You may ask me for anything in my name, and I will do it.

[jlay]

It's sort of funny how people tell me all the time about God's blessings and how he does things for them. Yet by the same token, when things DON'T happen I'm told God is not my personal Genei and vending machine. i've heard that before.

Regardless of what people tell you, the question is where does it line up in scripture. In other words, do you have a source that you can refer to, to check the merit of such advice? You claim to have been a believer. (More on that in a moment) As a believer, you are to test these things against the Word of God to see if they have merit. (1 John 4:1, 1 Thes. 5:21) You've made some serious allegations. That basically, the Bible is bunk. And as best I can tell, your case is based on the feeling that God has not responded to the unfavorable marital and financial circumstances you are facing, or faced.
You can get all twisted with me if you want, but I don't see how you expect to post such things here, and then expect that your comments and personal worldview are beyond critique. I can give you a bunch of warm fuzzy crap like this Dearing lady,(more on that in a moment) or I can just shoot straight, and say, "Gene, your off base." If someone is driving the wrong way on a one way street, it is our duty to alert them.

Jesus said, "I have told you these things, so that in me you may have peace. In this world you will have trouble. But take heart! I have overcome the world.”
Now, what is apparent, and I don't think you'd argue, is that you do not have peace. Jesus doesn't define peace as God fixing your step daughter by overthrowing her rebellious will, or fixing your bad financial situation, or making your Buick miracualously not break down. He says, in the midst of your storms you can have peace. Christians WILL have storms. Big ones.
The question is, what is the source of the storm? We can, through our own disobedience bring storms into our life. The NT is full of such examples. I noticed you avoided answering the questions. And I can't help but wonder if your marriage was contrary to the will of God.

I don't know much about Dearing, other than I think she is from my hometown. I read part of an excerpt from one of her books on-line. http://books.google.com/books?id=Ra9ipw ... ms&f=false
Sounds like a mix of New Age goobledygook and sprinkle on a little magic Jesus dust. Her book title alone , "Prayer, Faith, and Healing: Cure Your Body, Heal Your Mind, and Restore Your soul," sends up red flags too me. Although she does reference scripture, I found her references to be ambiguous, not supportive. I would call her advice anything but biblically modeled. Biblically twisted. And the sad irony is she's suffering from breast cancer and going through chemo.

At the time that I used to be such a hardcore Christian I was doing everything in my ability to be right as best I could.

Can you be more specific? When you say you 'used to be a hardcore Christian.' How are you defining Christian? If you 'knew' Christ, how did you come to unknow Him?


Let me quote Dearing. "As Christians believing that there is only one God, we are free to pray to any aspect or representation of the Divine that we choose. We may call it a higher power. We may find God in the beauty of nature."
Her scripture support? Col 1:17
"As Christians?" Friend, that is a contradiciton. What she has just stated is not even Christian, much less a proper model of Christian prayer. That is some panentheism guised in Christianity. Very dangerous.

[daywalker1966]

Jlay, how would you have me respond to your demeaning comments? You are quick to respond at length and throw in you little jabs. I never referred to the bible as bunk, but I'll tell you this much, I watched a mother and other family members go througy baptism and claim they had the holy spirit. She then did irrepariable damage to her own family and wound up with one alcaholic, two near suicides and she broke into my home and robbed me before vanishing. Follow this with the wife who's behavior never reflected the holy spirit at all and two others who recently got baptised within the last year, began dealing drugs because the wife wont work, does not believe in child discipline, and her husband reported to prison for a three year term last Wednesday. This after he was talking of becoming a minister. Should I not mention this?

Some of us are skeptical for reasons. Rather than buy into some rubbish because someone claims it is so we look for evidence. I go by evidence because of the fact that most humans who have spoken to me lied themselves silly, either because they did not know truth, made their own up, or because they had something to gain by feeding me lies. Sorry, my life isn't polished and pretty, and believe it or not there are many people who become discouraged because of marital, financial or other problems and they hurt when they look to God and get no answers.

I had originally posted one comment, because I'm not interested in these long dialogues. They dont accomplish much.

Norma diagnosed me as having a depression issue that is aggrivated by harsh stress and long term exposure to darkness. It was insightful. I never had time to read her books, I'm too restless to sit for long. It's sad she faces cancer, been there done that since it runs in the family. At least she has had an apparently rewarding life up till now. That's good, alot of people don't get that far.

Gene