melanie wrote:I get what Audie is saying.....
I've felt the same as far as these so called miraculous healings go.
I've seen first hand Pentecostal healings and they were a farce. Nobody with any significant illnesses were cured. I visited with my nan who was in a wheelchair after suffering 2 strokes and whilst minor things were apparently 'healed' those with the most significant ailments went home as sick and crippled as before.
If anyone had the power of healing physically in the manner we claim then I personally would be in the paediatric cancer clinic.
Healing the most innocent and deserving.
I still believe in miracles but not in the realm of growing back limbs but in healing hearts. Restoring worth and connecting spirits.
Do I think it's possible for miraculous physical healing.... Sure
But not on a stage show, not in the manner we seem to need.
It seems like we require a water into wine, a walking on water, healing of the blind to justify, maintain, justify or secure faith.
It doesn't work like that.
The biggest miracle that we have, that previously wasn't around pre Jesus is what's written on our hearts.
In the Old Testament Moses needed personal revelation from God.
Man connecting to God.
Then Jesus came and rocked our world, it was God connecting to man.
Now we live in an era where the Holy Spirit resides in us.
God living within.
God isn't our miracle puppet.
We think if He would just do some spectacular stuff, enough times, too enough people, to satisfy our clinical nature without question, on camera, at the right time, to the right audience then all the answers would be answered.
I think we already know that wouldn't be enough...
ohhh but just grow a limb....
If there is a God blow our collective minds!!!
Perhaps we are blown away everyday but we are so caught up we don't see it.
I find it everyday with my kids who are immature and impulsive and need external stimuli. They know I love them ridiculously but they prod me everyday for reassurance. I want this... Read to me, watch me dance, show me love, give me appreciation, show me appreciation, come to my soccer game, coach my AFL , be on canteen ect.
So I do,
I don't fix every wrong, I don't prevent every injury, I can't be there every second, I don't and can't pander to their every whim, I can't make sure everything is perfect and I wouldn't even if I could.
I am there 100% but they need to learn. To fail, to work it our for themselves.
The most loving thing I can do is let them grow......
To not fix everything
To step back back.
The hardest lesson I have learnt is to back off...
Because it benefits them in the long run.
As a parent if I could take away every hurdle even the most traumatic before they could experience it, then I robbing them.
Of evolving , of growing into who they are meant to be.
Life isn't designed to be one miraculous turn after another
It's for our benefit to learn and grow.
Each hurdle, every sorrow and all life experience.
God isn't robbing us, He is enriching us...
I do tend to think that such god as there may be couldnt help but be smart enough to know how to convince people he is real. The problem is not in skepticism, but in a lack of demonstration.
And that is ok. Why should he dance for us?
Regarding the Pentacostal etc stage healings, it is really a shame.
It is a fraud.
Now, I dont actually care one way or the other if people are or become Christians.
Looking at it from the outside, tho, if one sees that the sort of people who are convinced by the bible also are convinced by ads for copper bracelets to cure arthritis, tales of Nessie
and the latest discovery of Noahs ark, it tends not to give a good impression, it makes anything the person says suspect.