I was thinking about this thread.
None of us is infallible and all we can do really,
is try our best to know God and to understand
His Word (Scripture, caps).
So if God says that His sheep know His voice,
wouldn't that mean that sometimes or another
somehow or another, we will hear Him, and
that if we have NOT heard Him, it's not that we're
not His, it's just that we haven't had faith yet to
do it?
I mean, His Kingdom operates by faith, everything
is of faith, and in fact, without faith it's impossible
to please Him!
We're saved through faith, we walk in faith, He says
to fight the good FIGHT of 'faith'. He says that He
even counts faith toward us as righteousness! So maybe
we just need to look at it through those eyes, rather
than the eyes of 'reason'.
No, I'm NOT advocating leaving the brain at the door!
Just saying that sometimes we have to step out in faith,
just like "Till" did with Kevin in Michigan. COmeon, that
was pure blind faith! He saw what he thought may or may
not be a vision and traveled all that way to check it! lol.
Now that he's experienced God in such a way, he will be
more equipped next time and then more and more with
each passing "experience"! (Yeah, that dirty little word for
how we interact with Almighty God our Father!)
Anyhow, just musing about why some hear and others dont.
carry on
A post earlier in the thread, couldn't remember the posters entire name, it
was a very interesting story.
Yo
I missed this post, I've still been perusing the thread, but didn't see where I was mentioned again.
On the "blind faith" part, as it regards my story ... it wasn't completely blind in the sense that I had nothing to look at, no focus, no direction. I *did* have something to focus on and consider: the vision, the voice, the response of my body to whatever was happening, etc. The entirety of the experience, was something I had to focus on. And since I hadn't ever experienced any such thing before ... nor had I ever even been told it was possible, so I didn't have that expectation, AND I had no religious tradition giving me a bias to have expectations ... the entirety of the experience was seemingly something that was happening TO me. IOW, if it was merely the product of my imagination, then I was experiencing some powerful forms of suggestion, because I wasn't the type of person who those things typically seemed to work on in that fashion. Not only that, but I wasn't seeking to have any such experience, not just for all the reasons mentioned above ... but because I was *against* such things as I saw them. I wasn't a believer in them, I assumed they were nonsense. My response to the experience then, was to either go and investigate for myself whether it was legitimate or not, and see for myself whether it was all in my mind, or if it had some basis in reality. The point being, that my walk of faith, wasn't completely blind ... I did have something to go on. Something to do. I could either do it, and find out for myself ... or not. I did it ... and saw for myself. Now, if I had showed up in Michigan, and the room wasn't like my vision, and several other things weren't fitting the vision or what I heard the voice say ... I would likely assume I hadn't heard God, but I had made it all up in my mind for whatever reason. And perhaps I may need to be examined for having some kind of psychological issue
Or, perhaps I *did* hear something and experience something, and looking to standard religions for the explanation wasn't suitable. Perhaps the phenomena could be explained some other way ? There were any number of possible answers.
The point being though ... what happened to me, if legit, had physical repurcussions. It wasn't just thoughts and feelings ... it was much more than that. My body was having a physical response, the manner in which I was "hearing" the voice was unlike anything I had ever experienced (and I have no history of illegal drug abuse, FWIW). And plus, the information I was shown was detailed ... I could find out for myself if the details matched. And they did. So the information I "saw" was reliable. All factors which helped to corroborate the experience.
So to me, it wasn't necessarily "pure blind faith". I didn't choose to have it happen to me ... it happened to me, and I chose how to respond overall, but I had something to cling to and go on which I used as the compass: what I had been shown, was either God's showing me something, or it wasn't. I clung to it, and walked it out. And the evidence of the circumstances as a result, seemed to support that my experience had validity in some fashion. Since then, I have had many more experiences, some more fantastical than that one, but in all of them ... I look for some type of corroboration or evidence outside of myself, to support my claim. Something apart from just thoughts and feelings.
In my opinion ... and this is my opinion ... if I hadn't of gone to Michigan and used my "faith muscles" to see for myself ... I would have failed something. Perhaps I wouldn't be given another opportunity to "hear" again, something along those lines. I felt like I was entrusted with an opportunity, I saw it through, and I was rewarded as a result. I was given a task, a measure of faith, a test, yada yada ... and if I hadn't of acted on it, but instead, just brushed it off, then I may not have been given another chance. Like being given a gift, to see what I do with it, and if I waste it, that's that. The reason I say this ... is because of something that happened to me while I was there, in Hawaii. I'll tell it really quickly ...
While in Hawaii, after having that experience, and several weeks flew by ... my attitude changed drastically from being offended by the believers around me, to being more open to them and wanting to understand their perspectives, different way of viewing things, etc. I got my hands on my first non KJV Bible, and was reading books other than the first 4 gospels for the first time, I was learning things left and right and soaking things up like a sponge. Well, I have tattoos and had several at that time ... and to remember my time there and how amazing it was, I wanted to get a tattoo. I wanted to get a ring tattoo on my finger, with a scripture verse, to show my "marriage to Jesus", my devotion to wanting to serve whoever I was learning He was, and others, etc. So, we ended up finding a tattoo shop where the tat artist was a believer, and we even prayed together before getting that tattoo on my ring finger ... my wedding ring to Jesus. So, I was pumped. And for what it's worth, at that time, I had yet come across any believer who told me that it wasn't Christian to get a tattoo or anything like that, so the idea that it wasn't "Christian" never entered my mind ... I was still so new to everything, and I had yet to come across someone who would tell me that. Since then, of course, I've met more people than I can count who claim it isn't Christian, etc ... and of course those who say it doesn't matter, yada yada. But just to say, that at that time, it never occurred to me that getting one was a sin, or anything like that.
So anyways ... I got it. And within about two weeks, it had become so infected, that my finger swelled up, and all the skin that had the ink, came off. It was so disgusting. I assumed I had gone back into the ocean way too soon or something, and had gotten it infected ... but I was extremely disappointed. It was swollen, red, sometimes a little bloody, and all the ink, was gone. Just a swollen, infected, gross thing. I had wondered if I had made a mistake in getting it ... perhaps I was being too presumptuous ? Perhaps it was a sin ? Perhaps it wasn't my place to say I was "married to Jesus" or some such ? Or maybe it was just a simple case of getting it infected and I didn't need to read into it ? I wasn't sure. But it did make me nervous, that my tattoo I was so proud of, that I wanted to be able to see as a symbol of my devotion and desire to know God, Jesus, the truth, and to DO something about it ... I was disappointed it was now gone, and in the place I had the ink, there was just pain and infection.
Well ... my finger remained slightly infected, by the time we went to Michigan, and I went to Kevin's house. In the story I shared earlier in this thread, after I saw Kevin's room for myself and the details were verified, I said there was some more things that happened after that, which I left out for brevity. Well, one of the things I left out, is that while I was there, in Kevin's room ... looking at the sunset through the long window, the same way I had seen it in vision ... I heard that voice for the second time, since hearing it the first time. The same exact way I heard it ... not in my mind, not with my ears, but somewhere "in-between". And the voice said, "Well done." And I felt that same wind, and heat, as though my body were being filled with it. Not as strongly as before, just a bit, but it was there.
Within a couple of days, my infection left my finger ... and to my amazement, the tattoo returned. All the ink that had peeled off completely with the infected skin, returned. I remember looking at it, after the infection was almost completely gone ... and it was as though one day it wasn't there, the next day, it was. And it's still there, today. Which is unique, because several tat artists I've spoken too, many will not do tattoos on people's fingers. One of the reasons they give, apart from location, is their claim that because a person uses their hands so much, the tat will fade and get messed up easily. Well, mine has only faded a little, but you can still make everything out. Anyways ... when the ink resurfaced, I felt that was a way of showing me that I had in fact, "done well", and that I could now wear that tattoo legitimately. I had earned it. But I had I not followed through with what I was shown ... it would have been stripped from my finger, and painfully at that. I would not have a "wedding ring to Jesus" there. Again, this is just my opinion. I'm not saying this is fact, or even that "God told me this" ... it's one of the way's I've seen the return of the tat, and an opinion I have sometimes about the experience.
