Onward, Forward, Toward…

I was amazed at the private responses I received from this post along with the hits that came (thanks again especially to Michael Spencer and the Boars Head Tavern) from various sites that had provided a link to the article. Many things I stated about the movies, rock and roll music, television, etc. minor and major purchases, etc. were resonated over again.

More importantly, I was both shocked and very compassionate at the same time when many of the private responders told their stories and I believe every one of them to be true from:

Even though I was sick with the flu or had to go on a business trip and be at a client at 8 AM Monday morning, I still went to church because every time I missed a Sunday, I had bad weeks from no sales, my kids falling off their bicycles and breaking their arms, my car broke down, the air conditioner died and I attributed those failures as me bring them on myself for missing church.

(A similar story above was told but referenced more to making sure the tithe was immediately paid the Sunday after payday or bad things happened. This person mentioned a job layoff that they blamed for not paying his tithes on time.)

I used to work for a Christian company and the boss never told anyone when he was out of town on business trips because he claimed everytime he told his plans in advance, the car broke down, the flights got cancelled, the rental car company ran out of rental cars, the hotel lost his reservations, etc. He was convinced that when he told his plans that it gave Satan the opportunity to set up the roadblocks.

A church I once attended had the ‘warfare team’ that discerned everyone that went inside the church. There was this ‘conspiracy’ mentality that everyone had the potential to bring in the evil spirits that would hinder us and they had to stop them.

Even though I am saved, filled with the Holy Spirit, baptised in water, etc, I still find myself ‘re-repenting’ and going back through my life repenting for stuff I did when I was eight in fear of missing the rapture. I even started to repent at one time for getting math problems and true/false tests at school wrong because being wrong meant I made a mistake or believed a lie which I had equated to sin which I equated as cutting me off from God equated to the possibility of missing the rapture.

When unsuspecting loud noises, bright flashes of light appeared, or I was the only one at church and everyone else was late for a meeting, I had to call a fellow church member to ‘ensure myself’ that I did not miss the rapture.

There was this one lady that would interrupt service and claim that ‘the enemy’ was attacking the service. She was so creepy that it nauseated me. When the prayer would take place, I would sit in anxiety and shake so hard inside fearing that she was going to call me out as ‘the culprit’. I did not leave the service either because then they would say that I was ‘the culprit’ and that was evil leaving the church service.

Birth defects were contributed to ’secret sin’ of the parents/ancestors and God’s wrath on them.

It was “us” (the church) against ‘them’ (the world).

It was “us” (our church) against ‘them’ (the world and other churches not affiliated) which we explained away as the great sellouts.

You better get your act in order or you will miss out on ‘the great last revival’ to hit planet earth.

I felt as if I had to be ‘perfect’ and every mistake I made caused me go to a private place somewhere and pray for forgiveness as quickly as possible to avoid ‘missing the rapture’.

I bought a new furniture suite for my bedroom and the next day the company I worked for burned down and I blamed myself either for making God mad at me to where he punished my employer for me buying the furniture or that I ‘lacked faith’ and ‘did not have enough discernment or prophetic giftings” to be able at that time to decide not to buy the furniture because the company would burn down and never recover and caused my credit rating to be poor for seven years because I was late paying it off due to a lack of funds.

There are more. I feel for you and I am praying for you.