Hey, Monster.
(I'm not yelling at you, that's how they say "Hi" down here. When I first moved down and walked into a room they'd say, "Hey!" I'd think, "Hey, what? What did I do?" It didn't take long to realize it's their weird way of saying hello. And now it appears it comes naturally for me.)
Anyway, I ran out of time earlier today and then I wasted an hour and half going to prayer meeting tonight. >
I don't have a lot of time because I have an interview in the morning, so rather than reply to your rather lengthy post, I wanted to address a couple of trends I see in your posts.
In this thread you often have said "that's not impossible" in response to the stories I've related and I have gone right over it to address points you've made.
I never said they were impossible, I said they are highly improbable.
I'm not claiming miracles here. Just that there has to come a time when the highly improbable happens time after time after time it means there's more going on than mathematical calculations can explain. Yes, highly improbably things happen to people, but not including hearing a specific direction to
do something which then makes the highly improbable thing happen. Or story after story where there were direct answers to prayer
when they were needed,
where they were needed, by
whom they were needed, in the
way that was needed.
The other thing I've noticed is you bring up the God of the Old Testament as opposed to the God of the New Testament. Analogies always break down at some point, so just take the overall comparison that I'm about to make.
You've heard of King Arthur. Real, imagined, or somewhere in between, he was a kind, caring, beneficent king who did his best to make Camelot a great place for everyone to live. The inhabitants loved living there because they had no doubt that although King Arthur led with a firm hand, he would do the right thing for them and the kingdom as a whole. So King Arthur was a great king and wonderful man, right? Not if you were a Saxon.
In your mind he would have been an evil, treacherous man who killed your brothers and friends. How dare he kill us for invading his land? How can these people be so deluded into thinking he's a man worth following and fighting for?
So you get the correlation. King Arthur was both a loving king and a horrible man. It depends on your point of view. I am inside of God's kingdom and see Him as the people of Camelot did Arthur. You are outside of the kingdom and see Him completely differently. He is the same God both Old and New Testament, it's the viewpoint that causes the conflict of who He is.
One of the biggest myths in society today is that "we are all God's children." No, we are not. Some are in the kingdom and the remainder are outside of it. There is no middle ground. God goes so far as to say, Matthew 12:30
"He who is not with me is against me, and he who does not gather with me scatters."
As mentioned earlier in this thread, we are all born outside of the kingdom (or, in other words, not
with Him), but all it takes is a decision to let Him be king just as the people of Camelot let Arthur be their king. And the great thing is, just as an outsider could be welcomed into the kingdom if he were carrying a shovel to work with the people rather than a sword to kill them, people today can enter the Kingdom if they enter with an open heart to allow God to work in their lives rather than a hard heart that says I don't like what you do.
Man, I went way too long. Gotta get in bed.
