prophetic ponderings

I don't know where you all come down on the myriad issues and questions about the prophetic. To sum up where I'm coming from, I would define prophecy as encouragement and exhortation, its purpose being to build up the church and/or individual believers within the church. Along with that, I believe that God can and does speak through visions and dreams, and through words of wisdom and knowledge (when He tells someone something very specific about either the present or the future, either for themselves, or someone else), etc. That said, in spite of all I've seen, I am still also pretty skeptical about all of it.

Which makes it tricky.

I've seen the prophetic do some pretty amazing things in terms of building up people's faith, and encouraging them in dark times. I've also seen it misused, misinterpreted, etc., causing great harm. Not irreperable, necessarily, but unnecessary...

So what do you do when you feel like God's told you something? A few months ago, I had an extremely strong impression about something. But other voices - respected voices - had other opinions and so I stayed silent. Mistake? I don't know. I'm not sure I would have been heard. I am sure my motivation would have come under question. And so I said nothing. As it turned out my impressions were - for the most part - correct. I did pray about it - which is the first and foremost thing we're to do with anything we hear from the Lord - continuing in conversation with Him - but was it the only thing to do? I don't know.

There are two situations that have arisen over the past two weeks in which my very strong impressions and the respected voices differ. What do I do?!?! Pray, pray, pray - yes. But silence matters as much as its lack. What's the proverb? oooh - there's three of them (i doubt that's coincidence):

Proverbs 11:14 - For lack of guidance a nation falls, but many advisers make victory sure.

Proverbs 15:22 - Plans fail for lack of counsel, but with many advisers they succeed.

Proverbs 24:5-6 - A wise man has great power, and a man of knowledge increases strength; for waging war you need guidance, and for victory many advisers.

and then there's this:

Proverbs 24:7 - Wisdom is too high for a fool; in the assembly at the gate he has nothing to say.

Is he a fool because he has nothing to say? Or is he speechless because he's an idiot, and he just doesn't understand anything?

Either way, I'd far rather be an adviser than a fool - but I don't want to be a foolish adviser, either. *sigh*