Ding-You are correct. I did over generalize, and I apologize.
Believers: Does Jesus Personally Talk to You?
by leavingwt 55 Replies latest jw friends
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unshackled
When I eat bacon it feels like a religious experience. Could that be jesus?
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rocketman
Badseed wrote: "
There's a church across the river from where I live. I went there a few times, enjoyed parts of it. I like to be honest about my past so struck a conversation with the minister, 1- told him I had no money to give him 2- I was an x jw, etc. I always felt they really didn't like me because I'm not into pastor worship. He's not god and I don't believe god talks to him more than anyone else. Not what he claims though.
So a while back, since they have some real estate, I wanted to rent an appartment from them. The reason was a new tenant had moved into my building and she was a real pain, dirty, slob, bad element and I wanted to get away from her at all cost. The pastor's wife told me that her and her husband had prayed over it and the answer they got was that they should not rent to me. Six months down the road, the slob upstairs moves out, guess where?? In one of the pastor's rentals. Now that's payback.LOL Within a year, that real estate will lose half its value, it will be totally destroyed. They just finished two weeks of renovating her old rent here, the place stunk, not even funny.
My point? The pastor and his wife prayed god, I didn't, yet they got stuck with the rotten apple and my wishes were answered. I wonder what god was trying to tell them? I have yet to meet the wife so I can tell her. It'll make my day when I do."
This experience kind of sums up my feeling on the matter. How do I REALLY know whether God or Jesus has in some way communicated with me or worked in my life somehow? I just don't know. I don't speak to God in prayer - I just can't speak audibly or inaudibly to someone I can't see. I do read the Bible and try to do what is right. And sometimes I feel like, when things in my life work out a certain way, that maybe, just maybe, God/Jesus was looking out for me. But I have doubts, because it's hard to know for sure. I can't tell whether something is just happenstance (like the experience by Badseed) or whether it's somehow God-directed. I should add that maybe Badseed's experience shows that God was trying to teach the pastor and his wife a lesson. I mean, who knows?
The other issue I have is that too many awful things happen to people to believe that God is somehow pulling the strings. If he's behind it for good, is he not behind it for bad? And if so, why allow such terrible things? And what about people who survive plane crashes and such as say that God was with them - why them and not the ones who died?
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mindmelda
OMG, I've only heard voices when in the grip of manic psychosis.
Believe me, it wasn't Jesus. LOL
Spirituality of all sorts feels it lends to a greater awareness of the metaphysical realm. If you call that "Christ talks to me" by leading you by holy spirit, then that's how it works for you.
I've experienced it in several different ways, including that one. I've also experienced it during Buddhist meditation, a session with a psychic, a shaman, during a Tong Ren healing class, and during hypotherapy.
Rationalists might call that being nuts, but hey... I have an official diagnosis, I don't need you to tell me that. LOL
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WontLeave
No actual voices, but I often pray for understanding and seem to grasp things from the Bible nobody else I talk to seems to get. Granted, JWs don't read the Bible with a view to understand it, but relegate that to the Watchtower to dumb down and "explain" for them. One pioneer asked me what sort of things I pray for and I told her I don't pray to ask for much, because I don't believe God is very hands-on right now. Many JWs practically believe in faith healing. I was at an assembly and a woman in one "experience" said her prayers were answered when her husband's cancer went into remission. But I digress... I told her I did pray for understanding. She looked at me funny and asked "Isn't that the faithful and discreet slave's job?" Perhaps because of my persistent knocking, I am granted "power beyond what is normal" in the capacity of understanding the Bible, or maybe I just really care what it says rather than seeing Bible reading as a chore I have to do before the evening meeting so I can make a canned comment borrowed from a Watchtower article written on a 3rd-grade reading level.
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tec
To those who believe they have not heard him but can, I must say to you... you have. You were just never told the truth about his voice and how it communicates with you, so that when he does speak you either don't believe it... or you dismiss it.
To those who believe you CAN hear him, but you have not, I must say to you: you also have. Unfortunately, you have been told... and so believe... that YOU are "unworthy"... that if the Christ... were to speak... it wouldn't be to someone "like" you. So, when he speaks you also don't believe or dismiss him. I say to you, you are EXACTLY "like" those they speak to.
I think that I have been/am a part of both of the above.
Yet, I think Christ is speaking to me. I even think I 'may' have heard him, but I dismiss these as thoughts of my own. There are a couple incidents that stand out, but I don't want to mention them, because I'm still in the 'maybe, but dismiss that' stage on those incidents. I do feel... in spirit... and get the 'sense' of things and truths in spirit. ('in heart', for those who don't understand or accept 'in spirit', but it feels so much deeper than that)
I will share one thing. One time a while back, there was a thread asking if you were part of the Body of Christ. I said that I wanted to be, but was uncomfortable saying that I was, because it is up to Christ to say that and not me. What I heard right afterward- and attributed to my own conscience speaking - was, 'You would deny me?'
There was no judgment; no anger. Perhaps some hurt, but I'm not sure. It was more just a question. Why do you deny me?
There have been other occasions, and I am trying to work past the above two 'reasons' that Shelby pointed out. What I do KNOW, however, is that I can ask to be taught how to hear, and that HE can teach me. I do have faith in that. I do believe that it can and will happen, and because of that I know that it will happen.
Tammy