As always, sorry for the little delay there. A bit more than usual has been going on in my life, but I absolutely must find time for you good people sooner or later. ;)
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It's an amazingly powerful experience, I'm sure. It's something I can only hope more people are able to experience, be it through your aid, or another's.Yes, it was indeed an amazingly powerful experience. But just like any other experience, it becomes memory and then fades over time. Some of the details that I recorded I might already be unable to recall without the aid of what I wrote. The experience was more profound than any other I've ever had, but it was still just an experience.
What's ultimately important about it is what God told me. The message that He gave me will always be the same, experience or not, and it applies equally to those who have had such experiences as it does to those who haven't. God can use anything to work in someone's heart and change it, even just words on a page. He gave me what I needed when I needed it, and the
understanding that He's given me has changed my life forever—and He will be the One making sure that the change is permanent, not I.
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Also, at some point in your story, it sounded as though you were 'Speaking in Tongues', a gift of the Holy Spirit. My knowledge of this is rather limited, but being granted that gift is a high honor.Yeah, that's probably what it was. Speaking or praying in tongues is and I think always will be a mystery to me, like God Himself is. But it is a gift that He gives to His children, a gift that at least some of them can use to praise Him. It is always for His honor, though, and never for ours.
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I think what God told you is true for all of us...unless you're, like, the one
or something.Yes, it is very much for all of us! God loves and longs for
you, Markio, equally as much as He does for me. He is not a jealous God, and He simply doesn't give in to favoritism. Moreover, there is nothing at all special about
me as compared to other people. The only good in me, the only worth I have whatsoever, is what I have in Christ. He has already done everything for me; I can't add even
one thing to what He has done.
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I can't find the words to express the impact that had on me.I'm very grateful that God would use my words to speak to you. There is nothing that I can do or say that would help you, but God can use me when He wants to. I'm ever so grateful when He does.
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Watoad is the one! The one and only!All I can say to this is, I'm just so glad it isn't true. Thank you for the compliment, but I think it's clear that I didn't
do anything here. It was all God. 100%. And it always will be. (And that isn't true simply because I say it is.)
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but I can't see it happening to me...Neither could I. If you had told me, say, a month ago, that God was going to talk to me like that, then I would have told you that you could go fishing in dried up lake and catch a shiny golden platter with fresh fish ’n’ chips sitting on it. I thought visions and stuff were for old dudes in the Bible! But something that would happen to me? Not a chance.
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. . . I'm really quite sick of people who use it to justify their closed-minded bigotry. "Oh, I'm right because GOD told me I'm right!"Yeah, isn't that just terrible? It's sad what pride can do to people. The really sad part, though, is that those people made me upset
when I was one of them. Even if I never said something like that quote (which I can't remember), that was how I lived for the longest time. I mean, I bet you could even find a post of mine in this very thread that has that attitude written all over it, or at least between some of the lines. It pervaded me.
And to some extent, it still does. God is changing me, but I still find myself thinking arrogant things every single day. And all they ever do is destroy me and hurt others, like that quote you posted. I'm just grateful that God has allowed me to see how destructive that kind of thinking is, even if only after many years of hurting myself and others. As for those who don't realize this and go around proclaiming their self-righteousness, they might do well to consider the following:
Some of the greatest strength can be found in realizing how little of it you actually have.
"He is not a fool who gives up what he cannot keep for the sake of what he can never lose."
