At any rate, today I do want to discuss a few things I can see God doing with my time here. First, he has placed me in a church group that is highly charismatic. That hasn't usually bothered me, because I've more or less always held the belief that as long as we agree on who Jesus is and what He came to do, then you are my brother or sister in Him. However, when I stayed for a seminar on healing one Sunday and when they supposedly healed two people and cast out a demon after their Christmas party last Friday, the point was driven home how strongly charismatic they are. And I am, of course, skeptical of such things.
But God is working even in that, I believe, since He is forcing me to confront that skepticism in a way that I never have before. Because I do believe in God, and I do believe that He is powerful, I cannot discount the reality of the spiritual realm and the reality of His power to heal and send demons running. But actual experience with such things lies outside my experience of the faith. So I am now asking questions such as: "How do I know when it really is God, and how do I know when it's only for show or the power of someone's imagination?" Granted, I would have no trouble believing that the power of one's own imagination is precisely what God uses to enact healing. But I can't claim that with any certainty, and since the result is the same either way, I will glorify God when it happens. The point is, I would probably never have had to seriously these kinds of questions if it weren't for where God has brought me. I can't say what the end result will be, but it is clear that He is using this as an opportunity for growth.
Another thing that God is doing is continuing to teach me is better teaching. I don't know how this all fits in with the call to Wycliffe, since I would like to do translation, not teaching with them. Perhaps it's just to train me for the interim between now and whenever I am to go onto the field, since I will need a job and what I have the most experience doing is teaching. It also shows me that I can endure some of the more challenging students, which means that maybe I wouldn't be so averse to teaching at the middle school level, for example, which up to this point has been anathema to me. But the students here at Zirve, eighteen or not, act like they're thirteen, and I manage to get by every day.
And of course, there's Christina! She is definitely cause for a :D! She's great, and just keeps getting better every day. I'm so glad that, in spite of my own fears and uncertainties about it, she's coming to visit in a mere two and a half weeks. I don't know how we're going to endure the several months after that while we're still 7000 miles apart! But God is faithful, of course, and so far she is definitely worth waiting for, so we can make it! Still, I covet your prayers that we would continue to place Christ at the center of our relationship and maintain our purity while she is here.
This is awesome Jeremy! I think going to Turkey is proving to be good for your soul. Keep reaching...xoxo
ReplyDeleteExcellent stuff. You realize that you'd probably encounter real-life full-blown spiritual warfare out on the field while translating. Just because masking their presence in the West is advantageous to their work in the West of keeping people naturalistic and bent toward consumeristic living, doesn't mean that the demons won't use their abilities in the Third World to frighten people into submission and worship. You're not in the West anymore. What you call "highly charismatic" might just be normal for a non-Western context.
ReplyDeleteyou have a very interesting blog
ReplyDeleteGod bless you