Waste paper. Or: Words and power

I find my weekly physiotherapy appointments really exciting at the moment because they show or confirm what has improved in my body in response to prayer. Today was particularly great. In the morning, I asked Jesus what he wanted to do through me that day. And all I could hear was the phrase „Testify!“ - in other words: testify to something he has done.

So I prayed that God would prepare the person and the situation and made my way to the physio. I really appreciate Leo (name changed), the therapist, because he works very professionally and carefully, but also has a good sense of the connections between body and soul.

During the treatment, he paid particular attention to my hip, which was very tight and immobile, and the whole area around it. At one point he sighed in frustration: „I'm not getting anywhere here!“ I thought: We could help him. And asked the Holy Spirit to fill this place with his presence and his peace. I then felt the presence of God so gently and at the same time so strongly that I let out a quiet „ho“. Leo asked: „What was that?“ I replied: „You, I just asked God's spirit to work! What did you feel!“ He replied: „There was total chaos in the area where I'm treating you just now, now it's quiet!“

I thought that was great. Leo heard things from him from time to time - and now felt God's spirit at work right under his finger. It wasn't quite as dramatic, but almost like in the New Testament. The disciples and apostles realised that words and the beneficial actions of God, which powerfully confirm the words, belong together quite naturally.

If you cut apart the word and the corresponding confirmations through God's actions, faith becomes powerless. A young woman told me about this in the evening. She used to hear God speak to her often and found it exciting and lively to respond to his impulses. Triggered by negative experiences with people who were very unwise with spiritual gifts and used them manipulatively: „The Lord has shown me that you should do this or that!“ And urged them to obey „the word of the Lord“. This overstepping of boundaries naturally left them quite confused and hurt.

In order to understandably protect themselves from such excesses, her family has moved to a church where this can no longer happen. The new church teaches that God no longer speaks to people, but expects them to make their own decisions. For the young woman, it is also a mystery how this teaching fits in with statements from Jesus such as „My sheep hear my voice!“. Basically, she still believes that Jesus wants to speak to us. However, due to her experiences and because she lives in an environment where no one expects God to speak, she has recently been unable to ask for, expect and experience God's words herself.

She told me how much she misses this and how her faith has become lifeless and boring - without the experience of God speaking to her and the adventures that arise from this. We then prayed together that she would hear God speak to her again, that God would give her the gift of discernment to recognise more clearly which words are from God and which are not. And that she would experience adventures with God again.

With regard to the confusing impressions, I advised her to kick them into the bin and at the same time hand them over to God and explained to her what I meant by that: "A few years ago, I was even less practised in distinguishing which impulses were actually God's words, which were more like wishful thinking on the part of people and which might even have come from the other side to confuse me. Many well-meaning people had passed on their impressions to me for my personal life. I had written them all down - in addition to what I thought I heard from God myself. At some point, I was totally confused. I didn't know what actually came from God and what didn't. It was a mystery to me how to deal with all this cabbage and turnip salad. I no longer knew what I could still believe, what I should pray for, what I could still hope for and how I should think about it all. I found it confusing and terrifying.

At some point, I went to the waste paper bin with the pile of notes in my hand, praying, and said to God: „I can't sort this out any more and I can't help myself any other way than this. I'm going to put it all in the bin now - if there was anything in there that was from you and is actually important, please bring it back up.“ That was about ten or maybe even 15 years ago.

I advised the young woman with the confusing impressions to do the same. And then I told her what happened a few days ago. I went to the waste paper. At the top of the bin was a box of perfume of a certain brand. When I saw the box on top of the rest of the waste paper, I suddenly remembered a dream I had - if I can remember correctly - in 1998, almost 20 years ago. In this dream, a bottle of perfume of exactly this name and brand symbolised something that God wanted to give me. This dream - together with the other impressions - was thrown into the waste paper bin at the time. I had completely forgotten about it. And God answered the prayer and actually brought this one impulse up again after such a long time - even literally „out of the bin“. That seems to be important to him! Wow! And of course - now I trust and pray that what was promised to me in the dream will be fulfilled.