"Look! The Black Pit of Insanity!!"
Posted on 09/18/2007 7:44:29 PM PDT by Tycobb
Below is a commentary that I write once a week and send to an email list. I share it here as well.
THE DAY MY WORLD CHANGED A personal story
"Imagine a place where there is no justice and no truth, only unbridled hedonism, a preoccupation with personal satisfaction even to the point of causing pain to others. Imagine being vulnerable to being seized and used by any other being who stumbles upon you. Scream all you want and no one will hear you because no one really cares or understands. Well, this is the place of the demonic." (Author unknown)
"The more we do to you, the less you seem to believe we are doing it." (Joseph Mengele, camp doctor at Auschewitz, notorious for his experiments on inmates.)
“What if you knew something so incredible that you wanted to tell people and you didn’t because you didn’t think anyone would believe it.” Her answer to him was, “I would still try.” (From the movie "Dejavu" starring Denzel Washington).
----------------------------
So I try....
Recently, on one of the most recent video tapes, Osama bin laden was taking credit for changing the world on 9/11. It would be hard to argue that he didn't.
Like the events on September 11, 2001 which changed the American paradigm, recently I have had my own personal paradigm shift.
Though I can't pick a particular day it began, this has all happened sometime in the past five or so years through a series of events and experiences leading up to the present time.
The best way I can explain it is the way Ray Comfort ( Who has paired up with celebrity Kirk Cameron at livingwaters.com) explained his experience when he was having Panic attacks.
Though I wasn’t or am not having panic attacks -- his way to describe what he was going through -- is very similar to the way I felt or feel even now. He said,
“There is no way I can describe the experience of the following months other than to say that it was like being held over a black pit of insanity by a spider’s web.”
At times that is exactly how I feel. That if it wasn’t for this unseen web of protection, I would fall headlong in to this dark chasm of insanity.
At times I think I am delusional. And at times I’m not sure if I’m delusional. At times I think I’ve hit the button on the head. And at times I wonder if…anybody even cares.
Ray Comfort said it best. He said, “I had been praying earlier that day when suddenly it seemed that all hell was let loose in my mind. It was as though God had removed every hedge of protection from me and a thousand spirits of terror invaded my thoughts.”
It wasn’t a “thousand spirits of terror” that invaded my thoughts. But it was as though a “thousand spirits of the Baal” had invaded my thoughts.
I have asked others if they think I’m crazy. So far they all say I’m not. I don’t think I’m crazy.
Other then my behavior a year or so ago, it doesn't appear that my wife act like I'm crazy.
So…what is going on here. I think there are five options:
1.) I’m very delusional and I‘m living in the twilight zone. There were times when I really thought this. It was scary.
2) My delusions are all true, or at least most of them.
3.) I was in a car crash and I’m in a coma dreaming all this up. Quick…someone read me a happy story - I can hear you.
4.) As a Christian evangelist friend who sadly recently died by accidentally running his truck over a cliff or steep embankment, told me, “Satan is deceiving you because of your false doctrinal “Pre-wrath rapture” position.
He really told me that.
5.) Or, like Ray Comfort suggested, I have a wounded spirit and God is allowing Satan to “Buffet” me in order to “Break” me.
My note: I like #5 the best. I have asked God on numerous times in the past…to break me!
“But this is the man to whom I will look and have regard: he who is humble and of a broken or wounded spirit, and who trembles at My word and reveres My commands (Isaiah 66:2, Amplified Bible).
It was A.W. Tozer who said, “Before God uses a man, God will break the man.”
Comfort gives an example of this with a man he met:
I had met him a few months earlier when he purchased a series of our tapes, but this day he looked like a different man. It turned out that his whole life seemed to be falling to pieces. There were terrible problems at work, at home, and even in his church. Everything had suddenly gone wrong. I looked him in the eye and asked, “You didn’t pray that God would ‘break’ you, did you?” He looked back at me and said, “I asked God to break me and grind me to powder…”
I may be humbled, but I don’t think I’m broken. The main reason may be that I am still trying to find answers to the reality of my apparent "delusions." The Biblical saying, “The Truth will set you free,” rings true to me.
Comfort continues, “If there is a cry in your heart to be used by God, then you may go through a similar experience. I don’t want to unnecessarily alarm you, but if you understand why it is happening and what you can do to speed up the process, it will help. If God in His great wisdom sees fit to use the Refiners fire (if He takes you through a fiery trial), then it is only “if need be” (1 Peter 1:6). Pray that you may avoid it, but this is often normal procedure in being prepared for ministry.”
So here I am. I do feel God’s call is on my life and that he will use me. But, in God’s wisdom, I must go through the, “Refiners Fire.”
2 Corinthians 12:7-9: “And lest I should be exalted above measure through the abundance of the revelations, there was given to me a thorn in the flesh, the messenger of Satan to buffet me, lest I should be exalted above measure. For this thing I besought the Lord thrice, that it might depart from me. And he said to me, My grace is sufficient for you: for my strength is made perfect in weakness. Most gladly therefore will I rather glory in my infirmities, that the power of Christ may rest upon me.”
There is the possibility, as you read the next two commentaries, where I might have stumbled upon an "abundance of revelations." Actually, in my case, I think it is the actual "Buffeting" by the messenger of Satan -- that is the "abundance of revelations."
I know, this sounds corny. Please read on.
Comfort says, “Paul asked for deliverance from this demonic attack three times. Yet God chose to leave him with it. Some say it was a sickness, but that doesn’t seem to be what the Bible teaches. It says it was a “messenger of Satan” (a demon) that buffeted him.”
I wonder if Paul thought he was having delusions when he wrote:
“I know a man in Christ who fourteen years ago--whether in the body I do not know, or whether out of the body I do not know, God knows--such a one was caught up to the third heaven” (2 Corinthians 12:2).
Sounds delusional to me. Can you imagine reading about that by someone in some Christian Magazine today?
However, we know its true because it is in the Word of God.
When we look at the Book of Revelation and all that John said he saw, one could easily conclude, if we didn’t believe that it was part of the Bible, John was delusional.
What if Pat Robertson or Oral Roberts wrote something like that?
Peter, like the Son of Sam killer, actually heard strange voices while on top of his housetop saying, “Rise, Peter, kill and eat” (Acts 10:13).
One could say about Peter, as they did the Son of Sam killer, that he was schizophrenic.
Of course we know Peter wasn’t.
Thank God I’m NOT hearing voices.
And I haven't seen any visions. Nor have I been caught up into the "Third Heaven."
However, I have "unexplained memory" in my memory banks, along with marks and bruises on my body after a nights sleep, that suggest a more ominous world than what I thought we were living in. A world where, what I considered, "Conspiracy nuts" only talked or wrote about.
Here are a couple hints as to where I will be going in my next two commentaries:
"And I will put enmity between thee and the woman, and between thy seed and her seed." (Genesis 3:15)
“And the king said unto her, Be not afraid: for what sawest thou? And the woman said unto Saul, I saw gods ascending out of the earth.” (1 Samuel 28:13)
"...they shall mingle with the seed of men" (Daniel 2:43)
"…the unpleasant fact is 50,000 people can not be lying. Something is here-- probing people, inspecting them... manipulating their bodies, in a sense, like so many cattle…"
I know...my credibility is on the line. That is... if I have any. I may not after my next two commentaries.
Like I said, I've had a paradigm shift. In my quest to find answers I have discovered that "things are not as though they appear."
Let me close with a quote about Oswald Chambers:
"... think of the experience of Oswald Chambers, author of the mega-bestselling devotional My Utmost For His Highest. Now there’s a man whose life and words have been an inspiration to millions. He was “spiritual” in the truest sense of the word. However, the great author had four years in his life of which he said, “God used me during those years for the conversion of souls, but I had no conscious communion with Him. The Bible was the dullest, most uninteresting book in existence” (Oswald Chambers: Abandoned to God). He described those four years as “hell on earth.”
However, he found that there was an “afterward,” saying,
"But those of you who know the experience know very well how God brings one to the point of utter despair, and I got to the place where I did not care whether everyone knew how bad I was, I cared not for another on earth, saving to get out of my present condition" (ibid).
Until He comes, Kevin
ping
Why did you chose a virulent racist nutcase (Ty Cobb) for your handle?
Some. I certainly feel as though I am being terribly buffeted by Satan, and I'm not enjoying it a single bit. It's very difficult, but a necessary exercise, to learn to thank the Lord when we can't have the things we desire and have prayed for.
I have to honest, I don't use those kinds of controlled dangerous substances.
"Look! The Black Pit of Insanity!!"
Hmmmm...
I think anybody in AA might be familiar with many of those passages.
Like most people, I have, at times, been beat up by life — and believe me, when one or two things go wrong, EVERYTHING goes wrong. “Don’t get down, because people will go out of their way to kick you while you’re down!”
What I did was get on my knees and pray for strength, wisdom, and peace. You won’t go wrong if you do the same. Pray! God will send the Holy Spirit to comfort you.
Don’t focus on “me”, focus on “HIM”.
Shouldn’t this be in the chat or religion boards? How is this breaking news??
You don’t sound delusional....yet.
You sound a bit befuddled by too much information..and too much time to reflect without a base point. Get some help.
Just remember one of the cardinal rules..’Thou shalt not use to Lord’s name in vain’
Alot of folks are taught that that means saying the GD word, etc....but I was reflecting today, and wondering if it might also mean not to use to Lord’s name for our own vanity?
You see, my alcoholic brother does it quite well....and he is so sick at this point, there is no reaching him. HE IS IN THE BLACK PIT OF INSANITY!
Take heart and take advice. None of us knows all the answers. That’s why they call it faith!!
Time to get back on the meds, Ty.
I have had nearly three years of frequent agony. Am at breaking point. Is this what you refer to? I have prayed and pray and hope God answers soon.
Sometimes God just feels like kicking your ass.
I had graduated from high school and started taking classes at a small Catholic institute (it wasn't a college at the time). I was also volunteering a lot at a pro-life clinic and sidewalk counseling outside of abortuaries.
During the years when it was really bad, my health suffered. I had panic attacks 2 and 3 times a day, but I rarely let people know. I often thought I must have commited some horrible sin that made God abandon me. I even felt that what I was going through was what Hell must be like, and the thought of feeling like that forever gave me even more panic attacks! It was a vicious circle. The best I could do was to offer it all to Christ, myself included. I asked Him to use whatever suffering I had for the conversion of sinners.
I could go on, but does this sound something like what you've experienced?
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