Time to Commence Deportations

I had a good experience this morning, and I figured I should share it.

For a long time, I have been obsessed with getting correction from God. He showed me that he wasn’t my genie or butler. His primary job isn’t to fix all my problems and make me rich, contrary to what I had heard from every single prominent charismatic preacher I had listened to. God helped me understand that the earth is like a uterus, and we are supposed to develop here before entering a superior world. That only happens when we accept correction. If you reject correction, you reject growth.

God also showed me that Christians–even Spirit-filled Christians–have resident demons. We give them power through our backward actions and beliefs. Youth is a particularly dangerous time, because young people don’t know anything. Their doors are wide open. By the time you get saved, you may have done a gigantic number of damaging things that opened you to demonic influence.

Let’s see if I can think of some dangerous things we do. Drugs, erotic entertainment, fornication, cultivating self-confidence, gossiping, hurting people unnecessarily with our words, violence, covetousness, cruelty, cowardice, gluttony, and idolatry spring to mind.

This morning I felt a horrible sensation inside me while I was praying. I felt that something foreign was there, and it was disgusting. Whatever it was, it was full of anxiety that radiated outward into me. I hated it. I wanted it out. I started asking God to tell me what it was and to help me get rid of it.

I started thinking about my experiences with drugs. You probably think I’m going to say I was a stoner in high school. No, I’m thinking mainly about stimulants and prescription drugs, and I’m including caffeine.

A year or two back, God told me this: “Caffeine destroys peace.” That’s clearly true, as anyone who has used a lot of caffeine knows. It makes you feel cheerful and energetic at first, and then you metabolize it, and you feel grumpy, anxious, and irritable. You may get headaches. If you quit for several days, you may get what doctors describe as “flu-like symptoms.”

I’ve used caffeine a lot. When I was in law school, I drank a quart of coffee during my first class of the day in order to help me deal with the boredom. Law isn’t all that boring, but it’s not exciting, either. It’s not physics or math. I needed help to make it palatable.

I’ve also used caffeine to get rid of headaches. Stimulants are great for headaches.

After I started praying in tongues daily, my caffeine tolerance disappeared. The other day I drank a glass of iced tea, and nine hours later, it kept me awake. I never had that problem when I was young.

I used several drugs in college. I never liked dope, but I did smoke it a few times just to be sociable. I tried a couple of weird drugs just because friends showed up with something new, and we tried them together. I also used cocaine, a stimulant, on a number of occasions. I liked it a lot, but when you come down from cocaine, you feel tremendous anxiety and guilt. I used nitrous oxide a few times. For some reason, it was popular at Columbia.

I don’t think the recreational drugs I used in college caused terrible problems, although I’m sure they generated some negative results. I think prescription drugs and caffeine were more harmful.

When I was being treated for ADD, they put me on Ritalin, which is a type of speed similar to amphetamines. Ritalin was great. It killed my headaches. It made me feel extremely relaxed. It helped me concentrate. But I developed such a tolerance I could take over a hundred milligrams a day. The pills kicked in in five minutes (not the expected half-hour), and they sometimes quit working after an hour or two, very suddenly. When that happened, I had to chew one or two 20-mg. pills to get back on my feet. It happened during my Advanced Mechanics exam during grad school, and also during the LSAT.

They put me on some other drugs which were horrible. They gave me an oil-soluble stimulant that stayed in my body for days. It made me angry and assertive, and it gave me a sex drive that would shame Bill Clinton. They also gave me some antidepressants which were supposedly helpful with ADD. I hated them. They filled me with anxiety and caused other problems.

Anyway, I didn’t use these things occasionally or sparingly, like recreational drugs. I used them daily, and I used some in huge amounts. I had to tell my doctor I was done with them. I quit. I never got addicted, so when it was time to quit, it was just a matter of throwing them out.

The time I spent on those drugs was the most miserable time of my life. No sleep. Very little food. Constant anxiety. Anger. Crazy sexual desire I could not get rid of. The last drug they gave me kept affecting me for weeks after I quit. It was bad.

I feel like I let some things in, and maybe some are still here! I believe I have to shut some doors.

I’ve been avoiding caffeine, but every so often I’ll have a Coke or some tea because I’m tired of water, and I’ve been having hot chocolate with breakfast because I want to add calcium to my diet. Chocolate has small amounts of caffeine, plus a milder stimulant called theobromine. Today I drank a boring glass of cold milk before breakfast. I just bought two bags of little dark Hershey bars to make hot chocolate, and I guess I’ll have to throw them out.

I wonder if the problem with drugs is that they take the place of God and deny him his glory. If I had had the presence of God and a good prayer life, I wouldn’t have gone to doctors to help me study. God would have helped me.

I know that the presence of God is like the effect of a drug. He emanates peace, joy, love, and a sense of complete relief and safety. Those are the things we try to get from drugs. Even things like beer and coffee. Living close to God is like being on a pleasant drug most of the time. There is a sort of buzz to it.

All over the US, doctors are pumping kids full of stimulants and antidepressants. It’s a wonder they’re not all insane.

I don’t have much faith in psychiatric drugs. People develop tolerances. Their responses change. If you know anyone who is bipolar, you know that every so often they flip out, and sometimes it’s because the medicine doesn’t work any more. We do what we can to help ourselves because we can’t find God’s help, and our own help isn’t very good.

We call people who drink and smoke weed “self-medicating,” but really, the whole human race is self-medicating instead of finding God’s cures.

It reminds me of what the Bible says about money. If you get it the wrong way, it causes remorse. God brings blessings without remorse. There is no crash after a dose of God’s presence.

Chocolate is great, but if it’s opening the door to illegal immigrants in my heart and mind, I can live without it.

Communion is essential. It’s mandatory. Christianity does not work without it. We have to examine ourselves with God’s help and get his correction. When we don’t do this, we continue damaging ourselves. This is why Paul said poorly performed communion causes disease and death. This is why God has made correction so important to me. It’s a cure. It’s a key that opens prison doors.

If you don’t have wine and crackers, do whatever you can. Pray for correction. Be as honest as you can with God. Pray for honesty! You can do that. God doesn’t want you to do it on your own.

I’m sick of certain parts of my personality, and I don’t think they’re completely mine. I have unwanted supernatural guests that influence me. That has to change. I feel like I live in a house with pigs that run around defecating on everything. That must be what it’s like for the Holy Spirit, who has to inhabit this mess.

Keep asking God what you’re doing wrong. Keep praying in tongues. Never forget that you’re surrounded by spirits, or that you have to address this problem. That’s what I take away from this.

Christians don’t want to hear this. They’re too arrogant. They think they’re perfect, and that no spirit other than God has any claim to them. People like that will be stuck here when God’s servants are taken from the world. Then maybe they’ll learn.

The other day God gave me this: “Thank you for giving us redemption instead of denial.”

I look forward to improving, and I definitely look forward to feeling more of God’s presence.