Radical Christian

        ……so I am. I’m a little embarrassed at the truth, but there it is none the less. I hope Mylon Lefevre will not mind me quoting him: “If you believe that God was given birth to by a virgin, became a man, walked the earth, was killed and raised from the dead three days later, you’re a radical, get over it!” So I’ve been a radical most of my life. Now so more than ever. I just spent the last ten minutes using a steak knife to scrape demonic images off of the side of some new hot wheels that Jake got. I’m not even sure I remember who I used to be, but I‘m not going back!


          Today at our mother’s group, Alva spoke. I was so blessed by her message. Sometimes I get angry when I’m reading parenting books, watching Supernanny, or even being shepherded by other mothers. I hear a lot of fillers: “Let’s talk about rules for play dates….let’s talk about what happens if you have to discipline someone else’s child…let’s talk about how you should fold your laundry,” or whatever else. Will someone please just tell me how to grow Godly children? Thank God for Alva. When my husband asked me what our group was on I sighed, “Oh Lord, honey, you don’t want to know.” But it was good. “She wanted to make sure we were all baptized with the Holy Spirit, so she prayed of us to receive.” It was scary. “Then she lovingly forced us to speak in tongues out loud.” After all, it is the outward sign of receiving the Holy Spirit. “It needed to be done, I’m glad she did it.” But I’m a weirdo now, in a good way. I feel bad even saying that, because it isn’t weird. You hear that, world? IT ISN’T WEIRD! Still the stabbing silence of the room as Alva shouted, “Come on, someone start speaking out loud, encourage one another,” proved otherwise. If she was looking for the small coffee shop to resemble Pentecost we were far from it. But in faint whispers, chopped syllables arose.

Here is my back story:

         I went to First Assembly 10 years ago now (man, I’m getting old!) and this lady started singing in tongues, at the top of her lungs and it echoed throughout the chapel. I was thinking, this is weird, this isn’t ok, this is weird, I’m uncomfortable, this is weird. You get the picture. Then someone came to the microphone and said, “She says that this language makes people uncomfortable but God understands and it is a powerful statement of faith.” That kind of freaked me out. I wasn’t moved by it, or changed, I was scared.

          Once I went to a gathering at The Refuge, it wasn’t a youth group or church, it was some missionary speaking. He told the story about Elijah calling down fire on the altar and announced that we were calling down fire onto our room, and told us that we needed to be speaking in tongues and he would come over us as we had our heads bowed and shout, ‘FIRE!” I was terrified. In fact, I left early in a frenzy, desperate to get to the car, to get away. I sat in my car and sobbed uncontrollably, and sped out of the parking lot leaving tracks. I called anyone I could think of, my old youth pastor, anyone who had read the Bible in their life. Will somebody please tell me that these people are crazy? No one picked up their phone. I didn’t get to vent. A guy I was “interested” in had invited me, and I was totally freaked out by his zeal. I left that group afraid of even attending The Refuge again.

             So fast forward about three years, the Lakeland, Florida revival was on TV. I totally ate it up! I had never seen a revival, never really seen or felt the Holy Spirit move. I mean, I had felt “tingly” during worship, and I had seen Jake healed, but I was still eat up with fear, resentment, hate, rejection, accusation, not to mention I had Celiac Disease and my body was wasting away. When I saw people walk across the stage and testify to these great healings, I was blown away. I stayed up until midnight some nights watching God TV. One night, I was up watching it (probably the fifth night in a row). Todd announced that a spirit had been released against the revival and it would die away if we didn’t pray. He said, “if you aren’t baptized in the Holy Spirit, you better get that way because we’re going to start praying for this move of God not to die out.” Maybe it’s strange, but I loved the revival. So when he said this, I just did it, “God, I need your Holy Spirit. Please.” It wasn’t like a big moment for me, but I was excited. I ran and got my journal and started writing a prayer. Jake was three months old and I desperately wanted a husband. I wrote in the journal, “Please bring me a husband.” I prayed for the Revival and for Todd and those that were being healed. Todd said, “…you need to speak in tongues as you are praying.” It felt like he was speaking to me! I was totally freaked out, scared out of my mind. I whined, …but I hate tongues, but I didn’t want to lose what I was seeing on the screen. So I started. It didn’t sound natural to me, but I forced it. Whatever I saw in my mind, I would say. I felt God moving so I knew it was right, but it was strange. I felt like maybe God was dancing over me, like He was proud. …but this is weird. I have this journal and dated at the top is May 26th. I met Paul May 27rd. I’m not kidding! I was totally sold to tongues, although I barely ever did it again. Furthermore, if you aren’t from Concord you probably don’t know that Todd cancelled all of his meetings around the country so he could stay in Lakeland. He was there for 30 days, or more. He was a busy guy and felt he was needed in Lakeland only, but God told him to keep his dates in Concord. So this revival that changed my life, inspired my relationship with the Holy Spirit came to Concord, three minutes from my house. I got to go to the actual revival, I had no idea he was coming to Concord when I started watching God TV. Such a kiss from God.

                   I wanted to share that because there are so many odd thoughts associated with speaking in tongues. I can remember someone asking one of my professors at Pfeiffer what it meant, and she was scolded, “tongues is not important, and is merely a gift that some people [disgusting worm type people] have.” The enemy is so clever. Anyway, I have questioned whether or not I actually received the Spirit that night in the living room. I have asked for it again. I had Alva pray for me again today. I’m sure I’ve had it all along, but I wasn’t going to turn up a chance to have Alva pray for me. I do worry, “What if I don’t have the Spirit?” But the truth is, I couldn’t speak in tongues at all before I asked for the Spirit. Also, Alva reminded us that the Bible says if you ask for it, you will receive. Traditionally, it is with the laying on of hands, but God works in all manners. I received by myself. Anyway, I wanted to write about my experience because it is a scary thing. That’s the enemy, that’s the world- naturally we want to fit in. But if you want to learn more, if you want move into a more radical type faith and relationship with Jesus Christ himself, it’s not just an option, it is all there is. It’s a powerful tool for evangelism. Most of all, it’s a gift.

             I also remind myself that Jesus was probably an odd ball (Jesus, you understand, right?). People thought he was weird. I don’t know about you, but my greatest aspiration in life is to be like Jesus and to look like Jesus. Unfortunately that probably isn’t going to look like me sitting in a church pew with cement shoes. *all church haters applaud* No, fellowship is necessary. But we’re going to look strange sometimes and we should embrace it, not run away. The truth is, when I see someone speaking in tongues now I often want to be like them, not despise them. Also, I’ve heard the argument that if we live a radical lifestyle we’ll scare away Non-Christians. In fact, I’ve said this before. Maybe I believe it a little bit. Sigh, Ok. If you are a light shining in darkness, I think you’re going to be noticed. It’s a beautiful thing though. My life goal is 1) be like Jesus, 2) be like the Duggars. They are sort of weird (maybe I should start using the word different?), but I love them. I see something in them that I badly want and they are the number one series on TLC right now. See, I am not alone. They have the “Holy Spirit glow.”

             If you have questions about tongues, I hope you’ll view me as an advocate. I hope you’ll feel comfortable enough to ask me why I care about it, why I try to get better at it. If you want to receive the Holy Spirit, I’d love to assist. I will say that I don’t know what the heck I’m doing, but that may help. I prayed for a teenage girl the other day and I found myself saying, “God bless both of us with purity of heart, saturate us both with Your love.“ I don’t know everything, but I know enough and so do you now. So let’s be more effective for God, He’s worth it. Hey, so are you! This is quite controversial but I’m going to say it because it woke me up. Pastor Russ said it several weeks ago and it bears repeating. *deep breath* If you have been baptized by the Holy Spirit, you can speak in tongues. Not only that, but you should. Check out the Bible for guidelines on doing so in public and so on, but during private prayer sessions, go for it. I enjoyed what Pastor Russ said: “Do you have to speak in tongues? No. But why wouldn’t you!?” So there you go, for what it is worth. Let’s shake up America!