Experiencing God

[B-A-C]

This may be a hard concept to ask. We will see how it goes.
It partially has to do with your testimony in a way.

Here goes....

Has there ever been a time in your life when you have experienced God?
I'm not talking about a feeling, or a book you read, or something that someone else told you.
Has there even been a time in your life, where you had to lay something on the line for God?
Where you had to trust in Him completely?

Maybe there was a time, when you had no job, no friends, nothing in the bank account.
The pantry was empty and the refrigerator was out of order.

How did you make it through this? Did God provide for you? Could you have made it through this situation without God?

Maybe there was a time when everything was against you. Your family was mad at you, your boss
was mad at you, your husband or wife was upset with you, yet you felt in your heart that you were
doing what God wanted you to do.

How did you make it through this? Did God give you peace? Even when it seems like everything was falling apart, did God give you the peace that passes all understanding?

Maybe there was time you needed healing. Maybe you were sick. Maybe you had cancer. Maybe you even went to the hospital but the doctors didn't give much hope, or at least they didn't know what was going to happen. Maybe it wasn't even physical healing you needed. Maybe you needed emotional healing.

How did you make it through this? Did God heal you? Did you really know it was Him that healed you?
Or was it "probably partially from Him" but the doctors did most of it, so you're not really sure.

Have you ever really experienced God? Can you look back on your life and say there was a time, that you know, without a doubt. God was the one who brought you through this.

His peace? His healing? His provision? Something else?

 

[Emilia]

Yes I can personally testify to that - to his peace, his healing and his provision. God is real.

 

[B-A-C]

Yes I can personally testify to that - to his peace, his healing and his provision. God is real.

Can you share your story? Or at least a part of it?

 

[amadeus2]

We had been backslid for some years and I had been forced by circumstances to take early retirement in the year 2000:

Very shortly AFTER coming back to God financial trouble hit us as it had never done before in all of our lives. An error in our checkbook caused us to bounce a very large check. That one bounced check was the beginning of a landslide. In less than a month it was completely out of control. In trying to salvage the situation we returned our new car to the dealer. It was not enough and we were soon on the verge of losing our house as well.

We lived about 15 miles out of town and had no transportation. My wife has severe and chronic asthma, which in spite of medication was not completely under control. She averaged 10-12 serious attacks per year. If she had an attack, we had no way to get into town. We would have to wait for an ambulance. But...we were trusting God and she never had a severe episode during that time.

A brother in the Lord was saving money to fix his house. It had a faulty concrete foundation that eventually would ruin or destroy his home. He recognized our need and believed it greater than his own. He found a good operating a car, paid $2000.00 cash for it and gave us the pink slip. God through him had provided us with transportation.

We were still in danger of losing our home. I went to work helping a tree trimmer, mowed lawns, picked up aluminum cans and did anything else that a man in his late 50's who had worked a desk job most of his life could find. My wife began to sew for additional extra income. All of those efforts might have done it...but when I went to work helping a man replace the siding on his house, I got physically ill on the job. I knew that I couldn't afford to lose the job so I worked on, but after about two hours, in the boiling hot Oklahoma sun I was on the verge of passing out. I just had to go home and trust in God. I had no other choice.

Finally, we filed bankruptcy. We had held off on this until there was no other recourse. We had spoken to financial counselors and they saw no other way for us.

Remember that all of these difficulties came on us immediately AFTER we had been accepted back by God. Nevertheless, we refused to give up on God and in spite of the impossible financial pressure we never stopped giving a portion of our income to Him.

About 2 or 3 weeks after filing bankruptcy, but before going to court for it, we received a phone call at our home in Oklahoma from a private detective in Arizona. He had been searching for my wife in connection with an estate. She had an aunt that she had not seen or heard from since she was a little girl in California over 40 years earlier.

The aunt had died in Kentucky and had no children. Her estate was divided among nieces and nephews including my wife. We advised the bankruptcy trustee about the inheritance and he froze the inheritance to apply it toward our creditors. When the inheritance was received it paid off all of those we filed bankruptcy against and gave us a little beyond that.

That was in 2002. Is it any wonder that I still give God the glory regularly?

It still brings tears to my eyes when I think of how great God is and what He did for us. I love Him too much to turn back now.

 

[Wired 4 Fishen]

Many times.
It took me a long 20 pluss years of falling, getting knock around by the enemy and being a spiritual wreck.

Then I heard some truth that set me free and changed my life. No problems did not stop but I now could trust God no matter what.

I learned to lay things at the alter with the attitude that they would stay there until He told me to pick them up. Sounds easy but when it is heart wrenching to lay something down and walk away knowing you may never see it again, that simply takes Pure discipline of Trust.

Another is God truly making me see that it does not matter what others do or think I should do but rather it comes down to its about Him and me.
What I mean is, He is God, I will answer to Him and no matter what I am With Him and He has this for me.

Not doing a good job explaining this but I felt His Presence and knew that I knew it was all ok because I am His not theirs and God has the final say.

I apologize because I am just not getting this out right.
Blessings
W4F

 

[Lanolin]

This may be a hard concept to ask. We will see how it goes.
It partially has to do with your testimony in a way.

Here goes....

Has there ever been a time in your life when you have experienced God?
I'm not talking about a feeling, or a book you read, or something that someone else told you.
Has there even been a time in your life, where you had to lay something on the line for God?
Where you had to trust in Him completely?

Maybe there was a time, when you had no job, no friends, nothing in the bank account.
The pantry was empty and the refrigerator was out of order.

How did you make it through this? Did God provide for you? Could you have made it through this situation without God?

Maybe there was a time when everything was against you. Your family was mad at you, your boss
was mad at you, your husband or wife was upset with you, yet you felt in your heart that you were
doing what God wanted you to do.

How did you make it through this? Did God give you peace? Even when it seems like everything was falling apart, did God give you the peace that passes all understanding?

Maybe there was time you needed healing. Maybe you were sick. Maybe you had cancer. Maybe you even went to the hospital but the doctors didn't give much hope, or at least they didn't know what was going to happen. Maybe it wasn't even physical healing you needed. Maybe you needed emotional healing.

How did you make it through this? Did God heal you? Did you really know it was Him that healed you?
Or was it "probably partially from Him" but the doctors did most of it, so you're not really sure.

Have you ever really experienced God? Can you look back on your life and say there was a time, that you know, without a doubt. God was the one who brought you through this.

His peace? His healing? His provision? Something else?

Yep peace, healing and provision. it was God through Jesus I could never have done on my own. I suffered manic depression from age 16 till about 30 when I was deliverd. This affliction wrecked havoc on my life, i would suffer spells of depression and then spells of mania and it would be up down like a rollercoaster.
No doctor i had seen could ever do what Jesus did for me. To this day am free of prescription drugs and I was ordered to take them everyday for the rest of my life and they were pretty potent drugs/medicines. He cancelled all curses against me. I would have doctors ask me if I was going to kill myself and then give me drugs warning me that it would have side effects of suicidal tendencies. Yea try and figure that one out.

He gave me a new life and job and friends too, but I dont judge where I am at by the state of my bank account.

How I made it through well God carried me through is all I can say He delivered me. Of course it was Him, it wouldnt have been anyone else cos I fried everything else and nothing worked save for Jesus. He is the rock of my salvation and I have His perfect peace.

What about you BAC?

 

[Brad Huber]

There were two times for me. At one time after moving several times due to problems my wife had, we had to spend between 4 to 6 months living in a 2 man tent. We had to have give away or sell the few things we had, because no storage space, no job. No physical address to get my wife's SS checks, and my partial disability checks delivered at, for enough money to begin renting a place to stay. Then it started into a rainy spell and water got inside the tent big time. We threw away the tent and began living in our vehicle, washing our bodies at restrooms and our clothes at a laundromat, it was a depressing time for us. Finally a friend of my wife's allowed us to sleep in her office on the floor in our sleeping bags (we had to be out by 6:30am every morning and couldnt come back until 5:30pm, a half hour after it closed). The friend would have been fired if her boss knew. And she let us use her home address temporarily to get our checks in. About 2 months after that, we finally began receiving some income, and rented a place of our own. it was a hard, depressing time for us, but it helped us both learn to do without, mostly shelter, sometimes food as well. We had to trust God, our resources were extremely low. We sometimes got free meals from restaurants who felt sorry for us. I freely admit, it was a true blow to my pride to have to depend on charity so much. And I was sadly to proud to beg, my wife had to beg for help for us, from restaurants and the lady who ran the office. So I failed as a husband to provide for me and my wife and only due to christian charity and God, did we survive that time as a family of two.

The other time, strangely enough, I had a repeating dream on and off for 30 years of how I was going to die. It started out when I was just a timid child of 8. The dream in a nutshell was an evil man stabbing me over and over in my stomach and me watching and feeling my guts coming out of my stomach as I painfully passed out and the dream ending. It was a warning to me that the evil one gave me, of how I was going to die unless I overcame my many fears (the fear thing was a part of the dream). Then when I was a little over 40 years old, a man that I would have feared most of my life, about 6 foot 6 inches, very very strong (stronger than me by a lot)and an unconvicted serial rapist who was a good old boy with the local cops. He had raped at least 3 that I know of, one his own daughter. He was working at the same place I did, and was on track to rape another lady whom I was a friend with. He always was carrying a big Bowie knife with a nine inch blade. He loved watching and preying on those with fear, intimidating them, making them more afraid, and in the case of women, stalking them, and when they were alone, attacking and raping them. Then he would threaten to kill them if they spoke and due to his connections with the sherrif's office, it was usually safe bet. But with God's help through the fearful dreams, I came to be where I was okay with dying that way and that unlike the dream, I would fight back (in the dream, me and several people were shot at, I pretended to be dead, but this guy somehow knew, picked me up and stabbed me over and over) and do my best to overcome the man whether I was successful or not. The man one day got me alone and I had angered him by telling him that he better leave the lady alone or I would report him to the police, and if I saw him threatening some lady, that he would regret it. I stood only a couple of inches from him, my head to his chest, looking up at him as I said this, without any fear. He had his hand on his knife and I looked him in his eye, very angry at him, just waiting for him to pull it. He stood there saying nothing for about 30 seconds, then finally took his hand off his knife, mumbled something and then walked away. He was fired about 2 weeks later and several months later was finally arrested and convicted for molesting his own child. God through the Holy Spirit told me that I would have died that day, if I had not overcome my fears. And God used those terrible dreams that He did not give me, to toughen me up, so that I am not so easily fearful anymore. I have speculated as to why the evil one gave me that repeating dream, and I think its because he wanted my my life to be ruled by fear. I was destined to be used for either great evil or great good, and God used it all to bring about great good. Praise be to God!!