Quotes I Like

"I dislike those who know so well what God wants them to do because I notice it always coincides with their own desires." – Susan B. Anthony

“Humility is often a false front we employ to gain power over others.”

– François de la Rochefoucauld

"The true measure of a man is how he treats someone who can do him absolutely no good."

– Samuel Johnson

“I do not feel obliged to believe that the same God who has endowed us with sense, reason, and intellect has intended us to forgo their use.” – Galileo Galilei

“We are more often frightened than hurt; and we suffer more from imagination than from reality.”

– Seneca

“Judge a man by his questions rather than by his answers.” – Voltaire

“However beautiful the strategy, you should occasionally look at the results.” – Winston Churchill

“Go, eat your food with gladness, and drink your wine with a joyful heart, for it is now that God favors what you do.” – Ecclesiastes 9:7

I've Been Healed!

I know I have been a little skeptical about faith-healing.  I can't completely nail down my belief in this area.  I do believe God heals people.  He created an amazing process where our bodies self-correct.  The last time my son scraped his knee, it miraculously got better.  Every once in a while, I think He supernaturally intervenes.  I don't believe he often uses a group of frenetic college students standing around you to do it.  I don't think your sin or your non-submission to authority has anything to do with it.

I ran across the "testimony page" on ACC's website.  It brought back bad memories of my experiences there.  Here's one of the testimonies.  Anything wrong with this picture?


Tracy had not been to Antioch in about two years, and she was excited to come and visit and to see her friend get baptized.  She has breast cancer, and we gathered around her to pray.  Interestingly, when I laid my hand on Tracy, the left side of my lower back started hurting.  We prayed for God to heal the cancer, and then I asked Tracy if she also had back pain, and she said yes.  I asked her if it was in her lower back on her left side, and she said yes.  She said that she had a cracked vertebrae, the second vertebrae from the bottom, and that she had severe pain.  I told her that since my back had started to hurt when I laid hands on her, I believed that the Lord wanted to heal her back.  She was eager to receive prayer.  We prayed for her back for several minutes and asked how she was doing, and she said that she was still in pain and that nothing had changed. 


I confirmed that she had given her whole heart to Jesus. She earnestly said that she had.  We prayed more, and I felt God speak that we needed to repent as a group for not submitting to authority.  If we are insisting that demons submit to the authority of Jesus, then we need to be submitted to Him as well.  I repented on behalf of all of these women (and myself!) for a lack of submission to God, to husbands, to pastors, and other men in authority.  We all knelt down together.  Something broke.  Tracy started crying and smiling, and she said the pain was completely gone. 


I clarified to see if it was "mostly gone" to see if we needed to pray more, and she said, "No- it is COMPLETELY gone!"  I asked her, "What is something that you couldn't do before because of the pain?" and she replied, "Reach down and touch my toes."  We encouraged her to get up and do it, and she did, with a very giddy look on her face.  She immediately wanted to testify- she was so excited.  She went up to the stage and was able to share on the microphone. It was awesome! Christi 2/25/07


If you peruse the page of testimonies, this is one of the more dramatic.  I guess it is because they did all of that repenting.  I find it curious that all of the testimonies are related to back pain, knee pain, ear pain, finger pain, and basically things that can't be diagnosed by a physician and then tested later by a physician.  But hey, I guess Jesus wants her to touch her toes -- no word yet on the breast cancer...


The thing that makes me angry about it is that it distorts the character of God.  It says, "this affliction is in your life because there is hidden or unrepentant sin in your life."  Give me a break! There is tragedy in this world.  Let it drive you closer to Jesus.  Let Him embrace you, comfort you, and comfort your family.  Don't let an over zealous weekend warrior suggest that it is because you forgot to repent for yelling at your husband last week!  Bad theology, uh, I mean methodology.