Re: Personal God. Personal?
- From: celia <c_a_blay@xxxxxxxxxxx>
- Date: Tue, 26 Jun 2007 04:03:02 -0700
On 26 Jun, 10:40, Paul <pgr...@xxxxxxxxx> wrote:
On 26 Jun, 07:18, celia <c_a_b...@xxxxxxxxxxx> wrote:
On 25 Jun, 21:23, Gareth McCaughan <Gareth.McCaug...@xxxxxxxxx> wrote:
| "Personal God" means that sometimes when I pray for something
| it happens, and that when I ask for guidance I sometimes find
| that circumstances make one course of action easier than another
| or that I get a feeling about which is better; and, the corollary,
| sometimes I read in the Bible that I have to do something, or
| circumstances make it almost impossible not to, or I feel strongly
| that I should, and then I have to.
and I don't see anything "personal" there at all.
But doubtless my paraphrases are inadequate somehow.
Your summing up seemed pretty close to me Gareth but what is more
difficult to talk about, or even to put into words is the power behind
these events. It "feels" different when it's God's guidance.
It might feel different and therefore you think "God did it". But what
actual objetive proof for God the Person do you have? Any burning
bushes accompanied by a loud speech?
You get to recognise it and get to know when prayers are right.
What do you recognise? How do you know they are right?
For me this started before I became a Christian when a man I knew
only slightly said , "Those who seek will find"
Just that, nothing more, but the words hit home.
Well you've just said it to me, and it just generates more questions.
Seek for what? How do you now I'll find whatever it is?
More startling is when complete strangers approach you in a public
place such as the market and quietly give you a word from God.
Happens all the time to me. Like Socrates, i like a good conversation
in the matrket place. I thought they might as well, having started it,
but they usually make excuses to leave after a few searching
questions...
Logically the reaction should be , 'the world is full of the mentally
divergent'. but it has never been like that for me, possibly because
they haven't given off that sort of vibe.
The mentally duivergenet have many vibes or none, in my experience.
One occasion I remember is typical when an elderly, smartly dressed
man, that I had never to the best of my knowledge ever seen before,
just started talking in an encouraging sort of way about how I was
going to do Christian youth work. I can't remember the details only
the astonishment that a complete stranger should know so much about my
life and a feeling of having been blessed in some way.
Yet again such things are easily dismissed
You said it...
....unless experienced.
Why should they not be just as easily dismissed if experienced? Are
you confusing the shock of a stranger talking to you with the shock of
having a new insight?
Strangers talking to me in the market place are a common occurance,
the last time was by the underwear stall in York market when a sweet
old lady told me about her knee operation.
"The girl doing the scan was that gormless," she commented,
"She said 'take off all your clothes down below, and if you're wearing
a basque take that off too "
We looked at the turquoise satin lace trimmed basques with dangling
suspenders hanging from the stall and fell about laughing.
What I'm talking about is rather different, stangers calmly giving
you a message from God as if they were saying, "bit wet today isn't
it." Just passing on a message like a postman delivering the mail.
It hasn't happened to me often but it's a completely different
experience from the usual conversation when two people make eye
contact. A general Christian message given by someone you don't know
is normal, it's not difficult to recognise another Christian without
an introduction, it's the detailed personal stuff that's unnerving,
the snag being that I'm generally so taken aback that I don't remember
most of what was said
How do I know when something is from God ?
I just do; and before you dismiss this I bet you do the same,
someone knocks at your door with a hard luck story, your instinct
tells you if it is genuine or a con, we do this all the time; you meet
someone and instinctively trust them, like them, or are doubtful about
them and most of the time your initial judgement is right.
How do I know when a prayer is in God's will, this is more difficult
to put into words and I don't know if it is the same for all
christians but the prayer goes beyond words, it's difficult to pull
myself away from praying and it has a shape that is given and seperate
from my own thought processes; it touches on dwelling in God's
presence rather than striving; perhaps the nearest that I can get to
the feeling is that it is cathartic but that doesn't really come
close..
I realise this doesn't stand a chance of convincing you but it's
like learning to swim, it seems impossible when you can't and when you
can it's impossible to not do it.
celia
.
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