God is Supernatural

I’ve felt the need all day today to write a response to my previous blog about the forgotten church and the strange manifestations of spiritual warfare that I encountered. The reason is twofold: firstly, I must recognize that, given the broad reaching expanse of the internet, there just might be some besides the people who know me who read this blog and it’s important for everyone to know that I am not given to creative tales about spiritual subjects (anyone who has read my book knows that I've seen too much to be easily taken in). Besides this, everything that I share of this nature can be verified by another, perhaps saner, source, such as Joe, who is very practical in his evaluations of the supernatural; secondly, I truly believe that there are many within the body of Christ who, although they believe in God and heaven and hell, don’t quite grasp that the supernatural features of both these places surround us every moment of every day.

God sent me to Pakistan for a reason, and I don’t think that it was to be mauled by our enemy. Although the story has its roots, again, in the supernatural places many refuse to acknowledge, I’m going to go out on a limb here and go a little more in depth.

I was reading a commentary by a teacher I greatly respect and he mentioned, emphatically, during an explanation about a dream God gave Solomon, that God no longer speaks to people in and through dreams. Although I couldn’t agree, I didn’t lose respect for the preacher for he was simply making an observation from a vantage point from which he had never personally experienced this particular manifestation. He didn’t say, but likely he would not understand any of the supernatural occurrences that I’ve come to acknowledge as coming from the hand of the Lord, as well as some, as noted in my previous blog, not from the Lord but supernatural all the same.

An ancient illustration that I’ve heard many theologians refer to is supposed to have happened to Martin Luther. Apparently the devil appeared at the foot of his bed and Luther, after recognizing that it was Satan, simply said, “Oh, it’s you” and went back to sleep. Yet, many of these same theologians, while emphasizing the great faith of this man who was undaunted by the apparition of Satan himself, seek to dispel any idea that there can be any paranormal explanations for Godly and not godly, or demonic, incidents that take place in the lives of believers.

I must pause to highlight that first we must “believe”.

There’s a website I recently became aware of called MoreThanDreams.com. Within its pages are fascinating, perspective altering, accounts of visions and dreams that God brought to people in the Middle East and Asia which turned their lives around and brought them boldly to the Savior, Jesus. I’ve read other accounts of the same nature. Perhaps you have too. What of these? Was it an arbitrary late night meal that produced these radical conversions, as my preacher/teacher might suggest?

And what of the old faithful story of Job. Did God not allow Satan to harm Job physically? Are sores all over one’s body, as in Job’s case, somehow more in keeping with what the devil or his demons might inflict upon a believer than what happened to me in Pakistan? Remember, I was covered by prayer and fasting. I think the most he was able to do was irritate or try to intimidate me. From what I recall about the case of Job, Satan can only hypothesize any given outcome of his attempts to thwart our faith. Therefore he couldn’t know that this would only prove to underscore a victory for my Lord the King.

But, now for that limb I’ll step out onto.... I’m not a theologian, but if I understand what the Bible says in Joel 2:28, dreams and visions are a natural counterpart of an outpouring of the Holy Spirit. When we were in Pakistan, two things were plainly foreign to us yet second nature to our brethren there; that the Holy Spirit is moving in a powerful, miraculous way, and that dramatic dreams and visions are common place.

Pastor Anwar told us, in a video interview we did with him, about an overwhelming vision that brought him out of the world and into full time service for Jesus (I’ll share more about that in a later blog). He was, at the time, a high ranking government official. But God got his attention the only way he probably could have—supernaturally. Pastor Rizwan also tells of a dream in which the Lord told him that He wanted the boy to preach the Gospel, and this young pastor does just that day and night.

Meanwhile, back in the states, I had a dream a week or so before my Pakistan invitation where a man from the Middle East who told me I would be “leading” something. It was somewhat vague, and delivered no other information, but I clearly remembered his face. I also had a beautiful feeling after awaking, the familiar sense that has always followed such an event. When Pastor Rizwan wrote me and told me that he wanted me to come to Lahore, I instantly connected the dream with his invitation. However, when we had a video conference soon afterward, I noted that he didn’t look at all like the man in my dream. This didn’t matter as he was, at any rate, Middle Eastern looking. Later, I saw his brother, Pastor Anwar, and the man of the dream was, in fact, him.

I’m not saying that all dreams are from God or that everyone has dreams that are from God. I’m just saying that God is supernatural. He used dreams to communicate all throughout the Bible and I’ve not seen any place written within its pages that states He no longer uses dreams. Besides, it would take God Himself to tell me that the dreams that I myself have had through which He has communicated something special to me, sometimes inducing major changes, are the result of an undigested piece of meat. Since I began keeping a dream journal, and unfailingly believe that God is the same today, yesterday and tomorrow and, most likely has not changed in His methods, my perceptions of the supernatural world in which God and my enemy exist have only heightened.

By the way, since I was invited to Pakistan, several people have asked how that church found me in the sea of American ministries, (I’m nothing in the scheme of things). I asked Rizwan, again for the video interview, as I had also been curious. He said that He had been praying and fasting for a day and night asking God who would come and the Lord, in the night, gave him my name. He, Rizwan, wrote down the name and then found me the next day through the internet. Three months later I was on my way.

When we were in Lahore four bombs went off in the city. I read today that not far from where we held the crusades, not far from where our brothers and sisters live and worship, 80 people were killed yesterday while worshipping at a mosque.

One thing that struck me about the church in Pakistan is that supernatural spiritual matters are very serious business. It’s simple, really. Theirs is a very real world, not a “Matrix” or simulated reality like the one in which I am prone to dwell back in the US. They must depend on God being supernatural and trust that all His supernatural defenses and resources are available to them as much today as when Christ walked this earth.

From what Joe and I saw in Lahore, and what I read in His Word, they most certainly are.