I can only speak for myself, but I agree with you that people fake. I've been told as much straight up in fact.
I asked for the laying on heads pretty immaturely after I was saved. I say immaturely because it was an immature request. I was in an environment where the Holy Spirit was poured out and into the lives of addicts, homosexuals, murderers even who had turned to the Lord and became saved. Most of them had received the laying on hands and spoke in tongues or had another gift. I asked so often that I know I was annoying brother Al big time, and I honestly just stopped asking after a couple of months.
Al pulled me aside one day and told me that the Lord told him it was time. I had forgotten it more or less and asked him "time for what?", and he just brought me to a room with a wooden chair in the middle of the floor and asked me to sit in the chair. He stood behind and started praying with his hands about an inch above my hair (which was pretty long, it was the 70s) and I felt like my hair shot up to his hands kind of like really strong static electricity, but it only felt like that because it really wasn't sticking up. I know that sounds odd, but I'm trying my best to describe it. Brother Al kept praying normally and in tongues himself and I felt like I had to throw up but it wasn't unpleasant. It was like billions and billions of butterflies were flying around inside me and were trying to get out of my mouth, so like the clueless person that I was, I felt embarrassed kind of and tried to keep my mouth shut. I didn't know what was happening except that I was afraid of what would come out of my mouth. Finally I tried to tell him what I was feeling, but the second I opened my mouth up it was the most incredible thing I had ever experienced in my life. I was speaking in tongues in what I would describe as being higher than on any drug in the world, but perfectly sober, crystal clear in thought and mind in fact. That went on for about a half hour I guess, and after a while Al just stepped back and kept praying and praising God.
Afterwards he was laughing and said that the Lord told him two things. He was laughing, chuckling kind of, and said that I stutter in tongues (I really do too!) and that the Lord would someday do great things with me. I still don't know what that is, but God usually reveals Himself in things like that in ways you'd never see coming anyhow so I honestly don't focus on it. I believe it, but I have no idea what that meant.
Anyhow that's my story. There's a lot more to it, but that's the basics. I know what happened that day and nobody can convince me that it wasn't real or that it wasn't God. But I also realize that nobody has to believe it either. It really doesn't matter to me other than I've spent most of my life trying to figure it all out. I went on afterwards to become a green beret which was a tremendous personal achievement, but looking back at it, it also really stunted my spiritual growth for a long time. A lot of pride was involved and it took a very hard fall to break me of it and for me to begin to walk with God as I should have been all along.
I'll tell you what all that didn't mean though...
It didn't mean that I was or am better or more spiritual than anyone else. In fact I would characterize my walk as pathetic for most of my adult life. I definitely went Corinthian, just like the books! But I've also grown a lot too as I learned almost everything the hard way. Make that the hardest way! My best friend Christian (who I went through Special Forces training with and was on my first A-Team in Germany), was very skeptical of the gifts like many of the folks here, but he and I were alone and stuck with each other. We were pretty much completely stuck with each other because the rest of the team was a bunch of heathens to put it mildly, and in SF you deploy constantly. If you have fellowship at all it is with your team mates or not at all. Anyhow, he and I talked about this particular topic for years. And when I say years, I mean years in the plural, 6 to be exact.
We went through all the stages you could possibly imagine. We argued, differed in opinion, showed each other what the bible said from each other's point of view and finally settled on this...
The Holy Spirit is given at salvation. Period. The laying on of hands was an event afterwards and a blessing, but it didn't make me any more saved. The environment I was in was a place where God needed to work miracles in the broken lives of men who came from broken homes, the streets, prison, you name it. It was different is all. It really didn't matter when it's all said and done. In fact I would say hands down that Christian was the one who was blessed, not me. I struggled with a lot of areas of sin, carnality and I paid for wandering dearly. Chris on the other hand was obedient and faithful through and through and his life has big one huge blessing as a result. Anyhow, we grew out of it. We grew because we were forced to deal with our difference of opinion and work it out. In the end we found out that we had become life long friends and that the glue that bound was Jesus Christ.
