down what I gave to you. So in this sense they are correct.
 

Lord, what do I do with this dialogue?

Ben, share it freely. It is an education in walking in the prophetic. I want My people to understand My basics of what it is to walk in the prophetic. I am tired of religious developments of their own concepts of prophetic.

This practice session resulted in a teaching for us and for others. Along this vein, Mark Virkler adds the following comment: "I have continuously found in my journaling that God is concerned about heart issues, and not dates and precision numbers. I have also found that unless one operates in the office of a prophet, they are likely not to get numbers written down correctly. That section of their journaling will be full of mistakes. Since journaling is God speaking prophetically to us, we should expect our journaling to focus on "Edification, exhortation and comfort (1 Cor. 14:3). The edification, exhortation and comfort parts of the above journaling agreed. It was only the numbers which didn’t. I have stopped working with numbers in my journaling, since I do not operate in the office of a prophet.