Whatever Happened to Old Hadley?

By David Hobbs

I used to go to a weekly breakfast with a full gospel businessmen’s group. Someone usually read a passage from the Bible and led discussions on it. In addition, we talked of many things. One morning the discussion got around to personal prophecies that members had received. One of the older members there was a fellow I called "Old Hadley." He didn’t really look that old. There was still the trace of the boyish about him, with his smooth skin and ready smile, but the maladies he was struggling with, like high blood pressure and a heart condition, belied his 70 or so years of age.
When it came his turn, I was amazed as he trotted out a whole ream of fantastic prophecies of what God was going to do through his life: he would write books that would be sent around the world, people would be saved on every continent because of him, great wealth would flow his way which he would use to build the Kingdom . . . . I can’t remember all the details, but I remember being surprised at two things: the first was the amazing promises over his life, and the second was the matter-of-fact way in which he was recounting the information to us. I was thinking, “Could it really be this easy? All this is just going to happen to him some day?” It didn’t look like he was doing anything in particular to bring these prophesies to pass. His strategy seemed to be to wait in total assurance of faith, like the young heir waiting for gramps to die so he could inherit $20 billion.
During my months in the group I used to consider this from time to time. Old Hadley seemed to be perfectly at peace, no striving here. I didn’t notice anything changing as far as his outward circumstances that would indicate any of his prophecies were about to be fulfilled, but that didn’t seem to matter.
Then an unfortunate thing happened. I missed a meeting, during which they changed the meeting day from Wednesday to Thursday. Nobody told me about it, so when I showed up the next Wednesday, nobody was there. When a waitress told me the meeting was now on Thursday, I had problems: partly because Thursday was my fasting day; but worse than that, I thought I had become an accepted member of the group, yet nobody had asked my opinion on the change nor had anyone informed me. Maybe I wasn’t so accepted after all!
I quit going; nobody called; nobody seemed to care. “I guess I didn’t matter!” I bought into the lie of the devil.
Over the years I forgot about it. Then one day I saw Hadley’s name in the obituary column of the newspaper. “Wait a minute, he can’t die; he’s got to have that breakthrough first where all those prophecies come to pass!” But there it was in cold newsprint. "Old Hadley, R.I.P." “But Lord, He believed! He believed your promises!”
Did he?
Since then I have learned that prophecies are not predictions. Personal prophecies are faith visions, potentials of what can be accomplished in the will of God for our lives. They are what God wants us to have, destinations we will reach if we reach our potential in Him. As such they must be prayed into and followed after. They are by no means automatic or unilateral guarantees. Just remember Old Hadley.

... faith by itself, if it is not accompanied by action, is dead. James 2:17 (NIV)