It is ironic that an insecurity I harbor is also one that I get asked about the most – the ‘reality’ to the discernment of spirits. Since I was a little girl I’ve had moments of seeing things that were clearly evil or even angelic and I’ve had moments (like yesterday) that odd things happen that can’t be explained. My insecurity comes in when I recognize how ‘crazy’ it sounds to others that might not have any experience in witnessing these things or have already formed an opinion that it isn’t true.
And the one behavior that can ‘fire me up’ is when someone claims I am ‘lying’ when I am telling the truth. (FYI if you are a close friend of mine this is how you can test my sincerity…if you claim you don’t believe what I say in regards to anything…and I am for certain telling the truth, I will go nuts making sure you realize I am TELLING THE TRUTH! If you do this and I was fibbing or at least trying to bend the truth (possibly to keep it from hurting you) then I’ll get real timid – caught.) When I share some of my stories I can read people’s expressions and it is pretty easy to tell if they are a skeptic, so the insecurity comes from me desperately wanting everyone to believe me. I am most proud of the moments I can share when someone else has also witnessed the ‘strange occurrance’ so I at least have a witness to prove I am telling the truth.
Regardless, God showed up for me personally this morning by surprising me with a hefty dose of confidence. Jim Beckman (speaker and director of Impact Center in Colorado) sent me a workbook series titled “Learning the Love of God”. We had worked together at a Steubenville conference this summer and he had told me he was going to send me a series that he felt I would enjoy. I received it a few weeks ago and decided to begin working on it this morning. I was half way through the first lesson when the priest, Fr. Scott Traynor, began to explain discernment of spirits. I was paying attention but when he began to go down this road my ears went into hypertension.
“All of our physical senses have a spiritual counterpart,” Fr. Traynor explained. “Angels and demons are ‘pure’ spirits that have no physical body but are real.” He goes on to explain how we interpret this interaction with these ‘pure’ spirits in order to understand them in our physical senses:
He shows an image of a mountain that is in the middle of the ocean and then he shows a picture of the ocean without the mountain. “Just five feet under the surface of the water is the mountain. When the water level drops, this reality gets revealed as the mountain shows itself. Was it there before you saw it when the water level dropped? YES! When the mountain is five feet under the water level and can’t be seen and if I was driving a Navy Destroyer, which has 30 feet of ship under the water and I ran into the mountain, would it have an effect? YES! Christian imagination is like the water level. As it seizes on unseen spiritual realities and as it engages them, it translates them in a way that makes sense to us; thus we can make sense of the goodness of the Lord, we can make sense of what we are experiencing in spiritual combat.”
He goes on to explain the difference between fantasy and our spiritual imagination. “Fantasy is making stuff up and it produces an effect but that effect evaporates as the stimulus is gone. Imagination, on the other hand, engages unseen spiritual reality, but if it’s REAL it’s rooted in reality. It makes it sensible to us; and when I engage my imagination in that way, it will have an effect on me. The way to know it is rooted in reality is that the effect persists when I am no longer actively imagining what is going on.”
IT IS REAL IF THE EFFECT ENDURES WITHIN YOU EVEN WHEN THE SENSE IS GONE.
I just love it when I finally come across someone who can explain something I have never been able to explain. 🙂
I had to stop the study there for the day but I am so excited to continue this study. If I find it is worthwhile throughout I might offer it as a group study.
Anyway, I know that the ‘hand on my side’ was not just my ‘fantasy’ imagination. It was ‘real’ because the effect has continued to stay with me in a very special way. 🙂
Blessings
Shannon