My close friend Pat had had 3 failed cardiac stress tests at 2 different hospitals. He was in sad shape and faced the prospect of quadruple bypass surgery that he may not live through.
He went to Texas as a last attempt to save his life, and took BG Leonard's gifts of the spirit course, and was ministered to by Leonard and his wife from BG's hospital bed (he was 94?).
Pat looked alive again and a few months later had a heart catheterization performed. The surgeon had a surgical team waiting to perform an expected quadruple bypass and was quite puzzled that Pat's heart and arteries were like new.
BG Leonard during his ministering to Pat remarked that he needed a new heart and replaced the old one with a new one when he ministered to him.
This Wierwille clown I keep reading about must have been one lousy student of Leonard's, because even from a hospital bed at 94? he kicked butt.....
excathedra: when pat went away to the cult's training place in kansas we lost track of each other for a few years.
We ran into each other a few years ago at the new england press convention and he has been telling me bits and pieces about wierwille's delusion as I call it since.
I don't own a computer, so he let's me use his puter which he doesn't even let his wife do, so you could say we're close.
Pat suggested I read up on TWIG here at the spot to learn more.
It sounds like an honest question, JT. I'm just not sure what you're trying to find out.
If the criteria is me and only me as the first hand witness, yes, yes yes I've seen and/or experienced many, lots, quite a few, a bunch.
Last month I had a serious problem at work I was working on, a program I'm writing and I was stuck at certain points. I woke up one morning and a section of code was in my vision, right in front of me. Bingo. I knew immediately that was the problem and it proved to be so. Very much like finding a needle in a haystack. I'm very sure that was the spirit of God telling me what was wrong.
Earlier this year I was talking to a friend, someone I don't know well but see now and then. She was having a bad day and I put my hand on her shoulder. A series of events ran through my mind and I saw her in them. They turned out to be what she was dealing with. The final event was something yet to happen and I made a suggestion as to how she might handle the whole thing. It happend the way I saw it.
I can think of quite a few others over the years, including the whole period that coincided with my involvment in the Way. I don't know if they're "big" enough for what you're looking for though.
An auto accident, broken rib and internal bleeding. I was prayed for and the injuries were healed within minutes. I felt it inside as it occured.
Do they happen? As far as my own experience goes I'd have to say yes, and they're not limited by the times or circumstances. As far as my own experience goes they just happen when they do. While it may smack of old Wayfer talk, there are certain times when I know "inside" to do something or say something, or know about something and am able to participate in what's unfolding. From my standpoint, it's already happening and underway and I'm just observing it, although I guess it might appear at times when these kinds of things happen that "I'm" calling it. I'm just really not sure that's what's happening.
At times I guess those involved might call it a miracle or something of that nature. To me, it's a normal part of my faith. I don't really know why others don't, I don't really think about it that way. I assume there's always a high possibility that something extraordinary can happen at any time. After all, "He's God." Maybe they're not miracles at all, but if the outcome's good, I'm happy to have seen it.
baby's calling me home,
she keeps on callin' me home....
(boz scaggs)
[This message was edited by socks on December 22, 2003 at 22:08.]
I AGREE with a lot of what Socks said. (Bless your heart, what if it were the will of God and you DIDN'T agree??). I am in same situation.
I am a software consultant and many times each year I am faced with a dilema that I just cannot see how to best resolve. And EVERY time this occurs, usually in the middle of the night, out of a deep sleep, I awake with a vividly clear idea of how to resolve the problem. Sometimes the answer is there upon awaking in the morning. No sweat, no strain. It's just there. And usually it's so simple it is "unbelieveable".
Why does nobody, including myself, see the solution, even after days of brain storming & discussion with many very bright people??
Ex is correct also. God is pretty personal. I suppose He works in different ways with different people.
I don't have any "logical" answers. I just happen to believe He is there and involved.
I agree with Socks but I disagree with TomTuttle....
I could only think of two reasons for a miracle to take place...One would be to authenticate an individual's personal faith in God...Which,if the replies on this topic were full of first hand miracles,would still become second-hand,and would do little or nothing to validate anyone's personal faith except the individual who experienced it...
The other reason would be to fulfill some kind of "need",or "opportunity" as we affectionately called them,which always begged the question of why one is in that "opportunity" where one needed a miracle in the first place....
I was looking to compare peoples experiences in and out of TWI. When I asked about miracles in TWI, the responses were few. To be fair to TWI, it seemed reasonable to get a read on our time outside as well. So far not a big difference but the day is young.
I still SIT everyday, in various languages. We Prophecy or Interpret occasionally. Concerning WK, WW, DS; I get 'hunches', 'feelings', 'creepies', every now and again. I used to drive a full-dress bike coast-to-coast each time I surfaced, just to un-wind, and during those runs, I would sometimes 'see' obstructions in the roadway ahead of me in time to change lanes.
Once I was going West on I-20, trying to get through Arizona and into California before the sun rose. So it was 2am, my throttle was jammed full open with a hose clamp, and I had my feet on the handle-bars, when the front tire blew-out. I had only been doing 85, but it took a long ways for me to get it stopped. Anyway I was wearing leathers, and I knew I had passed Kingman a few miles back, so I started hiking back Eastward toward Kingman to find a replacement front tire. Well the sun rose and it got hot. Did I mention I was wearing leathers? and it was dessert? But there was no traffic, so I walked, and it got hotter. Thinking back now it seems dumb, but I was picturing in my mind white pants and how cool they would be, rather than these leather pants. And I was SIT'ing, and thinking they would really be cool if I had white cotton pants. Now I know this sounds like I was torturing myself, but that was what I was thinking about while I was SIT'ing and walking across that stinking hot dessert back toward Kingman. Did I say it was HOT and dry? That was when I saw a pair of white corduroy pants, FOLDED, laying on the road side. Nobody drove by while I stripped down and changed into them. They were worn and broken in and thread bare in a few places, and there was a patch of dried concrete on one hem. But I was happy, and thanking G-d, and the rest of the trip was short. Kingman had no bike shops, so I had to order a tire and tube sent via greyhound from Las Vegas, so it took another day, but I did not care and I told everyone. Much later when I married, my bride never did like those 'ugly' pants, and she threw them away, once while I was under, but that was okay. What still gets me was that they were folded.
I have seen believers shut down systems on submarines, because they did not 'feel' right. Later to find, during maintenance that the systems were ready to explode. But that the sailor had shut it down in time.
After my wedding, I was doing the husbandly things and started to do a tune-up on my wonderful new wife's car. She knew nothing about cars, and had always asked G-d to 'fix' it for her. Well this Datsun 'honey bee' had ran for years without maintenance, so I got started. To find that the Distributor rotor had arced itself down to a nub, the arm that swings around and makes contact with the posts, was missing at least 3/4 inch. It could not make contact with any post. But she had driven it for years. It could not have be driven, but she had.
In the summer of 2000, I was stationed in Naples Italy, working as a Military Police Watch-Commander. I had a section of 40 MPs working for me, doing shift-work. We were responsible for a jurisdictional area of approx 500 square miles. We responded to traffic accidents, burglaries, rapes and shootings. The Naples area has a multi-national force of over ten thousand, and the US Navy 'hosts' (provides facilities and services for them).
My section was doing nights, so we worked from 1700 (5pm) till 0600 (6am). It had been my manner that I required each patrol car to meet at 2400 (midnight) for capochino and to verify that everyone was alert. We had been meeting at "Trattoria Cafe Bar" for a couple months. The other sections did not meet anywhere, and I had started getting some grief from my superiors, about it. But I had reasoned that by paying attention to the troops, I was keeping down our own traffic accidents and repair costs (it is decidedly against Naval policy to care about subordinates). Because I had explained it in fiscal terms, I was allowed to continue to hold these meetings.
One evening, it was on my heart that we had been holding these meets at the same place for a long time, and we should change to another place. As the shift approached I got more and more un-settled about continuing to use Trattoria, and I became more convinced that we should change the place, so at the beginning of the shift I announced that we would meet as usual but then we would leave and I would show everyone a different place. At this point I already had a new place in mind. That night at 'Trattoria Cafe Bar', I had a quick capochino waiting for all my patrol cars to arrive.
One of my MPs was an 18 year old kid, who was nervous over a cute blond Albanian girl that was working the bar. I kidded him about asking her out, but he did not have the nerve to. So I told Guido the barman that one of my Militare Policia was interested in the new barmaid, he offered her to me for $1US. (fortunately she was just an employee, which I could refuse politely. When an Italian offers his wife, mother, sister, or daughter, they get very upset when you try to refuse the offer, thus the word -vendetta.) When all my Policia arrived, I met them in the parking lot, and told them where the new place was over in Guigliano, and to follow me and I would show them how to get to it. As we pulled out onto the road, the Trattoria Cafe Bar blew-up. None of my officers were hurt, but the building was a complete loss with everyone in it. (it was destroyed by a neighboring Camora family)
Now I did not know what was going to happen, but I knew to get my guys out of there. I did not know enough information to save those people that were working in the bar, neither the barman Guido, nor either of the two girls ( a blond Albanian, and a dyed-brunette Pole slave girl ). So not everyone was saved, but the people that I was responsible for, were saved.
I know that had I not been 'listening' we would have lost American lives that night. From that incident, many of my MPs did remark at how there were often 'coincidences' around me, which I explained were because of G-d.
Being only a 'created being' I certainly do not understand the Creator. Nor do I understand his motives. I am however very thankful, when He does things for me, shows me things, helps me.
Actually, when it happened to me in Naples, I had not been praying or fellowshipping much, and was kind of floating for a while. I was entirely surprized by it and it kind of got my attention, again to get back into studying the Bible.
The various things that would occur, that seemed to be a constant flow of coincidences. You were thinking about someone when they called. You thought of cooking an extra big dinner (for leftovers), when extra people came over at dinner time.
Bless you, May our Heavenly Father bless you in everyway, in the wonderful name of His son and our brother Jesus.
Galen
ET1 SS - USN Retired,
Pilgrim of the Ancient Arabic Order Nobles of the mystic shrine.
and
'University of Life' Alumni
"I live in the spirit of prayer. I pray as I walk, when I lie down, and when I rise. And the answers are always coming. Tens of thousands of times have my prayers been answered. When once I am persuaded that a thing is right, I go on praying for it. the great point is never to give up till the answer comes. The great fault of the children of God is, they do not continue in prayer, they do not persevere. If they desire anything for God's glory, they should pray until they get it." - George Mueller
I am seeing them, being blessed by them and loving it.
Simon - I am not sure I understand what you mean by:
quote: The other reason would be to fulfill some kind of "need",or "opportunity" as we affectionately called them,which always begged the question of why one is in that "opportunity" where one needed a miracle in the first place....
I am just trying to figure out if you are "blaming" people for being in a postion of needing a miracle? It hit me that way and it kinda reminded me of LOY. I know you are not like that so, I figure I am missing something here. Please explain it for the dummies like me.
"I am seeing them, being blessed by them and loving it."
"I am just trying to figure out if you are "blaming" people for being in a postion of needing a miracle?"
I wonder if we are all just:
1) the glass is half-full people, or
2) the glass is half-empty people.
To me when I am thristy the glass is full, when I am done the glass is empty and I put it away.
I watched a documentary recently about 'luck'. A university had studied 'lucky' people and 'un-lucky' people. After long questionaires and interviews with hundreds of people. They found that EVERYONE has roughly the same level of 'good' things happen to them as 'bad'. Some people consider themselves as 'lucky' so they hardly even remembered the broken bones, devorces, bankruptcys, and cancers; they focused and lived within good times. While the 'un-lucky' people focused soley on the 'bad' things so they never noticed the 'good' things as they happened.
Bonnie calls it making lemonade out of lemons. We dont allow our children to talk about 'lemons' unless they follow up with the 'lemonade'.
I think perhaps when we were reading about miracles, and reciting how and when they happened; we were focusing on them, and training ourselves to see and notice them.
Other people in denial of G-d's power and grace, insist that nothing good happened and no body ever operated spiritual power; focusing soley on how leadership when given absolute power became corrupted, like they had never heard of that one before.
As the gospels show, Jesus manifested miracles in many different forms of ministering.
he spoke to the mountain, sickness, he commanded the spirits to leave, touched a person and the spirits left, he laid on hands and prayed, he touched someone and they were healed, someone touched him and they were healed, he told someone to take an action (stretch forth your hand), go wash in the pool, he layed on hands, prayed and the complete healing didn't take place, so he laid on hands again, prayed and got results,he told people they were forgiven and they got healed,he told people if two or more agreed on any matter and asked the father, God would perform it.
Jesus didn't use just one method to perform miracles. But what he loved to see to make the connection was faith, childlike faith, and some form of action, be it words,physical movement or thoughts.
From what I can see, many of the healing ministries have a certain method, technique, way to minister healing; and what works for them at any given time is their method of operation.
It seems that B.G. Leneord was good at seeing mental pictures and using the authority of the name of Jesus Christ to manifest healings.
VPW and his brother, in the early years, used talk to the tree methods and later the laying on of hands for revelation.
Oral Roberts used his hands as a contact point in his early years with more prayer than heavy revy on the exact info of the sickness (demon problems, he asked God for the name of the spirits and what to do to get them out)
But later on in Oral's life he changed and seemed to get more results with the "If two shall agree, pray to the father, the father will do it" technique combined with laying on of hands with prayer.
Oral Roberts completely understood and taught people that there has to be some form of action to pletho (release their measure of faith) and than God performed the miracle.
In my opinion, the way would see other forms of ministering by other ministries and because the way didn't have as much interest in the gospels, which showed the different ways Jesus ministered healing, the way comdemned the very methods that Jesus used.
When we relax alittle on the epistles; and get back to the gospels (a bit) we can see how the perfect man performed miracles; and it will become easier for us to expect and see miracles in our own lives. In my opinion, we (members of the way) had tremendous knowledge of what we had (in Christ). We knew we had Christ in us, but we didn't know how to act like him, immitate him, be like him, until we SAW him in the Gospels.
My response reminded you of LOY?...SHUT THE !@%#&%$! UP!!! And excie,who told you to answer for me??? You shut the !#%*&%@! up!!
Sorry,girls...got carried away reading the TC meeting at ROA thread....
Seriously,Dot,there was a time I thought like that,back when I was 17 and getting ready to go WOW...I remember having dinner at a believer's parent's house and trying to explain to them all about believing and even telling them that I would never get sick or be in the hospital because I believed God for perfect health...A short time later my foot slipped under a lawn mower with a brand new blade and I spent a week in the hospital....I had a good slice of humble pie back then...
I don't know,it's sort of like what excie said,..I never understood the whole miracles thing...You could have two persons of faith...One never gets hurt or sick;the other does oftentimes and may get healed...I don't see how either could profess to have more faith than the other...Too many things about our health are,in my opinion,beyond our control and even our understanding...
If this board were filled with testimonies of miracle after miracle,I would enjoy reading them,but it would accomplish little in substantiating my own personal faith in God...I think of the record in the Gospels where the people on the boat awoke Jesus from a perfectly good nap because of the tempestuous storm-and he calmed the winds and the seas...I wonder why there was a storm there to begin with...unless it was to show the people on the boat a first-hand miracle of God...Jesus could have said "Let's not go out on the boat,today...Storm's a-comin'."...
Like I said,miracles have always been hard for me to figure out...It seems to me that primarily,they occur as some sort of confirmation of a person's faith....
I'm sorry for repeating this to those who have heard it before.
The year was 1976. I was in The Way Marketing Dept.
I was in a car wreck. Later, after I was on outpatient care, I asked my doctor what damage I had. He showed me a book with all the possible head fractures, and told me I had all of them, that a patient from a motorcycle accident had just been admitted with 2/3 of the damage that I'd had, and they didn't expect him to make it.
I was alive - a miracle? No, although I think there were miracles involved in the process.
I don't remember this, but I was told later that I "died" many times in the first days while totally on life support, but they brought me back (I think the number is seven times, but I'm not sure if I'm confusing that with Howard Allen's healing - anybody?). Miracles? I don't know, but I was unconscious, so I'm not an eyewitness even though it happened to me. I don't care very much whether they were official miracles or not - go figure.
One of the first things I remember after that initial time was people (doctors, parents) hounding me to give them permission to operate. They said that my life depended on it, that they had been waiting for three days for the internal bleeding to stop before they operated, decided that they had to operate anyway even though the bleeding hadn't stopped and I would probably die during the operation because I would die if they didn?t operate, but now the bleeding HAD stopped, and they needed to operate immediately if I had any reasonable chance to live. A miracle? Wait, I'm not done.
I was a stupid Wayfer; I refused to give them permission, said I wouldn't let anyone operate on me except Dr. Wiengardner. My mother - get this, my MOTHER, I don't think I would have let anyone else in this far to my heart at the moment - asked me if there was any way I would give permission for someone to operate on me other than Dr. Wiengardner. I said - loyal Wayfer that I was - that the only way I would do that is if Dr. Wierwille said that I should, and I gave them the HQ phone number that I knew by heart. Quickly, my mom came back with a message from Dr. Wierwille that said that Dr. Wiengardner didn't perform the type of operation that I needed, that I was in the care of the most qualified doctors in the entire world to perform the surgery that I needed (which I found out later was the truth as they sent in specialists from Duke University), and that I should think of the grace of God holding me up more firmly than the bed I was lying on, let them operate, and soon I would awake from the operation - awake, get it? Alive! So I gave permission and awoke alive - a miracle? Dang, this is getting hard - I had a 1-3 % chance of making it, and if I did survive the operation, I was supposed to be a vegetable. You decide if I?m what the doctors referred to as a vegetable. A miracle? Ask a vegetable.
Okay, so we're looking for miracles. Believers ministry?wide were praying 24/7. Locally, there was a young woman - we were all so young ? who hadn?t had the class yet, but had been led into tongues, who showed up at the prayer site. She asked the person she was relieving how this thing worked and what was she supposed to do. He told her to speak in tongues and get a picture of myself (and my then wife who was also in the wreck) in mind, and to picture us as whole. And if anything other than wholeness entered her mind to know that God was showing her something and to ask him to heal it.
Okay, okay, the miracle. This young woman stayed there all night, and at one point, she saw my head falling apart, realized I was dying, and asked God to put me back together and save my life, and saw my head come back together.
Meanwhile, I had taken, my percodans and another shot of morphine before supposedly sleeping, but when I realized that I wasn?t going to sleep, I decided that it would be better to speak in tongues and talk to God all night than just lie there in pain. God and I had an honest talk. I knew that my life was hanging in the balance. I didn?t know how everything got all messed up, and I didn?t want to survive just to have something like this happen again. I also didn?t think I had any chance of being anywhere near normal physically or mentally if I did survive, and I didn?t want to live out my days as a freak. But neither did I want to deny the power of God as my last conscious act on this earth only to then look Jesus in the face and be ashamed that my last act was to deny God?s power.
Sooo, I told God that if he would make me whole physically and mentally and teach me how things had gotten so screwed up and how to keep that from happening again, that I would g back and give it my best shot to walk with him again. That?s the deal we made.
Meanwhile, the heads of the marketing dept. showed at the prayer site where the young woman was still praying for us and told her they were going to the hospital to see me. She told them what she had seen, told them not to worry because God had saved my life and told them the words I would say to them when they saw me.
When these two walked into the room, I told them what she said I was going to ? something about God?s love. The second in command said that it was the most profound truth he had ever heard me say. Then people were around me explaining that they had to operate right away, the bleeding had stopped?
Years later, I found this woman at the Rock to find out if things happened that night as I remembered them and remembered being told that they had. Our stories matched perfectly. She said that after that night, she had never doubted that perfect prayer was the power of God being released. She remembered telling the two heads of the department what I would tell them, but neither of us remembered specifically what it was.
I think that meets the criteria for a miracle. JT said that it had to be undeniable or have no other possible explanation. That doesn?t exist. There is ALWAYS some other possible explanation. And your mind ALWAYS can come up with it. But after a while, when you see enough, or like this woman, it is impressive enough, you just stop doubting it.
Why didn?t God just heal me totally, immediately? I don?t know ? different reasons. How come when Jesus ministered to the blind man, he saw men as trees and wasn?t totally healed the first time? I remember the limb coordinator coming to visit. I told God I wanted him to just walk in and heal me. When he walked in , he told that he knew I wanted him to just heal me, but that wasn?t the way it was going to happen. He said that every different kind of healing would be involved in my total healing, and that afterward I would be able to minister healing to others in all these ways.
I can tell you and SimonZ that I was definitely wondering how I got into such a position to need such healing. God, who gives to all men liberally, and doesn't reproach was instant to start to answer my questions that very morning when the heads of the Marketing Dept. came in, but that's another story.
However it was part of the healing - and still is. As far as the deal with God is going, my best doesn't seem to amount to much, but allowing God to heal my life daily proves profitable in all areas of living.
ex, I was posting while you were posting. I didn't mean it to sound like you need healing, sweetheart. We all need healing in a lot of ways all the time.
I think that meets the criteria for a miracle. JT said that it had to be undeniable or have no other possible explanation. That doesn?t exist. There is ALWAYS some other possible explanation. And your mind ALWAYS can come up with it. But after a while, when you see enough, or like this woman, it is impressive enough, you just stop doubting it.
---------------------
Well said and you are correct. However, I didn't say it had to have no other explanation. It simply had to have been firsthand experience. To me, this is undeniable to a point I would consider reasonable. And what a great story! Thank you so much. Nice Christmas present for me. (As if I'm not already super blessed!)
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CoolWaters
This post was suddenly irrelevant...so it's edited...
[This message was edited by CoolWaters on January 31, 2004 at 21:22.]
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IMF777
My close friend Pat had had 3 failed cardiac stress tests at 2 different hospitals. He was in sad shape and faced the prospect of quadruple bypass surgery that he may not live through.
He went to Texas as a last attempt to save his life, and took BG Leonard's gifts of the spirit course, and was ministered to by Leonard and his wife from BG's hospital bed (he was 94?).
Pat looked alive again and a few months later had a heart catheterization performed. The surgeon had a surgical team waiting to perform an expected quadruple bypass and was quite puzzled that Pat's heart and arteries were like new.
BG Leonard during his ministering to Pat remarked that he needed a new heart and replaced the old one with a new one when he ministered to him.
This Wierwille clown I keep reading about must have been one lousy student of Leonard's, because even from a hospital bed at 94? he kicked butt.....
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excathedra
IMF777, did you know ever know this wierwille clown or his "ministry" ?
tanks
?
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IMF777
excathedra: when pat went away to the cult's training place in kansas we lost track of each other for a few years.
We ran into each other a few years ago at the new england press convention and he has been telling me bits and pieces about wierwille's delusion as I call it since.
I don't own a computer, so he let's me use his puter which he doesn't even let his wife do, so you could say we're close.
Pat suggested I read up on TWIG here at the spot to learn more.
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socks
It sounds like an honest question, JT. I'm just not sure what you're trying to find out.
If the criteria is me and only me as the first hand witness, yes, yes yes I've seen and/or experienced many, lots, quite a few, a bunch.
Last month I had a serious problem at work I was working on, a program I'm writing and I was stuck at certain points. I woke up one morning and a section of code was in my vision, right in front of me. Bingo. I knew immediately that was the problem and it proved to be so. Very much like finding a needle in a haystack. I'm very sure that was the spirit of God telling me what was wrong.
Earlier this year I was talking to a friend, someone I don't know well but see now and then. She was having a bad day and I put my hand on her shoulder. A series of events ran through my mind and I saw her in them. They turned out to be what she was dealing with. The final event was something yet to happen and I made a suggestion as to how she might handle the whole thing. It happend the way I saw it.
I can think of quite a few others over the years, including the whole period that coincided with my involvment in the Way. I don't know if they're "big" enough for what you're looking for though.
An auto accident, broken rib and internal bleeding. I was prayed for and the injuries were healed within minutes. I felt it inside as it occured.
Do they happen? As far as my own experience goes I'd have to say yes, and they're not limited by the times or circumstances. As far as my own experience goes they just happen when they do. While it may smack of old Wayfer talk, there are certain times when I know "inside" to do something or say something, or know about something and am able to participate in what's unfolding. From my standpoint, it's already happening and underway and I'm just observing it, although I guess it might appear at times when these kinds of things happen that "I'm" calling it. I'm just really not sure that's what's happening.
At times I guess those involved might call it a miracle or something of that nature. To me, it's a normal part of my faith. I don't really know why others don't, I don't really think about it that way. I assume there's always a high possibility that something extraordinary can happen at any time. After all, "He's God." Maybe they're not miracles at all, but if the outcome's good, I'm happy to have seen it.
baby's calling me home,
she keeps on callin' me home....
(boz scaggs)
[This message was edited by socks on December 22, 2003 at 22:08.]
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excathedra
well i haven't kept up on this miracle thread or the other wayfer one
the only thing i can say is.... with faith they might be real to you.... or because of them you might have faith
seems personal to me, like god
?
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tomtuttle
I AGREE with a lot of what Socks said. (Bless your heart, what if it were the will of God and you DIDN'T agree??). I am in same situation.
I am a software consultant and many times each year I am faced with a dilema that I just cannot see how to best resolve. And EVERY time this occurs, usually in the middle of the night, out of a deep sleep, I awake with a vividly clear idea of how to resolve the problem. Sometimes the answer is there upon awaking in the morning. No sweat, no strain. It's just there. And usually it's so simple it is "unbelieveable".
Why does nobody, including myself, see the solution, even after days of brain storming & discussion with many very bright people??
Ex is correct also. God is pretty personal. I suppose He works in different ways with different people.
I don't have any "logical" answers. I just happen to believe He is there and involved.
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simonzelotes
I agree with Socks but I disagree with TomTuttle....
I could only think of two reasons for a miracle to take place...One would be to authenticate an individual's personal faith in God...Which,if the replies on this topic were full of first hand miracles,would still become second-hand,and would do little or nothing to validate anyone's personal faith except the individual who experienced it...
The other reason would be to fulfill some kind of "need",or "opportunity" as we affectionately called them,which always begged the question of why one is in that "opportunity" where one needed a miracle in the first place....
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excathedra
ouch my head
goddarn faithblaster
;)-->
?
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JustThinking
Socks,
I was looking to compare peoples experiences in and out of TWI. When I asked about miracles in TWI, the responses were few. To be fair to TWI, it seemed reasonable to get a read on our time outside as well. So far not a big difference but the day is young.
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Galen
I still SIT everyday, in various languages. We Prophecy or Interpret occasionally. Concerning WK, WW, DS; I get 'hunches', 'feelings', 'creepies', every now and again. I used to drive a full-dress bike coast-to-coast each time I surfaced, just to un-wind, and during those runs, I would sometimes 'see' obstructions in the roadway ahead of me in time to change lanes.
Once I was going West on I-20, trying to get through Arizona and into California before the sun rose. So it was 2am, my throttle was jammed full open with a hose clamp, and I had my feet on the handle-bars, when the front tire blew-out. I had only been doing 85, but it took a long ways for me to get it stopped. Anyway I was wearing leathers, and I knew I had passed Kingman a few miles back, so I started hiking back Eastward toward Kingman to find a replacement front tire. Well the sun rose and it got hot. Did I mention I was wearing leathers? and it was dessert? But there was no traffic, so I walked, and it got hotter. Thinking back now it seems dumb, but I was picturing in my mind white pants and how cool they would be, rather than these leather pants. And I was SIT'ing, and thinking they would really be cool if I had white cotton pants. Now I know this sounds like I was torturing myself, but that was what I was thinking about while I was SIT'ing and walking across that stinking hot dessert back toward Kingman. Did I say it was HOT and dry? That was when I saw a pair of white corduroy pants, FOLDED, laying on the road side. Nobody drove by while I stripped down and changed into them. They were worn and broken in and thread bare in a few places, and there was a patch of dried concrete on one hem. But I was happy, and thanking G-d, and the rest of the trip was short. Kingman had no bike shops, so I had to order a tire and tube sent via greyhound from Las Vegas, so it took another day, but I did not care and I told everyone. Much later when I married, my bride never did like those 'ugly' pants, and she threw them away, once while I was under, but that was okay. What still gets me was that they were folded.
I have seen believers shut down systems on submarines, because they did not 'feel' right. Later to find, during maintenance that the systems were ready to explode. But that the sailor had shut it down in time.
After my wedding, I was doing the husbandly things and started to do a tune-up on my wonderful new wife's car. She knew nothing about cars, and had always asked G-d to 'fix' it for her. Well this Datsun 'honey bee' had ran for years without maintenance, so I got started. To find that the Distributor rotor had arced itself down to a nub, the arm that swings around and makes contact with the posts, was missing at least 3/4 inch. It could not make contact with any post. But she had driven it for years. It could not have be driven, but she had.
In the summer of 2000, I was stationed in Naples Italy, working as a Military Police Watch-Commander. I had a section of 40 MPs working for me, doing shift-work. We were responsible for a jurisdictional area of approx 500 square miles. We responded to traffic accidents, burglaries, rapes and shootings. The Naples area has a multi-national force of over ten thousand, and the US Navy 'hosts' (provides facilities and services for them).
My section was doing nights, so we worked from 1700 (5pm) till 0600 (6am). It had been my manner that I required each patrol car to meet at 2400 (midnight) for capochino and to verify that everyone was alert. We had been meeting at "Trattoria Cafe Bar" for a couple months. The other sections did not meet anywhere, and I had started getting some grief from my superiors, about it. But I had reasoned that by paying attention to the troops, I was keeping down our own traffic accidents and repair costs (it is decidedly against Naval policy to care about subordinates). Because I had explained it in fiscal terms, I was allowed to continue to hold these meetings.
One evening, it was on my heart that we had been holding these meets at the same place for a long time, and we should change to another place. As the shift approached I got more and more un-settled about continuing to use Trattoria, and I became more convinced that we should change the place, so at the beginning of the shift I announced that we would meet as usual but then we would leave and I would show everyone a different place. At this point I already had a new place in mind. That night at 'Trattoria Cafe Bar', I had a quick capochino waiting for all my patrol cars to arrive.
One of my MPs was an 18 year old kid, who was nervous over a cute blond Albanian girl that was working the bar. I kidded him about asking her out, but he did not have the nerve to. So I told Guido the barman that one of my Militare Policia was interested in the new barmaid, he offered her to me for $1US. (fortunately she was just an employee, which I could refuse politely. When an Italian offers his wife, mother, sister, or daughter, they get very upset when you try to refuse the offer, thus the word -vendetta.) When all my Policia arrived, I met them in the parking lot, and told them where the new place was over in Guigliano, and to follow me and I would show them how to get to it. As we pulled out onto the road, the Trattoria Cafe Bar blew-up. None of my officers were hurt, but the building was a complete loss with everyone in it. (it was destroyed by a neighboring Camora family)
Now I did not know what was going to happen, but I knew to get my guys out of there. I did not know enough information to save those people that were working in the bar, neither the barman Guido, nor either of the two girls ( a blond Albanian, and a dyed-brunette Pole slave girl ). So not everyone was saved, but the people that I was responsible for, were saved.
I know that had I not been 'listening' we would have lost American lives that night. From that incident, many of my MPs did remark at how there were often 'coincidences' around me, which I explained were because of G-d.
Being only a 'created being' I certainly do not understand the Creator. Nor do I understand his motives. I am however very thankful, when He does things for me, shows me things, helps me.
Actually, when it happened to me in Naples, I had not been praying or fellowshipping much, and was kind of floating for a while. I was entirely surprized by it and it kind of got my attention, again to get back into studying the Bible.
The various things that would occur, that seemed to be a constant flow of coincidences. You were thinking about someone when they called. You thought of cooking an extra big dinner (for leftovers), when extra people came over at dinner time.
Bless you, May our Heavenly Father bless you in everyway, in the wonderful name of His son and our brother Jesus.
Galen
ET1 SS - USN Retired,
Pilgrim of the Ancient Arabic Order Nobles of the mystic shrine.
and
'University of Life' Alumni
"I live in the spirit of prayer. I pray as I walk, when I lie down, and when I rise. And the answers are always coming. Tens of thousands of times have my prayers been answered. When once I am persuaded that a thing is right, I go on praying for it. the great point is never to give up till the answer comes. The great fault of the children of God is, they do not continue in prayer, they do not persevere. If they desire anything for God's glory, they should pray until they get it." - George Mueller
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Dot Matrix
Wow, too cool Galen! I love hearing about the God stuff!
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Dot Matrix
"Or are we seeing them?"
I am seeing them, being blessed by them and loving it.
Simon - I am not sure I understand what you mean by:
I am just trying to figure out if you are "blaming" people for being in a postion of needing a miracle? It hit me that way and it kinda reminded me of LOY. I know you are not like that so, I figure I am missing something here. Please explain it for the dummies like me.
Thank you
;)-->
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Galen
Dot Matrix:
"Or are we seeing them?"
"I am seeing them, being blessed by them and loving it."
"I am just trying to figure out if you are "blaming" people for being in a postion of needing a miracle?"
I wonder if we are all just:
1) the glass is half-full people, or
2) the glass is half-empty people.
To me when I am thristy the glass is full, when I am done the glass is empty and I put it away.
I watched a documentary recently about 'luck'. A university had studied 'lucky' people and 'un-lucky' people. After long questionaires and interviews with hundreds of people. They found that EVERYONE has roughly the same level of 'good' things happen to them as 'bad'. Some people consider themselves as 'lucky' so they hardly even remembered the broken bones, devorces, bankruptcys, and cancers; they focused and lived within good times. While the 'un-lucky' people focused soley on the 'bad' things so they never noticed the 'good' things as they happened.
Bonnie calls it making lemonade out of lemons. We dont allow our children to talk about 'lemons' unless they follow up with the 'lemonade'.
I think perhaps when we were reading about miracles, and reciting how and when they happened; we were focusing on them, and training ourselves to see and notice them.
Other people in denial of G-d's power and grace, insist that nothing good happened and no body ever operated spiritual power; focusing soley on how leadership when given absolute power became corrupted, like they had never heard of that one before.
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excathedra
well i don't mean to speak for simonzelotes but let me anyway
i took it as.... the kind of thing where.... if you need to be healed of a withered hand (whatever)....
why do you have that withered hand to begin with ?
kinda like betty baxter ? she was a cripple. did god love her so much to be a cripple just so she could experience meeting jesus on her birthday ?
you see what i'm saying ? i mean, what "he's"
;)--> saying ?
?
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Lightside
As the gospels show, Jesus manifested miracles in many different forms of ministering.
he spoke to the mountain, sickness, he commanded the spirits to leave, touched a person and the spirits left, he laid on hands and prayed, he touched someone and they were healed, someone touched him and they were healed, he told someone to take an action (stretch forth your hand), go wash in the pool, he layed on hands, prayed and the complete healing didn't take place, so he laid on hands again, prayed and got results,he told people they were forgiven and they got healed,he told people if two or more agreed on any matter and asked the father, God would perform it.
Jesus didn't use just one method to perform miracles. But what he loved to see to make the connection was faith, childlike faith, and some form of action, be it words,physical movement or thoughts.
From what I can see, many of the healing ministries have a certain method, technique, way to minister healing; and what works for them at any given time is their method of operation.
It seems that B.G. Leneord was good at seeing mental pictures and using the authority of the name of Jesus Christ to manifest healings.
VPW and his brother, in the early years, used talk to the tree methods and later the laying on of hands for revelation.
Oral Roberts used his hands as a contact point in his early years with more prayer than heavy revy on the exact info of the sickness (demon problems, he asked God for the name of the spirits and what to do to get them out)
But later on in Oral's life he changed and seemed to get more results with the "If two shall agree, pray to the father, the father will do it" technique combined with laying on of hands with prayer.
Oral Roberts completely understood and taught people that there has to be some form of action to pletho (release their measure of faith) and than God performed the miracle.
In my opinion, the way would see other forms of ministering by other ministries and because the way didn't have as much interest in the gospels, which showed the different ways Jesus ministered healing, the way comdemned the very methods that Jesus used.
When we relax alittle on the epistles; and get back to the gospels (a bit) we can see how the perfect man performed miracles; and it will become easier for us to expect and see miracles in our own lives. In my opinion, we (members of the way) had tremendous knowledge of what we had (in Christ). We knew we had Christ in us, but we didn't know how to act like him, immitate him, be like him, until we SAW him in the Gospels.
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simonzelotes
Dot....
My response reminded you of LOY?...SHUT THE !@%#&%$! UP!!! And excie,who told you to answer for me??? You shut the !#%*&%@! up!!
Sorry,girls...got carried away reading the TC meeting at ROA thread....
Seriously,Dot,there was a time I thought like that,back when I was 17 and getting ready to go WOW...I remember having dinner at a believer's parent's house and trying to explain to them all about believing and even telling them that I would never get sick or be in the hospital because I believed God for perfect health...A short time later my foot slipped under a lawn mower with a brand new blade and I spent a week in the hospital....I had a good slice of humble pie back then...
I don't know,it's sort of like what excie said,..I never understood the whole miracles thing...You could have two persons of faith...One never gets hurt or sick;the other does oftentimes and may get healed...I don't see how either could profess to have more faith than the other...Too many things about our health are,in my opinion,beyond our control and even our understanding...
If this board were filled with testimonies of miracle after miracle,I would enjoy reading them,but it would accomplish little in substantiating my own personal faith in God...I think of the record in the Gospels where the people on the boat awoke Jesus from a perfectly good nap because of the tempestuous storm-and he calmed the winds and the seas...I wonder why there was a storm there to begin with...unless it was to show the people on the boat a first-hand miracle of God...Jesus could have said "Let's not go out on the boat,today...Storm's a-comin'."...
Like I said,miracles have always been hard for me to figure out...It seems to me that primarily,they occur as some sort of confirmation of a person's faith....
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Tom
I'm sorry for repeating this to those who have heard it before.
The year was 1976. I was in The Way Marketing Dept.
I was in a car wreck. Later, after I was on outpatient care, I asked my doctor what damage I had. He showed me a book with all the possible head fractures, and told me I had all of them, that a patient from a motorcycle accident had just been admitted with 2/3 of the damage that I'd had, and they didn't expect him to make it.
I was alive - a miracle? No, although I think there were miracles involved in the process.
I don't remember this, but I was told later that I "died" many times in the first days while totally on life support, but they brought me back (I think the number is seven times, but I'm not sure if I'm confusing that with Howard Allen's healing - anybody?). Miracles? I don't know, but I was unconscious, so I'm not an eyewitness even though it happened to me. I don't care very much whether they were official miracles or not - go figure.
One of the first things I remember after that initial time was people (doctors, parents) hounding me to give them permission to operate. They said that my life depended on it, that they had been waiting for three days for the internal bleeding to stop before they operated, decided that they had to operate anyway even though the bleeding hadn't stopped and I would probably die during the operation because I would die if they didn?t operate, but now the bleeding HAD stopped, and they needed to operate immediately if I had any reasonable chance to live. A miracle? Wait, I'm not done.
I was a stupid Wayfer; I refused to give them permission, said I wouldn't let anyone operate on me except Dr. Wiengardner. My mother - get this, my MOTHER, I don't think I would have let anyone else in this far to my heart at the moment - asked me if there was any way I would give permission for someone to operate on me other than Dr. Wiengardner. I said - loyal Wayfer that I was - that the only way I would do that is if Dr. Wierwille said that I should, and I gave them the HQ phone number that I knew by heart. Quickly, my mom came back with a message from Dr. Wierwille that said that Dr. Wiengardner didn't perform the type of operation that I needed, that I was in the care of the most qualified doctors in the entire world to perform the surgery that I needed (which I found out later was the truth as they sent in specialists from Duke University), and that I should think of the grace of God holding me up more firmly than the bed I was lying on, let them operate, and soon I would awake from the operation - awake, get it? Alive! So I gave permission and awoke alive - a miracle? Dang, this is getting hard - I had a 1-3 % chance of making it, and if I did survive the operation, I was supposed to be a vegetable. You decide if I?m what the doctors referred to as a vegetable. A miracle? Ask a vegetable.
Okay, so we're looking for miracles. Believers ministry?wide were praying 24/7. Locally, there was a young woman - we were all so young ? who hadn?t had the class yet, but had been led into tongues, who showed up at the prayer site. She asked the person she was relieving how this thing worked and what was she supposed to do. He told her to speak in tongues and get a picture of myself (and my then wife who was also in the wreck) in mind, and to picture us as whole. And if anything other than wholeness entered her mind to know that God was showing her something and to ask him to heal it.
Okay, okay, the miracle. This young woman stayed there all night, and at one point, she saw my head falling apart, realized I was dying, and asked God to put me back together and save my life, and saw my head come back together.
Meanwhile, I had taken, my percodans and another shot of morphine before supposedly sleeping, but when I realized that I wasn?t going to sleep, I decided that it would be better to speak in tongues and talk to God all night than just lie there in pain. God and I had an honest talk. I knew that my life was hanging in the balance. I didn?t know how everything got all messed up, and I didn?t want to survive just to have something like this happen again. I also didn?t think I had any chance of being anywhere near normal physically or mentally if I did survive, and I didn?t want to live out my days as a freak. But neither did I want to deny the power of God as my last conscious act on this earth only to then look Jesus in the face and be ashamed that my last act was to deny God?s power.
Sooo, I told God that if he would make me whole physically and mentally and teach me how things had gotten so screwed up and how to keep that from happening again, that I would g back and give it my best shot to walk with him again. That?s the deal we made.
Meanwhile, the heads of the marketing dept. showed at the prayer site where the young woman was still praying for us and told her they were going to the hospital to see me. She told them what she had seen, told them not to worry because God had saved my life and told them the words I would say to them when they saw me.
When these two walked into the room, I told them what she said I was going to ? something about God?s love. The second in command said that it was the most profound truth he had ever heard me say. Then people were around me explaining that they had to operate right away, the bleeding had stopped?
Years later, I found this woman at the Rock to find out if things happened that night as I remembered them and remembered being told that they had. Our stories matched perfectly. She said that after that night, she had never doubted that perfect prayer was the power of God being released. She remembered telling the two heads of the department what I would tell them, but neither of us remembered specifically what it was.
I think that meets the criteria for a miracle. JT said that it had to be undeniable or have no other possible explanation. That doesn?t exist. There is ALWAYS some other possible explanation. And your mind ALWAYS can come up with it. But after a while, when you see enough, or like this woman, it is impressive enough, you just stop doubting it.
Why didn?t God just heal me totally, immediately? I don?t know ? different reasons. How come when Jesus ministered to the blind man, he saw men as trees and wasn?t totally healed the first time? I remember the limb coordinator coming to visit. I told God I wanted him to just walk in and heal me. When he walked in , he told that he knew I wanted him to just heal me, but that wasn?t the way it was going to happen. He said that every different kind of healing would be involved in my total healing, and that afterward I would be able to minister healing to others in all these ways.
Tom
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excathedra
you could repeat it a million times and i would still love hearing about it, litwin
?
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Tom
I can tell you and SimonZ that I was definitely wondering how I got into such a position to need such healing. God, who gives to all men liberally, and doesn't reproach was instant to start to answer my questions that very morning when the heads of the Marketing Dept. came in, but that's another story.
However it was part of the healing - and still is. As far as the deal with God is going, my best doesn't seem to amount to much, but allowing God to heal my life daily proves profitable in all areas of living.
Wherever God is, healing is going on.
Allow God to heal you.
Tom
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Tom
ex, I was posting while you were posting. I didn't mean it to sound like you need healing, sweetheart. We all need healing in a lot of ways all the time.
Tom
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excathedra
i knew that tom
but thank you
love, ex
?
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JustThinking
Tom,
Quote:
---------------------
I think that meets the criteria for a miracle. JT said that it had to be undeniable or have no other possible explanation. That doesn?t exist. There is ALWAYS some other possible explanation. And your mind ALWAYS can come up with it. But after a while, when you see enough, or like this woman, it is impressive enough, you just stop doubting it.
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Well said and you are correct. However, I didn't say it had to have no other explanation. It simply had to have been firsthand experience. To me, this is undeniable to a point I would consider reasonable. And what a great story! Thank you so much. Nice Christmas present for me. (As if I'm not already super blessed!)
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krys
Thomas Heller - your life and your words are often a reflection of Him to me on these boards. He knew what he was doing!
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