No growing legs back or anything like that, but possibly cooler in psychological changes.
http://www.livejournal.com/community/challenging_god/506414.html
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This guy started the community on LJ called "Challenging_God" before he became a Christian.
Anyway, I found that touching, and resonated with some of what he said….Definitely have felt a small piece of what he described that was clearly some form of depression. I know some of you will think about the powers of darkness in his life and what not, but the interesting bit is more when he gets a prophetic gift and is misusing it, and God still lets him have it…..he doesn’t get knocked out by demons or get sick and God lets him have it and what he wants for a while. Interesting things to ponder.
I like that God cares about us even when we don’t care about him…or hate him for that matter. Phillipians 1:6, is and will be one of my most favorite verses in the Bible.
Siberian says
Again, I will reiterate.
It’s not that he has or owns a gift from God. Or even that he’s misusing it. He trusts this God on the basis that He saved his life, and tries working with Him. And whatdoyaknow, God is willing to work with the guy.
I don’t know why people are so surprised by this. It seems fairly obvious to me. Just because his sense of God’s identity comes further down the line doesn’t wholesale invalidate his spiritual experiences.
My point I guess is this. It’s notsomuch that he gets a prophetic gift. And it’s not that he misuses it. He interacts with God and partners with God for his own benefit. That’s not misuse, or even just plain using. Seems to me like the guy was in a hideous mess in life; why shouldn’t God be interested in this guy getting better? He became a Christian after all.
I don’t mean to be argumentative. I like this guy, and I like you too. But let’s go back a second. If you were to ask this guy, back when he was working with Jesus but not yet recognizing him as Jesus, whether he had a gift… He’d probably look at you funny and say that it don’t have much of anything to do with that. He just asks, and this God does stuff, sometimes. And sometimes shows him stuff. But he has no power to make it do what he wants, it just does what he wants on its own. In responss to him.
We take our theological models, though, with our own religious beliefs about who and how and why someone should get to interact with God. And we impose them on other people and their situations. And then we get angry when our expectation doesn’t fit with reality. And we hurt the person who was involved in the situation, or had some “experience”, and expect them to agree with our view, to respond the way we want them to. So they can become our version of orthodox; so we can be safe and unthreatened in our own theological bubble. Since we’re so insecure in our own experience of God.
After all, isn’t our religious expectations as Christians what got this guy in the whole mess in the first place? B/c he had an experience that didn’t fit with some “christian’s” view of what God was like, and then proceeded to shove him through his personal judgment grater. No wonder the poor guy didn’t want to have anything to do with the church.
Thank God He rights our wrongs as the church. If He didn’t, there wouldn’t be any church left in America by now.
P.S. Blatant opinion – Quit using gift language. It’s just too troublesome. We are given things sometimes, sure. But it’s more important to say that God speaks to us, and acts on our behalf when we pray, than to say that we are somehow gifted. It’s about him, not us.
BigCat says
Man, your placing a lot of motivations onto a small statement I made.
But I actually agree with you and think in no way was I implying differently. I just thought it was interesting to think about that he had God working through him, and while he wasn’t necessarily using this to advance the Kingdom he didn’t get blasted w/ some sort of spiritual attack that kept him from ever reaching a place where he understood the truth.
What I actually was thinking about this story is the Schmelzer tie-in. The idea of letting someone discover God / Jesus / HS on their own, and trusting God to show it to them. It is obvious to me that God was working in this persons life, and I believe he wasn’t going to stop, so God gave him a way to interact that was meaningful. This is a gift. Any way God choses to speak back to me I consider a gift. This particular gift could be potentially damaging to the people around this guy, or even to himself in some ways…but God gave it to him because that is how he needed to hear from God. I thought that was cool, and it is hard for me sometimes to sit back in a situation like that and not try to force feed my “theological model”, but the right thing to do in this situation (not every situation) is to let God work it out for him. I liked that.
Furthermore I will not stop using Gift language…simply because like the man in this testimony I have gifts. They are mine, they were given to me by God and they are not all “spiritual gifts”, but that does not mean I always choose to use them for advancing his kingdom. It is about him when we make the decision to acknowledge that our lives are really about him. Of course I personally do want to do that, the point is that not everyone does and they still remain smart, charismatic, prophetic, etc. And that is what I found interesting about all this.
rschmit says
Can’t we just be happy for the guy? I mean seriously. Semantics aren’t necessary. Whether or not God knocked him off his ass is irrelevant. The bottom line is that this guy managed to get himself out of a world of shit and onto the right path by finding and accepting God into his life. It is pointless to debate the specifics of what happened because we can’t know. We’re not him. This was a deeply personal experience that only he can comprehend and recognize. Maybe it’s a gift, maybe it’s an intervention. Both are possible, and none of us can know which is which or if either of those is the case at all.
Just be happy for him.
BigCat says
Alright, this is annoying now.
Why the hell do you think I even posted this? Was it to theologically deconstruct his testimony? Did I write a book (like I often do) analyzing X, Y and Z from his story? Is that really what you think?
JEEZES
I posted this for two reasons
1. This is a freaking awesome testimony, and I thought more people would like to share it. You should celebrate in people converting, it is a joyous thing. I would have posted this if it didn’t have anything else other than the part describing his depression and then some relatively lame conversion experience, just cuz he described depression and despair so well.
2. I thought that part I mentioned was kinda enlightening and counter to what we usually expect within the framework of the church. I felt it showed a counter example to a lot of my friends fears about not using spiritual gifts correctly. James took that as me “pigeon-holing” the guy and trying attack him or something, which is a sore spot for him. He actually is saying almost nothing that I wasn’t already trying to hint at in my one sentence I mentioned about it.
So, I think this guy is cool… I read a lot of his stuff in his LJ communities, and I thought that this was cool. I thought his posts were cool before this thing happened. I am happy, I wanted to share that after I damned near started crying in my cube yesterday while reading it at lunch. So leave it alone now…everyone, I want this to stand as a place for people to find a cool testimony, not a stupid arguement over something stupid that I wasn’t even implying.
jeff says
ha ha way to go rob. best damn paragraph i’ve read on lj for a while.
the reason we can’t just leave well enough alone is that protestant christians have found that actually making a difference in the world is way too hard, and it’s easier to just pick fights with each other. oh well, we suck, but God loves us anyway.
j
DivisionByZero says
“the reason we can’t just leave well enough alone is that protestant christians have found that actually making a difference in the world is way too hard, and it’s easier to just pick fights with each other.”
What percentage of that is humor and what percentage is sad truth?
DivisionByZero says
It is a really cool testimony. I really like that he not only prayed, but wrote down his confession of sorts and that his friend saw it too.
My own experience is somewhat similar in that I publicly stated what I believe about the Catholic Church alongside Johanna. Somehow, that act of faith made all the difference. I don’t think it would be the same as a private moment in prayer though.
Siberian says
For the record, I think it’s cool too. And I nearly cried also.
But the fact remains that it’s weird. The story’s weird. And people deal with that in different ways. Some people look at the results, face value (Rob). Some people analyze (me). Some people just respond, like you did. A la “Wow, that’s cool.” And some people condemn (sadly, many Christians).
I never said you were pigeonholing him, for the record. I took issue with your conception of gifts that came through in your peripheral statements. I’m sorry if that wasn’t clear, and I didn’t mean to hurt you. Forgive me. I’m still an ass, after all. I never meant to rain on your “Wow that’s cool” parade. Be happy and praise God.