Plus New Repentance

I did not go to church today. Maybe it will eventually happen. I watched a few Tom Fischer videos.

This morning I woke up while it was dark, and I felt tense. I have been pretty relaxed lately, so I knew something was up. I started praying, and I felt God was telling me to think about pride and hypocrisy. I had a long prayer session about these things. I examined areas in which I demanded more from other people than I did from myself (hypocrisy), and I considered the difficulty of being honest with God about it (pride).

God didn’t decide to help me because I was a wonderful person. He did it because he was full of love and willing to forgive and work with a person who was headed for hell, and I am still less than wonderful I have to keep that in mind when I deal with other people.

I saw that Fischer had a video about hypocrisy and self-righteousness, and I watched it. Then I decided to watch his latest videos. He has been visiting Florida, and I wondered if he might include Marion County in his itinerary.

A few days back, he uploaded a video from West Palm Beach. I decided to watch. There were several other Christians ministering with him. I noticed that one of them looked like someone I knew.

It WAS someone I knew.

Fischer was out on the street evangelizing with my friend Dave.

Dave used to go to my Saturday prayer group, which was led by the overseer of all the volunteers from Trinity Church. Dave wasn’t a Trinity guy. As I recall, his wife had serious reservations about Trinity. He attended the prayer group anyway.

He brought a friend named Stu. Stu’s wife was Jewish, and she was an atheist. Jewish religious authorities say you can’t be a Jewish Christian, but you can be a Jewish atheist, Satanist, Muslim, or Buddhist. Go figure. You can probably be a Jewish Jehovah’s Witness, since they don’t worship Jesus. I don’t know.

Stu’s wife would not let him have a Bible. I’m not clear on how a wife can prevent a man from having a Bible, but some marriages are like that. He took foil and used it to make a book cover so she would’t know what he was reading.

She took him to a Jewish psychiatrist who was also an atheist. She believed Christianity was a mental illness, and the psychiatrist agreed to treat him for it.

There are a lot of people trying to get laws passed, prohibiting doctors from trying to get people delivered from homosexuality, but it’s legal to try to cure Christianity.

I haven’t seen Dave or Stu in quite some time. I sent Dave a text today because I realized he did not have my new number.

I can’t tell you how strange this is. How many Christians are there in South Florida? Hundreds of thousands, probably, omitting the backsliders. How many do I know? Maybe two hundred? How likely is it that one who was in my cell contacts would pop up in a Youtube video I chose to watch?

Dave is an interesting guy. To say he’s enthusiastic is an understatement. The prayer group met at a Denny’s in Broward County, and we used to talk in the parking lot after it was over. Christians do that. You will see the serious ones standing in the parking lot after church for half an hour.

One thing I learned about Dave was that if he started talking to me, I had to move into the shade quickly. I burn easily, and Dave is not a person who has short conversations about God.

Dave wasn’t a preacher. He was an elevator repairman. I can’t even guess how he hooked up with Tom Fischer. It’s not like he’s a prominent healing evangelist any traveling preacher would expect to meet. He’s obscure.

It’s neat when God does things like this.

Another man appeared in the video, and it’s not totally clear, but it looks like God told him Tom’s wife’s name. Judge for yourself.

Regarding my own inner issues, I have to keep digging. I was such a mess by the time I turned back to God, there was a huge backlog of deferred maintenance. It’s good to have God continue to expose stuff to me.

I don’t know what will happen next with Tom Fischer. Maybe I’ll run into him at Tractor Supply.