Theodicy of the Spirit

[awareness]

Originally Posted by aron

As I said, I believe that we all "have the oracle", and the church is the place where our visions can be presented and pruned. . . .
. . . So I became determined to see, I guess. Then when I was in John's gospel, and I kept getting drawn to the first chapter, where John the Baptist was walking alone with 2 disciples and they met Jesus. That story climaxed in the utterance: "You will see heaven opened, and the angels of God ascending and descending upon the Son of man." Now, first I got curious: where did this imperative statement get fulfilled? Jesus said, "You will see" something, so it definitely happened. Then, as I was considering, spontaneously I began to pray, and began to declare, and even demand the same experience. I wanted to see heaven opened. I wanted to see the angels of God ascending and descending upon the Son of man. Jesus had said, "You will", so by faith I demanded fulfillment.

At that moment, everything began to change for me. The Bible just began to open up, and the "behind the scenes" stuff suddenly became apparent. All the miracles and speakings and wondrous works; suddenly behind them I could see "angels ascending and descending", etc. And this included the Spirit. This included the seven flames of fire before the throne. This included the seven eyes of the Lamb, which run to and fro throughout the earth. This included the angel talking to Hagar in the wilderness, and she said, "You are the God who sees me." Etc, etc. I just began to see it all. It became as real to me as any mind-picture of J.R.R. Tolkien's Middle Earth when I was a kid.

The Bible provides the heavenly view, but we are all different. John 1:51 happened to open a "door to heaven" for me, but maybe some other verse or experience will guide you. Lee's experience in Paul's "God's economy" or "now the Lord is that Spirit" may have been watersheds for his consciousness. But Lee's vision ain't gonna become a law imposed upon my consciousness. If anyone out there needs it, surely Lee's BBs (or Chu or Dong or any other Apostle-lite) will be happy to run your life for you.

Instead, I see the church as a place not to get visions from others but to present our own visions. And then a 'zeek' or an 'Igzy' will come along and say, "not so fast", because otherwise you might run off the rails.

Well now that's quite a story. I feel left out. All around me people are having visions, and I don't.

Hosepipe, my friend of long standing (Since the C. in Ft. Lauderdale - he got the boot with me, sort of), had a vision some 15 yrs ago, and wrote it down in a furry. He's been trying to understand it ever since. And has made dogma out of some of it. I like to shoot holes thru it. He takes it waaaay tooooo seriously.

And I have a friend I made here in Kentucky, since moving here, at Al-Anon. She's been obsessed with following the Spirit for over 3 decades. She sees visions too.

In fact, she can be driving down the highway and a panoramic movie appears in the sky. She pulls over to watch it. Spends weeks trying to figure out what the Holy Spirit is trying to tell her.

She has visitations at 3am from God, who speaks to her.

You say the church provides a balance. When she shared her visions to some at her church, they balanced her right out the door. She doesn't share her visions at church no more.

I don't judge, she shares them with me. What do I know about visions? I try to provide balance. I tell her if anyone saw her following the Spirit, and its outcome in her life, they'd run the other way from the Spirit. She admits to that, but still has visitations and visions. I tell her that then she can expect more pain from God, if it keeps going as it's been going for her so far. She says, "What's up with that?"

She takes it waaaay toooo seriously, and it gets her in serious trouble.

I don't see like you guys. I get them vicariously. Can anyone spare some eye-salve?