I have something to share in response to Treebeard’s story. Something very similar happened to me, except in my case, I wanted to marry my boyfriend of two years, and he was all for it. External circumstances however, worked against us in every way possible. Once we made arrangements to get married in a church in my hometown where a close friend of mine worked, and the wedding had to be canceled at the last minute, because the church had been robbed. A Communion chalice was stolen among other things. This is just one example of things that got in the way of him moving to my town, finding a job there, and us getting married. It took me a great deal of effort to work through every single obstacle, we’ve been married 17 years and have two amazing kids. We do NOT however have a good marriage. I think that we shortchanged ourselves, and that we both would’ve been better off with other people or alone. I think we made a mistake when we pushed with all our energy against the circumstances… I think maybe they were not merely circumstances, if you know what I mean. What’s done is done, and we have to stick with the choice we made, but I want to warn young men and women facing the same choice today. It is so easy to confuse your own infatuation with God’s will. Of course I could be a mile off on this one. Who knows? One thing for sure, Treebeard should consider himself very lucky.

“A Still, Small voice” by Fr. Benedict Groeschel

For,maybe, a deeper sense of ‘me’…I spill my guts daily at internetelias.wordpress.com (internet elias).

In my own life, I’ve certainly had experiences that I think were from God (nothing dramatic). To me, it seems that the best way to accept them is with gratitude coupled with a certain amount of honest detachment. If an amazing coincidence happens to me, my prayer tends — or at least aims –to be, “God, if this was You, thank You. If it wasn’t, I’m still grateful.”

I want you to understand that I am not unsympathetic here.

I’ve had two experiences in my life where I believe God was speaking to me in an audible thought process. Not a vision or a “voice,” but a conversation that used my own mind’s sentence construction ability to “speak.”

One of these experiences continues on a regular basis. But here’s the difference.

1) I really never talk about this. I mean, I have talked about it, but I will go months without talking about it.

2) Both experiences are intensely personal, and have to do with my most personal decisions.

3) Neither are even remotely in the context of God talking to me about anyone else but himself and me.

4) What God says about himself simply extracts and summarizes what I already know in a more personal form.

5) God doesn’t answer most of my questions with anything more than “trust me.”

6) Were I- and I am speaking for me here- to claim that I was receiving messages or visions, I’d really feel like I was lying. It’s simply a dimension of prayer.

7) The second experience is directly related to reading “The Shack,” i.e. the idea of a dynamic conversation with God rather than simply prayer to God.

thanks for talking

ms

Concerning the 12th chapter 11 Corinthians: I see what you are referring to. There is no encounter that can more successfully reveal man’s weaknesses above that of encountering the Christ.

How can a vision that is Jesus speaking not be as authoritative as scripture?

peace

ms