Sherman, I was going to read the rest of the thread before responding to your testimony, but there’s too much.
That is so exciting! You brought tears to my eyes – I would love to be involved in something like that. But I think you may have touched on a key element to the whole “charismania” thing, and that is this: Have we in the church become too insular, “ministering” to one another (which is good, certainly) and forgetting that the anointing for healing and miracles was specifically offered to us, His disciples, as an adjunct for evangelism – signs following? We have to manufacture “miracles” and “moves of the Spirit” because we aren’t seeing it on the streets. And since we, most of us, know that the great bolus of what we “see” in church is, well, just isn’t real – it isn’t really happening, and we know that, it’s hard to “work up” the faith to believe that when we lay hands on that half-drunken street person and command his mind to be healed, it’s not only possible but promised that our Father will confirm the good news of the Kingdom with signs following.
I have also had the experience of being “slain in the Spirit” which, I’m convinced, is for most people a voluntary yielding to what is expected (Fall down; we promise someone will be there to catch you so you won’t be hurt. If you’re wearing a dress, don’t worry; the nice church lady will have a cloth draped over your legs before you reach the floor.) The only time I ever felt anything even approaching “overpowering” was once when Kenneth Hagin laid hands on me. It was like a white kind of “power” rising up in me, but before it got all the way to my head, he moved on and it subsided. I tried to yield to it, but you know, it just wasn’t happening. But I’ve had what I would call visions and I’ve seen miracles (from my own hands, which I knew to be miracles first-hand) – instantaneous miracles and nearly instantaneous, and in a couple of serious situations. If it hadn’t been serious I would probably not have had the nerve to act.
So, I DO believe in the power of God, and yeah, I even believe He does weird things to people sometimes (but not to me, thus far). I can sense His presence when I turn my heart toward Him. Yes, I could lie to myself (and convince myself, too) and make reasons why that stuff didn’t happen or was a coincidence and would have happened in any case, and I’m only deceiving myself and so on – or that it’s some kind of snake spirit-of-power seated a couple of inches below my navel and not really God in me at all. But I never could get into the laughing thing, let alone the shaking and shivering. God just never did that to me, and for a long time I thought there was something wrong with me, that I couldn’t let go and yield to Him like the others did. Now I wonder whether they weren’t faking it in the hope of making it, too. Although I’m sure it was real for at least some of them.
Anyway, my thoughts. Sherman, I want to go out prayer walking with you, Bro! Nothing like that ever happens to me.
Blessings, Cindy