CONNECT/HOOK

My life has been strange, intense, and apart from isolated infrequent bursts of clarity, utterly incomprehensible. I got lost in many philosophies, ideologies and superstitious practices during my youth. I was not raised to believe in God or the Bible and was ready and willing to investigate anything—except Christianity. Attempts to discover the meaning of my existence failed miserably and at age twenty-three, after much rebellion and intentional disordering of the senses, my life imploded. That is a different story and my testimony. God had mercy on me and intervened.

When I got saved in 1987, Christianity was a total unknown. I was a babe in the woods with no discernment. Having never heard of Pentecostalism, let alone being capable of differentiating Roman Catholics from Evangelicals from Jehovah’s Witnesses, I had no grasp of even basic Church doctrine; and so I fell in with Word of Faith charismatics. Right away, I was given Kenneth Hagin books. We watched Tulsa okie preachers on VCR tapes at bible study. We were taught to “earnestly desire” the baptism of the Holy Spirit. As a new Christian, I was vulnerable to charlatans, heretics and self-appointed sociopathic Name-it-and-Claim-it ‘apostles’. A certain evangelist visited my charismatic church, promising to lay hands on those who desired the baptism of the Holy Spirit. He told us his testimony. He pretended to box with Satan. He did a little dance on the devil’s head. He indulged in folksy antics as he regurgitated Tulsa OK-style charismaniac ideas. When I went forward to “receive the anointing” he tried to push me over. I resented this and resisted.

(I have been in many “receiving lines” of this sort. Often, I truly wanted to experience the power of God’s Spirit, and followed the altar call, standing with the others as the Benny Hinn-wannabe of the moment walked down the line.) I prayed silently, inwardly:

Lord, I want all you have for me. If you “slay me in the spirit”, I don’t mind. But I refuse to fake it and be a pushover…

Several times I was the one pin left standing as they went down before and after me… go figure. Charismaniacs and Pentecostals love this stuff. They fall and twitch before they have even had the hands laid on. Churchy helpers move in to cover the exposed legs of females with a blanket or shawl as they flop to the floor. I recall a lot of confusion over this “infilling of the Holy Spirit” thing at the time. I was not sure: had I been sealed with the Spirit when I was born-again? Did I have a minimal amount but needed more in me? Perhaps I was saved but did not posesss the Spirit because I did not speak in tongues… maybe you have to ask for it after you come to faith in Christ. As a newly-converted Christian, I was perturbed.

Eventually I began to babble in meaningless syllables as part of my prayer practice. I had been prepared for this through recorded VCR messages by Larry Lea and others. Pentecostal “ministers” of that type taught that a Christian should pray in tongues to short circuit your carnal mind, while praising and worshiping God; then after this torrent of prayerful praise, still your soul and wait on God to tell you what scriptures to read. The idea here was that having “Built up your inner man” with fervent prayer for a period, in the ensuing calm God’s Spirit would highlight an “anointed word” just for you in your present circumstances.

I was determined to receive that rhema word, praise Jesus. I had made a prayer room in an attic space of the house I lived in then, to which I now repaired with my Bible. I just KNEW the Lord was going to reveal an anointed word that would speak to my exact life circumstances and guide me into total Christian empowerment. I was ready.

I knelt down and began to shandara-baba-kila-ramalanda with fervency. As I earnestly babbled, I remembered that the prayer guru had emphasized praying in tongues for at least 15 minutes straight. I may have checked the time once or twice. I probably worked my glossolalia beyond the prescribed fifteen minutes… Then, I settled into a prayerful and expectant stillness, waiting for God to drop a specific chapter and verse into my mind. I attempted to quiet my soul even more. And then, I thought I sensed a silent whisper, an unspoken thought-impulse in the silence:

Romans… The Book of Romans…

Could it be? Yes. The Lord is indicating Paul’s epistle to the Romans. I sensed it very clearly.

But which chapter and verse? Then another thought impulse was brought to my mind:

Romans 17:12. . .

That’s it! The Lord has given me a rhema word! I grabbed the book, flipping fervently through Luke, John, Acts… there it is: Romans.

I turned the pages, chapter by chapter, thinking: “it must be near the end of the Epistle… chapter 17, verse 12, getting closer..OK here we go, chapter 15, now into chapter 16 and — ”