Oh, to have been a fly on the wall… Neil has some crazy stories!
If I can get past the crazy, here’s what I see. Alvin, the guy, got mixed up with some shady folks who prayed over him and said he had the gift of prophecy.
When I got to the end of today’s reading, and Neil talks about how important it is to test the spirits, I was thinking, Great! I’ll just do that prayer thing he does and call out whatever spirit is there. Yeah, I’m a little intimidated by that, although I know I shouldn’t be. Probably Neil has had lots of practice.
But thinking it through, it was Alvin’s responsibility to be testing the spirit behind the false teachers in the first place, right? That’s something the Holy Spirit does for us – He gives us that uncomfortable feeling when something isn’t right, and it’s up to us to follow through and ask the questions, look stuff up in the Bible, etc. We can’t just go along with things and assume that since this person is leading a prayer meeting, it’s all good!
Numbers of years back, my husband and I asked a pastor who was a guest speaker at our church to pray for us. This was a well-respected, dear man, and we were surrounded by folks from our church who we trusted, and who had known this man for years.
It was a strange experience. He asked us to stand, and then while praying with his hand on our foreheads, he pushed us so that we were off balance, and someone standing behind us (his wife?) basically pulled us gently to the floor and told us to stay there. Strangest thing ever.
Is the guy a false teacher? I don’t know the full answer to that, but I can tell you something was off that day. We left a little confused, but eventually came to the conclusion that while the man meant well, we wouldn’t be coming forward for prayer at any future meetings with him (and on a side note, there weren’t any…).
Why the long, strange story today? I suppose I was reminded not to look down my nose at poor Alvin – sometimes things that are spiritually wacky may come from a person who’s well-respected, even by people you trust. I’m responsible to follow the Holy Spirit when He says something’s rotten in the state of Denmark. And I’ll trust Him to show me what to do with it all…
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