Losing My Religion, part 5, Crazy Prayers

Part 1, Part 2, Part 3, and Part 4.

Thanks for following the story this far.  It seems like a long read to me as the one writing it.  It probably is too but its a story over 40 years in the making and most of it covers the last 3 years of my life.

To recap:

I am a modern day Pharisaical hypocritical sinner.
I started doing some things:

1. Daily Bible reading,
2. Fasting once a week,
3. Tithing,
4. Teaching (and therefore studying) on the Holy Spirit,
5. Praying crazy prayers.

Of the five things listed above, only one of them is something that God says to test him on.  The rest of the time "testing God" is talked about as a bad thing.  As in, "do not put the Lord your God to the Test".  I don't know that what I was doing was "testing" God in the strictest sense of the word.  I was seeking something beyond the religion I had known.

The daily bible reading thing was pretty simple.  I had one of those "read the bible in a year" bibles that tries to put everything in the bible in its chronological order.  The readings are broken out into so many pages a year.  To "do it" you just have to read through the material for that day.

The fasting thing was simply fasting one 24 hour period once a week.

Tithing is just what it says, giving 10% of my family's pretax income to our local church.  I also started alms giving.  That is giving money directly to folks to help them out as an expression of my faith.

The main thing about the teaching isn't that I was doing it.  I've taught Sunday School and Wednesday nights for years.  I started teaching about the reality of the Holy Spirit, which meant I had to study about the Holy Spirit in a way I never had before.

I don't remember the exact prayers I said but I started praying some crazy stuff.  Here are some examples of things I said:

1. Father please use this period of fasting to reveal Yourself to me.
2. Father please show me any sins that I need to repent of that are keeping me from You.
3. Father please give me the fullest expression of the Holy Spirit available today.
4. Father make me sensitive to the leading of your Holy Spirit.
5. Father please use me today to do something for Your glory/kingdom.  

I also prayed for God to directly intervene in the world.  For example: that story I mentioned before about giving a guy a job, or in healing sick people or whatever.  I also learned about and practiced laying out fleece.  Which is another topic for another time.

The thing about these kinds of prayers isn't that they don't get answered.  They do.  That my friends is more frightening and awe inspiring than I have words for.  Items 1 to 4 on that list can be very subjective.  You could say that they can be explained away or that they are too subjective to measure in a meaningful manner.  

Maybe you'd be right.  Except one thing, none of those kinds of prayer will ever provide empirical evidence, one way or the other that can be objectively measured, by a third party, either as a proof for against any hypothesis.  What they do is provide an experiential event that the person involved can bear witness to.

Next up, The Moose Story.