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The Gospels
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 Should Have Been More Careful Have you ever had a friend who has come to Christ after a crisis who has all sorts of trouble despite good advice, teaching and your many prayers - but still doesn't receive the help and direct action from God YOU ask for? Have you confronted God in such a situation and demanded action you know you are entitled to ask for but it still doesn't happen? Ever find out why? My good friend (who shall remain nameless, but referred to as "she" "her" or "groan!" more often than not.) moved into her own home and started to notice that various things, pots, pictures would move on their own. Things started to escalate after she had seen a strange person in her bathroom - even felt the warm water in the bath, though no one could possibly have entered her home. After leaving and coming back, the bath was empty, no stranger, no water. Then, everything in her flat started to make her uncomfortable - the TV would turn itself on on its own, things would bump and fall off counters. She began to get more and more anxious, even leaving her home for days to escape the atmosphere. She was a nearly new churchgoer and had asked some members of her church for help. They prayed with her in her home, even witnessing some of the phenomena, but the problems continued. I had prayed with her too when she had come to visit after several days when she seemed worn down and at a particularly low ebb after several days of trouble. I had hoped my prayers would help - in fact, they didn't. The problems continued and even I began to feel that somehow the prayers were missing the point - even though they were direct and to the point. Despite my friend repeatedly being prayed for in church and asking God herself for help nothing seemed to work. Because she was fairly new to Christianity she began to question whether there really was a loving God out there. For many weeks she based her rationale of God's existence on the idea that if there was a devil, there must also be a God. I know this to be a very distressing idea and certainly not the healthiest foundation for belief. So, when she came to visit one weekend we talked about what kind of prayer the Christians she went to church with had supported her requests. She told me that they had prayed for the blood of Christ to cover her flat. With the truth that God would avert his eyes from the problem as he would anything else he hated (like watching Jesus die every subsequent time he was asked to help) - The problem never got solved. I do not believe God would deliberately look away, but insistence is the drive of prayer and the agreement amongst themselves as Christians would push God into an act like this - as much as they should learn their mistakes at my friends expense. When I heard this, I wrote a letter to my friend's pastor which she told me was well received, and after being able to effectively pray for her and ask God to remove the blood covering from her home after a couple of months my friend had told me things had begun to get better and not so disturbing. I still keep regular prayers for her situation but as things stand the problem is not completely solved. My friend and I discussed the proper use of Jesus' blood and she will not make the same mistake again herself. That disturbances have continued and has recently been prayed over by myself after I realised that although the problem had lessened, whatever factor, demonic or otherwise was the cause had not been fixed. I believe that if a demon was the cause of this, either in this circumstance or a former the idea that "demons hate the blood of Christ" (Obviously) had been used in prayer to lead God to look away from the cause - by covering the demon. As this has (at time of writing) only recently been deprecated by prayer, time will tell. It can be a dangerous thing to not have your pleas for help answered. My friend had no history of any mental illness and showed no signs of mania or psychosis, and no depression. She was a healthy perhaps overly forthright individual and only after months of this has she shown signs of stress and sleeplessness. This was not an effect of illness but the cause of it, if any. It can be a very poorly judged event for Christians to engage in the practice of "spiritual warfare" when they have little or no discernment themselves. Of course they can tell something is not an act of grace - who couldn't? The majority of websites on the subject talk about the blood of Christ as if it comes in paint cans - and others teach openly of shutting demons in a container of Christ's blood before commanding it to obey and leave. (sites such as demonbuster.com) What about the next victim? If God will not see the demon after it is in the box, what about where it goes next? Most organised churches in England only use specially trained individuals to engage in exorcism. Perhaps a lesson could be learned by the far out fringe crowd that even though most are prepared to wrestle for God, most are not successful. |
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