I once knocked on a door with my presentation firmly in mind, all about how I was going to lead into a certain scripture using some clever leading questions. It had been a bad day in service and no one had even talked let alone let me finish my presentation. I got a surprise. The man behind the door immediatly invited me in and then actually started answering my leading questions. Tears flowed from his eyes as he began to relate how he had built an alter out in the woods. How Jesus had appeared to him as well as an angel and given him personal guidance. The expierence was so moving for me I was shaken and speechless. He went on about how he had fasted and prayed after a death in the family and the Lord opened the heavens of light and touched his soul. I gave up right then and there. I finally accepted the fact that most of the people I was running into at the doors knew way more then me about the spiritual existence. Most of them were far beyond anything I could offer them, and I felt quite stupid continuing to offer them a purly "mental arguement" as a "path of truth," one of fear and one of blind obedience to the Org. I realized that I was the one filled with "uncertainty" not them. I was the one who was "insecure" in my faith and had no right to be trying to change them. I was the one having no spiritual expierences, they were having plenty!
That man on that day certainly got my attention! It was because I truly felt what he was sharing with me. I didn't know if it was demons, but I did know that it was real. I knew that he could face it but that I was not prepared at all to face it.Some of the light must have touched me as well, because I never ever went back into the pioneering work after that call. I knew that it was wrong. I knew that I had merely been doing what the JW rules and regulations had stated, but that he had found the emotional meaning of God in his life and had expierenced it. For him it was real. He had been touched by the Love and Light of God, that I was proclaiming that we had, and it was an embarasment to realize this. I secretly felt shame the rest of that service day, I could not shrug it off. I was filled with fear and had no inner confidence or inner strength to face a spiritual reality. A real one that could not fit into your head, or into a watchtower article.
When faced with any truly Spiritual event, a JW becomes fearfull and retreats, having no actual training on this level, but only able to state how he thinks things are supposed to work. He will usually run like hell and shout demons get away from me, Jehovah protect me! Not really sure however wether this will in fact protect him cuz maybe he did something questionalbe yesterday. I suppose my mistake with this guy was to stand there and actually listen to his story. He was the only one that day to invite me in, so I did listen. My eyes were opened to a new reality of "expierenced truth." Rather then the usual old "well defined invisible structure" I had programmed into my mind.
It's funny that when you already have all the answers, you do not learn anything. When you finally admit you don't understand something, then the flood gates open up and knowledge flows in, and then your whole reality can change. And it feels right inside!