Posted by Jason [Jason] on March 30, 1999 at 20:20:18 {.Oe37V.qjQstjQMitR4A0TOck3Zt.o}:
In Reply to: *****The King and His Son Parable posted by Seeker on March 30, 1999 at 19:42:10:
Seeker,
It's good to hear people say what they really feel. As for experiencing their answers from God, or lack thereof, it's a very difficult thing to explain, nay, impossible. It's also impossible to PROVE to someone what God has put in their heart and minds. That is why it is often said to be a personal experience, because no one else can know it. If God talks to me or puts things in my heart, only God and I know about it. No one can say it didn't happen, or that it did happen, because they can't know.
You said,
"Consider that when a person is actively asking God for an answer, they want to receive one. The mind tries to give a person what they earnestly want. If the conditions are extreme enough, the mind will make up something (hallucinations, for instance) in order to satisfy the need of the person."
I've noticed that Jehovah never answers my questions immediately, nor even that same day usually. Usually the answer comes to me after the thought has long left my mind. My first real encounter with this was when I finally broke down and begged God for answers, that I desperately wanted to know what really was the truth. I was sick to death of little cushions to provide temporary satisfaction. I wanted the truth. I didn't get an answer right then, though my mind tried to rationalize things. I prayed that same thing again, same thing. So I went for a while about my business. My desire never passed for what I asked for, but I felt I had gotten off my chest. It was almost two weeks later after the thought was long out of my mind and the rationalizing had stopped. Then almost out of nowhere little things started popping up that I had never thought of before, things that I could not have rationalized because the elements needed to rationalize those things did not exist in my mind. To illustrate, for a person to rationalize the existance of the Easter Bunny for instance, one must have already HEARD of the Easter Bunny. Without knowledge of an Easter Bunny, one cannot rationalize whether or not it exists.
I started feeling myself being lead down a path where turns of events, changes in my life I never in a million years I would have imagined myself making were slowly manifesting seemingly out of nowhere. It was a gradual build up, not all at once. The answers didn't just bumrush me. It was a little here, a little there. Little pieces of a puzzle slowly falling into place. They are still being placed to this day and will be for a long time to come I'm sure.
An experience like this is truly amazing, but to one who has not experienced it, they simply cannot fathom what it is really like. Thus it is very easy for them to pass such a possibility off as being non existant. I'm not saying you are doing that, but many do. Perhaps one day you too will feel it.
Forever Jehovah's Student,
Jason