How do you know the Lord's leading?

[Trapped]

Originally Posted by Ohio

You are right on the mark here. Teachings from LSM are highly destructive to the child like faith of young children. I've seen healthy kids go to FTT's and return with their faith shipwrecked. There's a reason why well over 50% of our young people want nothing to do with faith in Jesus Christ.

I may have said this in another post, but one other thing I realized as an adult is that you actually have to be very discerning about what comes out of people's mouths. This is a very low level example, but I was in a meeting a year or so ago and someone shared about reading the Bible. They shared how much they enjoyed reading the word and how much it helped them. Then they said "on the days I read my Bible everything goes great! And on the days I don't read my Bible, they are horrible and all kinds of bad things happen!" And the crowd gave a big Amen.

I was sitting in the back observing everyone and thought "well what that saint said is just not true is it!!" You can have days that go smoothly and wonderfully having not read your Bible. And you can have days where all kinds of horrible things happen even after you read your Bible that morning. Reading the Bible and touching the Lord in His word has no effect on the things that HAPPEN to you that day, it can only affect how you respond or to what level those things affect you. And it struck me that this saint's words, while most likely pure in their expression of them, would have potentially damaging effects particularly as heard by a young person, because a young person would hear "read your Bible = everything goes great" and then wonder why when they read their Bible did they have days where everything fell apart.

This may seem insignificant but it leads to questioning why did it not "work" for them. "Why did reading the Bible "work" for that saint who shared in the meeting and got a big Amen, which means it must be true, but when I read my Bible I had a horrible day?" Which brings in doubts and misgivings about the Bible and God, and in an environment where you are not allowed to express your doubts or questions, those disillusioned thoughts are allowed to fester and continue on without being cleared up, and it produces distorted thoughts about God and even about His heart for you in particular. And if that one thing the saint shared that everyone Amen-ed isn't true, then what other things are they saying that isn't true? etc, etc, etc.

Of course I don't think these kinds of misunderstandings are unique to the LCs but somehow the LC environment makes it ripe for their development.