Prophetic Words and Five Smooth Stones

"This charge I entrust to you, Timothy, my child, in accordance with the prophecies previously made about you, that by them you may wage the good warfare, holding faith and a good conscience."  (1 Timothy 1:18-19a)
"Then Saul clothed David with his armor. He put a helmet of bronze on his head and clothed him with a coat of mail, and David strapped his sword over his armor. And he tried in vain to go, for he had not tested them. Then David said to Saul, 'I cannot go with these, for I have not tested them.' So David put them off. Then he took his staff in his hand and chose five smooth stones from the brook and put them in his shepherd's pouch. His sling was in his hand, and he approached the Philistine."  (1 Samuel 17:38-40)


Despite the cold, I went out on a walk to pray tonight.  There were clouds slowly moving overhead, and I could see the stars through them.  Even so, it looked like the clouds would soon pass by entirely.  For some reason, I found myself looking for five smooth stones, which I couldn't find since I was so far from water that flowed.  I took the smoothest stones I found and threw them out to the lake.  For the first three, the only reason I knew they had hit the water was the sound.  The next two were just barely visible.  It caused me to wonder:  Is ministry like it?  We hear God's word that he will use His followers to minister, but can we see any sign of it at the beginning?  We must trust until He chooses to show us what has been done through our work.
I began to wonder, too, the power of a prophetic word.  Paul reminds Timothy of a prophecy that was spoken about him, and uses it as a special sort of exhortation.  I recently had a couple instances of what may have been prophetic words in my life.  On 2 separate occasions, near-complete strangers spoke of my future as if it was determined by God to be fruitful in ministry.  I'm wary of any encouragement not directly from Scripture due to my heritage in Evangelical church tradition, but perhaps God did mean to speak through some fellow believers.  It's been weighing on my heart to listen to that word and keep God at the forefront so that it may prove true.  While I believe that true prophecy will be resolved as it is spoken regardless of the actions of those it affects, I want to play an active part in extending God's grace to those who need it.
God's tools make no sense to us.  It's like watching the North Star on a cloudy night:  It seems to be flying past the clouds and hiding regularly, but it's the clouds that move and the trickery of our perception that makes such a constant to shift.  He may use rocks smoothed by living water, or a follower pushed forward by a word of encouragement; He can use whatever He needs to push on His purpose.