By the time I was fourteen years old I had heard enough about bizarre experiences from my occult (New Age-like) mother and stepfather. I had observed them to be spiritually empty people, growing more and more mentally unstable as they delved more and more into their spiritual experiences. They clung to supernatural experiences as if they were an addictive drug, while at the same time they denied more obvious realities. Irrational at times, they also lacked discernment, calling every experience “good” regardless of its content or effect.
So once I got away from it all, why would I want spiritual experiences? I did not. Yet if you were to read my testimony written some years ago, you would find that a vision and a dream were in part responsible for my salvation.
Of course, I was worried that psychic experiences might return. For me ‘psychic’ abilities had become a rather painful prospect. The more I had explored them as a nonChristian the more I found myself full of fear and loathing. So I talked to some Christian friends about this but most of the time they had no specific advise for me. Because it was the 1970’s at the time, and my family and my situation were unique, and I understood that. However, one of our unofficial Christian elders gave me a small book by Watchman Nee entitled, "The Latent Power of The Soul," and this was extremely helpful.
As I prayed and studied the scriptures, I decided a general attitude of surrender was in order. After all, the Lord says, “my ways are higher than yours.” Therefore my first prayer about this subject was just to tell God that I would not fight what He decided. The Lord is the giver of gifts and I would be happy with whatever He gave or whatever He did not give. Since then, I have discovered that God can be rather generous with visions or dreams and other ‘supernatural’ experiences, regardless of any such obvious need, and even if they are rather unexpected or unwanted by ourselves.
I was involved in two different fellowships when I was young. The first fellowship was a place of growth and of spiritual life, and the second became a source of great pain and spiritual death. There is much I could say about that but suffice it to say that a place where the ministry of death reigns is not worth the cost. Indeed, the ‘fruit’ between the two types of fellowships are vastly different. When faced with a place of spiritual death and over-control, it is better for young adults to simply meet on their own with only the Holy Spirit and the Bible as their guide, as some of my peers and I did for awhile when I was about 20 years old.
Since I had few real opportunities for good counsel, even though I reached out for it whenever I could, most of my Christian growth was between the Lord and myself. These were no easy times. Not only did I have to overcome spiritual abuse well before it became quantified or named as "spiritual abuse" in the larger U.S. Christian community, I also had to overcome worse than that.
Although I
won't take time to describe much,
if anything, of what I have been through when I was younger, I have
decided to take the time
to write up this ‘diary’. Actually, I really did
not keep a 'diary' or journal in any way over many decades of my
life. The vast majority of these excerpts below
are entirely from memory. The reason they can be from memory is because
they were so pivotal, so 'memorable' in my life, that there was no way
I was going to forget them, even in all their detail.
Introductions and explanations will be as brief as possible yet
designed to teach others what I have learned from them.
"Diary of Dreams" is part of our Prophet 'Un'School
| My First Lesson
about faith and over-caution |
a section of testimonies of dreams used in healing | Visions or Dreams Depicting Storms/Floods/Tornadoes | Two Dreams for the Church: The Participation Dream The Trampled Harvest |
"Do not be afraid of those who kill the body but cannot kill the soul. Rather, be afraid of the One who can destroy both soul and body in hell. Are not two sparrows sold for a penny? Yet not one of them will fall to the ground apart from the will of your Father. And even the very hairs of your head are all numbered. So don't be afraid; you are worth more than many sparrows."
"Whoever acknowledges me before men, I will also acknowledge him before my Father in heaven. But whoever disowns me before men, I will disown him before my Father in heaven."
"He who
receives you receives me, and he who receives me receives the one who
sent me. Anyone who receives a prophet because he is a prophet will
receive a prophet's reward, and anyone who receives a righteous man
because he is a righteous man will receive a righteous man's reward.
And if anyone gives even a cup of cold water to one of these
little ones because he is my disciple, I tell you the truth, he will
certainly not lose his reward."
(Matt. 10:29-42 NIV)
