Name-it-claim-it: The Myth Exposed

The following is a "snippet" from my book Thorn Daze: The Painful Truth About Prosperity Teaching! ENJOY!!!

Chapter Two: His Grace: Is That All There Is?

One evening, over the span of several hours, I found myself calling upon the Lord at least three times. I started out begging Him to have mercy on me and take away the ever increasing pain in my feet away. When those prayers weren’t answered, I kind of resorted to more than the usual niceties of prayer and began to insist that He remove the ever increasing levels of pain which had been raging in my feet all day and into the evening. However, the pain level had grown to such intensity, that my last approach to reach the throne of God was prayerful demands that He do something if He wanted me to continued to serve Him. I demanded that He do it now or I’d walk away from the ministry and never look back.

There was only one problem [all night]: His response to each form of prayer was no different from the answers I’d been getting over the years. So, as I lay there in bed watching television and growing more delirious from the pain, I started to channel surf and came across a popular Christian talk show. To my surprise, the topic of the show was healing and it immediately grabbed my attention and sent me spiraling downward to the point of “grabbing at spiritual straws.” The combination of pain and unanswered prayers simply pushed me too far, and my faith began to slide to an all time low as I succumbed to the invitation of that television preacher. I don’t know how many times I promised myself that I wouldn’t resort to the “picture tube hype”, but, because the severity of the pain and God’s silence left me with no other choice but to stretch my hands to wards the television preacher. I know I promised I’d never again be duped by one of these guys ever again, but, the pain had made me delirious and with hyper disappointment if God, I could audibly hear the song: “Oops there it is” and before I could stop myself my hands and faith just “flipped” towards his outreached hands and before I knew it I was hoodwinked once again. Now, you can’t blame me: I was painfully desperate and while this may sound somewhat ridiculous to some of you [i.e., believing that a television preacher could actually be speaking directly to you], if you were me laying in that bed and hurting as badly as I was, I’m quite sure you would have done the same thing. Any way, my suffering had once again pushed me over the edge of spiritual rationality and sent me plummeting downward into that never ending abyss of spiritual hallucinations as I seriously hoped and believed for my television miracle.

Whatever the underlying principles behind my spiritually maligned decision were, as strange as this sounds, at that moment in my life I actually started to believe that maybe this guy was in tune with me [not like the other times when reality sunk in] as he seemed to be speaking directly to my specific physical needs. This guy’s ability to preach with such conviction and personal persuasion had lifted my downcast faith, hyped my mental awareness, swelled up my hope, which set off a series of supernatural visions in my mind causing me fly strictly on spiritual adrenaline. After all, it seemed as though he was speaking directly to me, wasn’t he? I mean, whom else could he be talking to at the time? I was the only one in the room and when you think about the technical wonder of the television signal, and the ability of that signal to project that persons image “live” from the stations studio in southern California directly to the television set hanging off the bedroom wall, why wouldn’t a person in my desperate state of mind believe that he was speaking to me? That’s when my faith exploded. He mentioned that the Lord had shown him a gentleman lying in his bed suffering from pain to the lower extremities, probably the feet. His prophetic vision was of me. There was no doubt in my pain racked mind that he had some how been spiritually connected with me. How many other “gentlemen” could be lying in bed with pain to the lower extremities, especially the feet? This was no mere coincidence, it was divine intervention, and I was going to collect my miracle. So, with my faith, soaring high enough to cause me to feel like the wind was actually brushing across my face and through my hair, my faith reached out to his. I had simply become a victim of my own circumstances driven by desperation and truly overcome by that sudden wave of spiritually induced hysteria and the need to be healed. In other words: It sounded good to me at the time, so I tried it, again.

I was so quickly overcome by the hype of the moment that I surprised myself when I succumbed to the invitation to reach out my hands. At first, it was an involuntary muscle reaction, but suddenly the image of the preacher on my 20 inch color television screen looked so realistic that I felt as if maybe I could actually touch him. I couldn’t believe my ears, was it possible that God was finally going to use the medium of Christian television and this well known faith healer to reach out, touch me, and remove this painful thorn? I had heard testimony from others who were healed this way, so why couldn’t it be my turn? It seemed so right, and his message seemed to be personally directed at the part of my body that was in excruciating pain, which of course didn’t hurt my faith which was soaring to an all time high. It was as if this smooth talking television preacher in his three piece suit and tie had been sent from God to answer my earlier supplications, spiritual insistence, and demands for healing. Could it be that God had finally decided to take pity on me? Or was He just so tired of my pathetic faith that He was going to manifest my long over due healing to shut me up? Whatever the rationale behind this miraculous moment, at least I seemed to be standing on the threshold of healing. As critical seconds passed by it sure looked as though the flood gates of Heaven were about to open and pour out their blessings of healing power.

Another reason for my response was the self imposed guilt factor. What if this was truly a message from God? And, what if I my disobedience to the preacher’s request caused me to miss my healing? I had to do this, just one more time [and I promised myself that this would be the last time] because I surely didn’t want God to draw a line through my sorely needed request and pass me by. Surely, I didn’t want to be a victim of the sin of my own disbelief and disobedience, left out of the healing loop by my cynical heart and personal spiritual doubt, both of which could prevent me from securing that badly needed healing.

So, with my hands proudly flung out in front of me and pointed toward the television screen, I listened intently to each word of his prayer [personally for me] which also helped to convince me even that much more that this guy knew everything about me. As I listened intently, my heart began to skip a beat here and there, and my soul was close to leaping out of my body in anticipation of that precise moment when I’d finally be free from pain. This guy’s prayer had my name stamped all over it, and my faith was growing so rapidly that it was getting more, and more difficult to contain myself and keep from leaping out of the bed to do a Jericho march around the bedroom and maybe even through the house, which would have made my wife look rather strangely at me. Than without warning my growing faith overcame me again as I was once and for all convinced that in order to secure my miracle I had to at least get up out of the bed; and go over and touch the television screen. This act of faith would for sure enhance my position with God and seal the deal. Forget the Jericho March, which may have been a little overkill on my behalf; all I needed to do in order to show God how serious I was about this healing message was get out of bed and go over and touch the television screen. Who knows, maybe He’d decide to heal me on the way to the television set. It was sheer spiritual impulse that stirred within me and prompted me to get out of bed that evening to do something I’d never before done, and though I barely reached the screen in time to hear the end of his prayer, I did get there in time to touch my hand to his hand through the miracle of a color television screen and the miracle of electrical signals. That was a touching moment, and I was confident that my sacrifice [walking in pain to the television] was the one element that would sway God’s decision to finally have mercy on me and remove this thorn. It was the spiritual cherry on top of the Sundae.

Printer by persmission of author: Rev. Paul G. Zimmer, II

 

Good Guess

Good Guess - but you need to know that like the Apostle Paul, His grace taught me that that was all I really needed. It took time and prayer to come to the point in life where I could live with my pain and God's grace. I wanted more, and learned that God gave me the more, it was just in a different form, and a long way from from a miracle, which I wanted badly.

Pastor Paul