Slight rage against the machine

This is Pa. And I wasn't happy yesterday.

Tell me what's with the ultra-sensitivity to what people say to each other in the church? How come a simple, 'we could do this better' becomes a personal spiritual attack meant to take the entire church out? Why can't it just be people talking and expressing themselves, even if it is a bit messy. And why can't we let it go in one ear and out the other rather than getting it stuck in our brains and going round and round until it's a monster of our own making that needs confession and repentance and blood, fire and smoke before we can possibly move on as a ministry? It's just people talking and being people. Don't spiritualize everything. Happens to me 10 times a day at work and hasn't caused our company to fail yet. It's part of the territory.

And what's with this crap about the enemy always attacking us and wrecking our stuff every time we do a task? "The enemy must be really mad", we say, as if what we're doing even interests him. If my God can't protect my stuff then I'm looking for another God. Read the Book, he's big into protecting his flock. Show me in the Word where the enemy is credited with foreknowledge or an understanding of the plans of God? Are we not 'hidden in Christ'?

If this offends anyone, too bad. Let it go in one eye and out the other. Do a theology check against the manual. Some days I find the machine very hard to live with.

Not that the day was all bad. I repented, forgave, considered, read the manual and generally got cleaned up for the Healing Room. Before we started I repented, forgave, confessed and got cleaned up for ministry. God seemed to have enough power to put what was behind me, behind me, as long as I was willing to let it go.

In the Healing Room I learned yet again why God said to me, "Pray out of the Word". A chaplain from a hospital had joined us and I had encouraged him to pray the word. He got a chunk of scripture for a person at almost the same time as I did so he prayed his first and I did mine next. They were both identical in context but very different in the word. Essentially, the Lord said to this young man who had come for prayer for his feet that he was called to GO. There was a ministry call on his life to GO. Thus the healing of his foot was necessary and maybe even a sign. (Please notice that I have not spiritualized the foot injury as a bold attack from Satan who somehow, against all evidence of scripture, obtained foreknowledge about the call of God and had attacked the foot to destroy this young man's ministry before it got started. Note that he just had a sore foot and God brought him to be healed to display HIS glory.)

Anyhow, when this happened and when the young man affirmed he was feeling the call of God on his life to GO, this chaplain (and me) got all excited about the power of praying the word. It's a wonderful and exciting discovery that the bible has power to speak. Not sure if his foot got healed or not, he had no pain but had to test it out today at work.

I got prayer too and all the pain on the left side of my body in my knee and toe went directly to the right side of my body in my shoulder and toe. I told the guys praying to pray the Word because when I see pain moving around I think afflicting spirit. So the chaplain cranks off this awesome scripture about satan falling like lightning and us having authority to overcome all the power (all the power) of the enemy, the Spirit of God lands on me, the pain stops immediately and there we are just standing there laughing about what just happened. The Word happened. His Kingdom came.

There is no word that can stand against His Word. No word spoken to us, at us, against us, about us or around us. No word that does not bow to His Word gets heard. I'm resolved to not let the words of men sound louder in my mind than the Word of God.