(continued from Friday)

But God commendeth his love toward us, in that, while we were yet sinners, Christ died for us.

This experience I had with Wassie–this place where I got a tiny glimpse of how much it cost God the Father to turn a deaf ear to his beloved Son as he cried out from the cross–served to cement in my heart the understanding that God loved me. The sacrifice that I’d learned about in Scripture was played out for me in living color and I have, thus far, never forgotten it or wavered from it. I know God loves me. I know it because he chose to kill his beloved Son in my place. Because God allowed me to watch a loved one suffer, I was able to grow in my understanding of how much God loves me.

A year or so later, Rodney Howard-Browne went up to Alaska and had his meetings. My Charismatic friends wanted an experience with God. But the experiences they had with God didn’t help them see God more clearly. Their experiences, didn’t cause them to love and trust God more. More than one couple followed Rodney around the country. Groupies. They flew to different cities all over the lower 48 because they wanted so much, to have the experience of lying on the ground laughing. They thought they felt God’s love.

Later, the phenomenon hit Toronto. And it went on. I quit reading about it when I heard that people were barking and roaring and shaking.

People were coming from all over the world, spending tens of thousands of dollars and all their time, chasing after an experience. And why? Because they wanted, I think, to feel the love of God.

We don’t need to experience laughter or drunkenness, and God doesn’t have to heal the people we love to prove that he loves us. He’s proven his love in this: while we were yet sinners, Christ died for us.

He gave up his son on the cross so we could live. How much more evidence of his love do we need?

My mom and my husband both lived through their crises. Had they not, it wouldn’t have changed God’s love for me.

When Wassie did die of cancer last year, I didn’t have any of the worries that I had that first time I thought he was dying. I knew that God’s love for us is not measured by how much health or wealth he gives us. It’s not measured by how much love and peace we feel when we roll on the ground laughing, or when we kiss the icons, or smell the incense, or even sing the old hymns. God’s love is not measured by our sensual experience. It’s measured by his sensual experience. By his physical death. By how much he sacrificed for us.

“Greater love hath no man than this, that a man lay down his life for his friends.” this is a statement of proof. Christ is proving his love when he dies for us.

“He commendeth his love in this, while were yet sinners, Christ died for us.” God holds up the death of Christ, points to it and says, “See how much I love you? I gave my Son! His death is proof of my love for you.”

And he that spared not his own Son, but delivered him up for us all, how shall he not with him also freely give us all things?   

The greatest gift is given, he’s proved his desire to bless us. We know all the little gifts are ours, too, then. We really are wealthy beyond all imagining. And healthy! If we’d only learn to see with eyes on eternity instead of always grubbing after the puny little baubles of earth.

(continued from yesterday)

And he arose, and rebuked the wind, and said unto the sea, Peace, be still. And the wind ceased, and there was a great calm. And he said unto them, Why are ye so fearful? how is it that ye have no faith?

And here’s what made me think to even post this story: it has to do with God speaking to me outside the pages of the Bible, again. And it has to do with why I think that seeking after experiences with God is all wrong. 

Wassie fell asleep and I sat at the end of his bed praying. I told God, “I can take it if he dies, but I can’t stand to see the pain in his eyes. I can’t look into his eyes as he dies.”

And I’ve never had this happen to me before or since, but in one moment, several sentences flashed directly into my heart complete. I believed they were God’s message to me.

They went like this:

You’ve been begging me to heal Wassie and if you had the power to heal him, you would do it in a heartbeat–I had the power to save my Son from his suffering and I chose not to.

Because I love you.

You sit at the end of Wassie’s bed so if he wakes up he’ll see you and be comforted–I turned away from my Son. When he looked for me he couldn’t find me. I forsook him.

Because I love you.

You tell me you can’t stand to look into Wassie’s eyes, but you aren’t supposed to be looking into his eyes. You’re supposed to be looking into my eyes.

Eyes that love you.

And what love and comfort I felt with that message. I immediately repented for my lack of faith and I fell asleep, all worry gone. I realized that I didn’t need to stay awake. God wasn’t sleeping in the back of the boat. He was watching. His eyes were open and looking at me with love. I’d simply failed to see that because I’d been looking into Wassie’s eyes instead of God’s. 

Now all of that is stuff I read in the Bible. There was no new revelation there about God. The Holy Spirit simply reminded me of what I already knew.

But why report my experience here? 

Back, now, to my time in the Charismatic church. What I saw in that church was a hunger for an experience with a living God. My Charismatic friends wanted God to speak to them. In person. They wanted to speak in tongues, first, to have heavenly communication with God. And after the thrill wore off they wanted God to speak through them, They wanted to prophesy and give words of wisdom.

We gathered together every week expecting God to move in the body. Waiting to see what the Holy Spirit would do.

I can’t speak for the rest of the church but I can say for myself, that mindset was a disaster. My relationship with God did not progress, it regressed. I moved from being overcome by God’s goodness to me, his long-suffering and his willingness to forgive even me, to expecting favors from him and being angry when I didn’t get the favors I thought I should have.

Instead of being open to hearing God in Scripture, I read the Bible topically, searching out every instance of healing and trying to put together a formula for healing. My husband was a quadriplegic and I saw no reason for him to remain in that state. People in the church had gotten “words of wisdom” that he would be healed, and I also thought I heard God say he’d heal Wassie.

A year later, when my husband wasn’t healed even after I commanded him to be healed (yes, I really did. I’m laughing now, but at the time it was not funny. My poor husband.) I got mad at God, stomped my foot like a three-year-old and said, “I hate you.”

I quickly added, “I mean I would hate you if I thought I could get away with it.”

And then I said, “I don’t hate you but the truth is that if you can’t communicate with me, what good are you? What use is a God who can’t speak to me and tell me what I need to know? I thought you said you’d heal Wassie, but you obviously didn’t say it because he’s not healed. So what kind of relationship can I have with a God who won’t or can’t speak to me clearly?”

And then…I am not lying, though you’re going to think I’m making this up…the song “Lay Down Sally” came on the radio. Within moments of my asking God what use he was to me if he couldn’t speak to me, Eric Clapton sang out, “Lay down, Sally, and rest here in my arms. I’ve been trying all night long just to talk to you.”

Make what you want of that.

What I make of it is that God is gracious. He should have slapped me down dead. How dare I say to the God who has always, only loved and blessed me, that I hate him and find him worthless?

Not only did he not strike me dead, he spoke to me through Eric Clapton. And what he said was, “I can talk to you any day of the week using any means I choose, you little idiot. And I have chosen to speak to you through scripture. I have spoken to you. Just because you refuse to listen to me and you make stuff up, telling yourself what you want to hear instead of hearing what I have said, doesn’t mean you can blame me and accuse me of not speaking. And still, even though you have wrongly accused me, I still want you to stay with me. I still will give you rest.”

Lay down, Sally, and rest here in my arms, I’ve been trying all night long just to talk to you.

Those words would have been meaningless except I had read the Bible.

Come unto me all you who are weary and heavy laden and I will give you rest.

Oh Jerusalem. Jerusalem, you who kill the prophets and stone those sent to you, how often I have longed to gather your children together, as a hen gathers her chicks under her wings, but you were not willing.

I heard Scriptural truth in Clapton’s song because for the first time in a long time, I was willing to hear God. I’d hit bottom and had to give in to God’s correction.

I’d been reading scripture and not hearing God when I was reading with my own agenda. And then, when I had to abandon my agenda for our relationship because God refused to be made over in my image, I heard God’s scriptural truth in a rock song of all places.

So, staying with my story about the charismatic church and the laughing revival:

My pastor’s wife said it had to be God doing the slaying and giving the laughter, because she’d prayed, and when you ask God for bread he doesn’t give you a stone.

Sure, but what if you ask God for a stone? What if you beg and beg and beg for that stone? And what if you spend every waking minute chasing that stone? Is God obligated to save you from yourself?

Sometimes he lets us have what we seek. Sometimes he gives us what we ask for and lets us go, knowing that we’ll never come to our senses until we are reduced to slopping the hogs. 

What has all this got to do with me now? Christianity is about relationship with the living God. It’s not about obeying a set of rules. The Pharisees obeyed rules meticulously but they had no relationship with God.

But chasing after experiences with God is not to be confused with relationship. We aren’t to manipulate God. He’s set the boundaries of our relationship.

And he’s left us here.

In the world but not of it. He left us in the world. He’s with us, for sure, but it’s not time yet for all the promises to come true. It’s not time for the laughter now. It’s not time for the healings. One day every tear will be wiped away, but here and now we are to work. To take up our crosses and follow. To suffer.

I’m not one to seek out suffering. I think there is a lot to enjoy in this world. I’m hugely into celebration. I love birthdays and anniversaries, and Christmas–any reason to celebrate. I love forests. And mountains. And rushing streams. I love ocean beaches in stormy winds, when waves crash the shore. Starry skies, the northern lights crackling through a black Alaskan night, a full moon on a snow covered lake. This world is beautiful and I think we should enjoy it.

But it’s important for us to remember that God isn’t about making our lives trouble free here on this earth.

He’s promised us the Holy Spirit, but he hasn’t promised us heaven on earth. We are to look to the heavens, to set our minds on things above, to remember that we are seated with Christ in the heavenlies, but we aren’t to try to bring heaven down to earth.

What happens when we set our hearts on having some bit of experience here and now is that when God doesn’t show up, we are heartbroken. We question his love. God proved his love for us in this, while we were yet sinners, Christ died for us. He does love us. He gave his life to prove his love. He gave his Son to prove his love.  This is cause for deep and lasting joy. The kind of joy that bubbles up and fills us to overflowing and leaves no room for any want.

Joy should not be confused with an experience of drunkenness that you have to pay 750 bucks for and that wears off after a few hours and leaves you jonesing for more.

So what are people looking for when they seek out experience (regardless of whether that experience is High Church liturgy or Low Church slayings)?

I believe they want to experience God. That’s what I was looking for in the Charismatic church—an experience with a living, loving, powerful God. I wanted to have a real relationship with a living lover, not some dry, dusty belief in the letter of the law.

In my charismatic church people were always talking about the Shekinah glory of God. They wanted to see God. They wanted to see God heal. They wanted God’s power. It’s not that they were being selfish–it’s that they wanted to show the world a good and loving God. They believed that the Bible promised us way more from God than we were taking. They believed our loving Father wanted to heal us and speak through us and move in our midst and we blocked his involvement by our pride–by our refusal to be fools. So they were willing to play the fool by speaking language that sounded foolish and by rolling on the floor laughing in an undignified way.

I interpreted scripture a little differently. I didn’t think I needed to act more foolish than I already was. I have lived a foolish life. Yet, God can use me. I am a fool. I don’t need to roll around on the ground to prove it. And I don’t believe God wants us to roll around on the ground laughing uncontrollably. There’s nothing loving or edifying about the activity. It’s not commanded—rather, we’re commanded to be self-controlled.

When I asked my pastor why he supposed it was God who knocked him off his feet and filled him with laughter, he answered, “Because I felt so much love. When I was on the floor, I felt love like I’ve never felt before. And that’s God, not Satan.”

If it feels good do it? Adulterers feel the love, too, or they often convince themselves it’s love, anyway. That doesn’t mean God approves.

Satan disguises himself as an angel of light. If he’d gone to Eve dressed up as a slavering monster, she’d probably have run away. Satan is full of promises—see how he tempts Christ—and if we take him up, he’ll deliver on the promises up to a point. But, in the eternal scope of things, he’s a liar and a cheat. His promises bring disaster.

Within two years of the laughing revival in Anchorage, the church I’d attended fell apart. There was a huge exodus. Some people went to different churches. Others left church completely. The pastor’s wife had an affair and left him. He stepped down from the ministry. One of the elders’ wives left him and was living with another man shortly after that. One young man we’d taken to the revival with us—a long-time acquaintance of the pastor and his wife—who had been slain in the spirit and was sure it was God’s blessing on him, killed his ex-wife not many weeks later.

We don’t have time to look at all the families and see if they grew in the faith or struggled after the revival, but one thing I can say is that none got what they were looking for in that revival. God didn’t raise up any prophets or healers. He didn’t bring people into the church through that revival.

The health and wealth that Rodney promised never appeared.