In Reply to: Re: miracles posted by porceleindoll on June 20, 2003 at 22:20:06:
I can relate to what you said and I think a lot of people who have been in the Family, can:
"I wouldn't rely or count on them [miracles] happening. If it happens great, but if not, have a back-up plan. Perhaps I feel I have put myself 'on a limb' many times with no real positive results and so my belief in a 'miracle' is very slim."
A lot of our forced-faith experiences stemmed back to that ML, "Faith and Healing" where people were ordered to put themselves out on a limb and saw it off. Which is just plain dumb advice for Mo to give. Why deliberately "create" an emergency situation and then expect God to meet you as you and the branch are tumbling to the earth? I don't think God would meet those kind of prayers. Like Jesus refusing to jump off the temple top and create the need for angels to catch him.
Here's a real life example after that ML first came out: I heard a story (and I'll spare you the name) of a brother who desperately needed his glasses to see, but who was told to "get the faith" that God would heal him, so he chucked his glasses into the ocean, forcing God so he thought, to HAVE to meet the need he had created. He was nearly blind after chucking his glasses in the drink, and yet went around saying by faith, "I'm healed." (You know, the "stand of faith." "Count it done.")
When a new girl came to the Home (Colony back then) and they were trying to inspire her to have the faith to throw her glasses away too, the colony shepherd turned to this blind-as-a-bat brother and said, "YOU threw your glasses away and God healed YOU, right?" The brother happily "testified" that yes, he was healed. For crying out loud!
I think Mo's toxic faith has caused us so often to put ourselves out on a limb when we shouldn't have and then expect God to meet a need that he really wasn't obligated to meet. Yet like Jo said, when she was in a situation where there was a REAL need, miraclulous circumstances happened.