Exceptions
Personal experiences are
often considered suspicious, except by the one who experienced them. These two
experiences, my wife's and my own, are offered in the desire to illustrate a
point. If you don't accept or believe them, go with God.
I
want THIS but I don't want THAT!
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My wife was brought up in a somewhat religiously diverse
family. Her father was a non-practicing Catholic. Her mother attended Mormon
and Pentecostal churches at the same time. My wife attended a school which was
Congregational by doctrine and another which was Episcopalian. She, however,
had one desire: To know God.
She had absolutely NO desire to be involved with the infilling with the
Holy Spirit. What she had witnessed - the noise, the confusion, the EMOTION -
was not to her taste. She had been prayed on, prayed over and spent many
hours at various altars while various people tried to help her to "hang
on and let go". She wanted none of it. One evening a group of women from the church were on their way to a Bible study
meeting. The pastor was driving the church's Volkswagen van. My wife was
sitting in the back, quietly praising God. They were traveling on one of the
many lava/coral covered dirt roads in the rural areas of the Suddenly, my wife began to speak in tongues. It had never happened before.
She didn't want it. But there it was. As soon as she spoke, the pastor slammed on the van's brakes. When the van
stopped, they heard a loud bang from outside. The pastor said "Praise
the Lord!" and told everyone that it had been a message in tongues
and the Holy Spirit had given him the interpretation. The interpretation was "Stop
the van immediately!" As soon as he had stopped, the left rear tire
blew out! As soon as everyone got their breath back they prayed and thanked
the Lord. On that narrow road, covered with lava/coral which tends to get
somewhat slippery at best, traveling at that speed they could have left the
road and overturned, possibly causing serious or fatal injuries. |
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The women then began asking each other "who gave the message".
When it finally narrowed down to my wife, she was more surprised then anyone.
Now, I can hear the question: "She didn't WANT it! See?! The Holy
Spirit took over and MADE her do it!" Here's my response, after a few years of study and prayer. My wife wanted
as much of God as she could get. She wasn't looking for an experience but a
relationship. God wanted to give her as much of Himself
as she could contain. That relationship and her attitude of wanting whatever
God had for her, allowed the Holy Spirit to use her in that way without a
struggle. She was willing and available. She has since developed a beautiful prayer language in tongues. The
language in tongues the Holy Spirit gave her for messages is different. My
wife had given a message in tongues a few years back and the Holy Spirit had
given me the interpretation. After the service a lady came and introduced
herself. She asked my wife (who is Hawaiian/Chinese/German) if she knew Chinese? My wife said, "No, not really. My grandfather was Chinese but I
never learned the language. Just a few simple words." This lady said, "I have a Ph.D. in ancient Chinese languages. You
were speaking fluently in a 4000-year-old Chinese dialect. I know now it was
God because the translation was absolutely correct." She later
received the infilling with the Holy Spirit. |
When it comes to the
manifestations of the "gifts" of the Holy Spirit, what He needs and
desires more than anything else is WILLING AVAILABILITY.
Which
came first: The Chicken or the Egg?
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I grew up in the
Assemblies of God. My father was a pastor all of my young life. Until the age of 15, I spent more
of my life in church than I did in school or at home. I
was very familiar with the moving of the Holy Spirit. I knew all about the
"gifts", had seen them all in operation at one time or another,
including healings and miracles. I had been first saved at the age of seven
and had been seeking the infilling with the Holy Spirit ever since with no
success. I tarried…tarried…tarried. Nothing happened! When I came back to the Lord in 1963, at the age of 26, I had been far,
far away. He took me back in a moment. During the next year I was amazed at
what God was doing in and through me. The Holy Spirit used me to give
prophetic messages, interpret messages in tongues. To my amazement, He even
used me to interpret dreams and visions. At one time, He attempted to use me
in the gifts of healings but…well, that's another story. During that time I had married my wife. I would complain to her over and
over. "God is using me in these manifestations but I'm not filled
with the Spirit. I haven't spoken in tongues!" She kept trying to
convince me I WAS filled with the Spirit but I couldn't accept it because I
HAD NOT SPOKEN IN TONGUES. It was five years later before I finally humbled myself enough to speak the phrase in an unknown language that had been going through my head every time I had prayed. I knew what it meant, "Glory to the Father, the Son and the Holy Spirit". My problem was very simple: I knew that I could have "faked" tongues and done so convincingly enough to fool 99% of people in any congregation you would want to put together. I was deathly afraid of mimicking the Holy Spirit. So, I had a checklist for God to go by when He gave me
tongues. I wanted certain things to take place so that I would never have to
doubt that it was God and not the flesh (me). |
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I forgot, you see, that God has a marvelous and perfectly-developed (what else? He's God!) sense of humor. After five years of struggling with this dilemma,
I finally got serious with God and asked Him "why?" I knew the prophecies and
interpretations I was experiencing were of God. Once you have yielded to the
Holy Spirit in the manifestation of a gift you know when it is you and when
it is Him. During prayer after a young people's service one evening, I said, "Lord,
I'm going to speak this phrase I believe you have been putting into my mind
for these last few years. If it is of you, then bless me. If not, then shut
me up!" I spoke the phrase. At first there was no real reaction, just a mild sense
of foolishness and apprehension. Then I said it again, and again, and again.
Don't get me wrong. I was not babbling or speaking so fast my tongue got twisted. I said it calmly and thoughtfully.
Before long, I was totally unaware of anything around me. I was enraptured with the knowledge that I was closer to God than I
had been for a long time and, on a mental level, relieved that He had not
stricken me mute or something. God's sense of humor? When I asked Him "why" He had dealt
with me in this way, His answer was, "You are stubborn so you are
going to walk with me simply and totally by faith." That's why I can say that although the normative experience is to
speak in tongues WHEN you first receive the infilling with the Holy Spirit,
there are exceptions. I was filled with the Holy Spirit at least 5 years
before I would allow myself to speak in tongues. |
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