safari, there's a bunch on the "law" of believing down in the doctrinal area somewhere... you might find some enlightenment there...
and I think (though I could be wrong) that Raf has a whole 'paper' on it over on the Living Epistles site... there's a link for that around here somewhere...
If you can come to terms with the flaws in TWI's "law of believing" then the associated mind set will fade away. It did for me.
Below is a link to some short articles that Rafael did that may be of some help to you on this. I think these are what Tom was refering to. This is a MS Word document. If you right click on the link, then select "save as" it will sauve to your PC. Then you can open it in MS word.
Aw, Safari, I can so relate to what you are saying.
I think the "shield of believing" as it was taught to us, (in the corps, anyway, ala VP's Epheisians teaching) is just that. A shield to keep us from really caring about each other.
It was a defense mechanism, to keep us from feeling, touching, hugging, relating to one another. It was taught as part of the "feel good" gospel of the Way, Inc.
It's amazing what can happen, when we get rid of that shield. But you know that, don't you dear?
Once we get rid of that defense mechanism, then we really start FEELING, and you know how "dangerous" that can be.
Inside TWI it seemed to be the answer or gauge to judge others, since it is taught that if you 'believe' you'll receive... whatever it was/is.
So, if a problem came up... instead of helping someone, it was pushed right back in their face with their apparent flaw in BELIEVING ...
YEOCH!!! Does that bring up the past.
Took me a long time not to cringe at the very word "believing". Even now I have to take a millisecond pause to check that I am in the hear and now when I hear it used. Using "believing" in the way TWI used is , sort of a wellness measure -them vs us-, colors your experience out of TWI. Because "Believing" is core to our lives both in and out of church, we believe in God or not, we believe that our spouses love us, we believe our children are telling the truth, we believe our boss when he says we are doing well. Corruption of the meaning of "Believing had and has a long term effect in our lives, period.
I am still trying to tread through all this "believing=receiving" stuff. I know after 6 years out I have to really control my mind sometimes when something negative happens in my life and I want to immediately condemn myself for "the results". Most of the time, I just live life the best I can, thinking basically if I endeavor to follow the 10 commandments in my life (that helps pare it down to manageable day by day application of the bible - without the religious "traditions of man") everything will work out and maybe I can learn some great life TRUTH if I can maintain during the storms of life.
"As a man thinketh in his heart, so is he" has always caused me to believe the "law of believing". That is the one verse that I cannot reconcile with my newly found thinking regarding the law of believing. I believe they used this verse to propound that. Sometimes I just think it means that we should have a good self-image. But then that would be "private interpretation".
Anyways, just some thoughts. The folks that left during the 90's and to the present were really bombarded with "any behavior or thoughts outside of the household will bring great calamity to their lives". This is really a putrid doctrine to have ensnared so many of the wonderful folks. The box was so small and any movement to the left or right would cause the roof of your house to collapse on your head. Sounds rather silly now that I think and post about it, but when you are living in the middle of it, it can really mess with your mind. The control was unbelievable and the freedom I feel now is so free . I love it.
The biggest difference IMHO between "believeing" as taught in TWI and plain ol' praying as taught in most churches is blame.
Most people don't look to condemn you or cover you with guilt if you didn't see the answer to prayer that you expected, but in TWI "not receiving" was analyzed to death.
And then there was the double standard: if you were one of the favored elite, bad things happened because the adversary was attacking you because of your great stand; if you were one of the peons, bad things happened because you weren't believing.
The pressure referred to in the title to this thread was the doctrine that believing, if you were really believing, always worked. The whole "saint & sinner alike" thing. It's got nothing to with with whether miracles happened, or God talked to people or intervened in situations. I doubt that even the staunchest proponents of "the law of believing" can say that it worked every time in every situation. We were taught that it worked every time, for everyone, but were then taught explanations for when it didn't work. And it was usually our fault!
The practice of the law of believing Oakspear speaks of is the one I'm familiar with.
In the nineties we often had situations that we did NOT take in prayer to the household of believers.
One time I had a kindergartener who caught the flu. A week later the child also had double ear infections, a throat infection AND pnuemonia, despite being kept home and cared for diligently.
We did not take it to our fellowship, because instead of love or support we would have been reamed. We figured the emotional fall out of a reaming session would not help us believe for our child, the situation was too serious to risk.
We should have walked that day. We walked a few months later, though.
Bramble, the sickness thing brings up some memories:
I raised 6 children. Sometimes they got ill, and sometimes they got ill and passed it on to another child or a parent. We were criticized by our WC BC for not "believing", since it semed like one of us were always missing fellowship due to a sick child. I thought that the fact that we had 8 people in our family just made it appear that we were sick more often than others, and said so. I was reamed for resisting leadership.
For the next several months I kept a calendar. I noted whenever each of my family were sick, and when the BC or his wife were ill.
Sure enough, the next time my BC "confronted" us about sickness, I produced my calendar, which showed that on average, each of my family members were sick less than either the BC or his wife :blink:
That "evidence" was brushed aside with the observation that...
Oak, probably the observation that you were thinking evil of them for tracking how often they were sick.
TWI used to make fun of other churches saying that they tell folks to "take it on faith", but they say the same thing it's just phrased, "just believe".
It was a convenient "out" for why things didn't go right. As Oakspear says it was a great excuse when Joe Believer had things happen to him. BUT when leadership had things happen, it was because they were believing so big and moving the word so well..... "standing in the gap" doncha know?
It all comes back to blance, imo. We want to think and expect good things and sure, Christians pray for things, but like that Garth Brooks song goes....some of God's greatest gifts are unanswered prayers. Also, chit happens. It's just life.
How freaking arrogant we were to think that we have that much power over God. (Thank you, Garth, for so kindly pointing that out to me. :) )
Had a wreck while driving to work one morning listening to a TWI Sunday Night Tape. It was raining - I was stopped at a stop sign and a car behind me skidded into my rear-end [no jokes please ]...The next day when I mentioned this to my Twig Coordinator [Corps], she gave me the third degree on there was some kind of hole in my protective hedge of believing...Man - I puzzled over that one for days - going over every detail of the wreck - and what really bothered me was that I was listening to a TWI tape when it happened!
I remember a limb coordinator going on and on about the "lack of believing" in an individual who was rear ended while sitting at a stop sign. Apparently, it was the opinion of the leadership that had this individual been listening to God, God would have told him to run the stop sign or get out of the way in some other fashion. :blink:
Anyone shed some light on this? What is it really? How does one get rid of this damaging mind set? Is there something in the Bible that was left out of their teaching on this?
Thanks :)
Here is an example of how I started getting OUT of this mindset:
We live behind a farm. New developement here. Developers are trying to buy the land behind my house, which means, instead of trees, I'll get a neighbor. Now, I could say, "I am believing for nobody to sell this land". That was my knee jerk response. Then a neighbor came over and we discussed it, and she said, "well, what if a family is PRAYING for a home and this is the only place it can be?"
All my believing ??? What am I believing?
Even Jesus PRAYED :"Lord , THY will be done on earth, as it is in heaven?"
God does say to pray a lot....... (James 5:16) then, let HIS will be done. Boy is this a weight off my shoulders.
I like to now say "Lord, what is Your pleasure?"
It sounds better than "will" to me, but same heart.
We are to believe that He is, believe who He is, and believe that He is a rewarder to those that seek HIM.
It doesn't say to believe for a new car, or for no neighbors, or for a "perfect" life..........
He seeks His glory, we are not to revel in our own. The whole "believing" concept makes us glory in ourselves, or condemn ourselves.
The whole 4th and 5th chapter of James is awesome in this aspect;
"...13 Go to now, ye that say, "today or tomorrow WE WILL go into such a city, and continue there a year, and buy and sell, and get gain: 14 whereas ye know not what shall be on the morrow. For what is your life? It is even a vapour, that appeareth for a little time, and then vanisheth away. 15 for that ye ought to say "if the LORD WILL we shall live, and do this or that." 16 but now YE REJOICE IN YOUR BOASTINGS: all such rejoicing is evil....
I always thought it was interesting (or devilish, now that I think about) that TWI consistently managed to connect believing and condemnation. Someone tell me where in the Bible it says if you don't believe you are condemned?
I mean, really! Is that what God wants? If I don't have my believing together, I'm worthless in God's eyes? That is such crappola! But that's how we were made to feel. Over and over. And from what I've seen here, it just got worse in the 90's.
Last time I checked, it said "Believe, and ye shall recieve". Not "Believe not, and your house will fall down, your loved one's will get sick, your finances will be ruined, you will die." That's TWI's private interpretation (ironic, isn't it) and not so subtle effort to control people.
And it's a tough one to shake. I finally just had to go back to a simplistic view of a loving God who was working for me, not against me. And take the ups and downs of life as just that-highs and lows, victorys and defeats, sucess and failure, joys and sorrows-the mystery of being a imperfect human. And believe that God will guide me when I'm at the end of the rope.
I remember a limb coordinator going on and on about the "lack of believing" in an individual who was rear ended while sitting at a stop sign. Apparently, it was the opinion of the leadership that had this individual been listening to God, God would have told him to run the stop sign or get out of the way in some other fashion. :blink:
No - Abigail - this happened in another state...But maybe the similarity of how your Limb Coordinator handled it he got out of the standard issue crisis-management book of double-talk given to leadership. :)
Or maybe there's a freaky-someone-in-TWI-listening-to-a-teaching-tape-and-gets-rear-ended kind of a thing available for each state...
My dear husband is tortured by this teaching over & over.
He frequently finds himself very down because 'something' happened, and wonders what the heck is wrong with himself and his believing.
It doesn't matter what I say, it's that hideous teaching STUCK in his mind.
I read through several of the Living Epistles articles. Thank you Goey for the link.
Oakspear, I agree with the Blame & double standard... and keeping a calendar and standing up for yourself, I LOVE IT!
Bramble, like you, we learned after a while to just keep quiet. Our friends first baby died... there was no sympathy for them, they were attacked for 'missing' it someplace something like.. "that's really sad... BUT YOU MUST HAVE blah, blah, blah
T-Bone, man that's terrible how you were treated. How about rejoicing in the fact that YOU were alive and well?
Bliss, excellent points on what we are to believe and where to have our focus.
This has helped me understand. Going to type out some of your responses (if you don't mind :) ) & articles for him to read... he doesn't visit the Cafe
My truck got stolen and I tryly BELIEVED it was definitely somewhere in a chop shop.
Well, the police found it and we got it back.
My "negative believing" didn't bring the negative results we were taught it would.
The great thing is that I got blessed anyway.
I guess God does stuff for us believing or not. And sh1t happens, believing or not.
TWI thought they had all the answers, that everything that happened was due to positive or negative believing, thus we were all responsible for EVERYTHING THAT HAPPENED.
Like when those useless school buses broke down on the way to the Texas farm on the way back to Emporia.
I recall the Corps Coordinators yelling about it at lunch and blaming the passengers.
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Tom Strange
safari, there's a bunch on the "law" of believing down in the doctrinal area somewhere... you might find some enlightenment there...
and I think (though I could be wrong) that Raf has a whole 'paper' on it over on the Living Epistles site... there's a link for that around here somewhere...
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Goey
Safari,
If you can come to terms with the flaws in TWI's "law of believing" then the associated mind set will fade away. It did for me.
Below is a link to some short articles that Rafael did that may be of some help to you on this. I think these are what Tom was refering to. This is a MS Word document. If you right click on the link, then select "save as" it will sauve to your PC. Then you can open it in MS word.
To Wit Archives
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ex10
Aw, Safari, I can so relate to what you are saying.
I think the "shield of believing" as it was taught to us, (in the corps, anyway, ala VP's Epheisians teaching) is just that. A shield to keep us from really caring about each other.
It was a defense mechanism, to keep us from feeling, touching, hugging, relating to one another. It was taught as part of the "feel good" gospel of the Way, Inc.
It's amazing what can happen, when we get rid of that shield. But you know that, don't you dear?
Once we get rid of that defense mechanism, then we really start FEELING, and you know how "dangerous" that can be.
Love yu.
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templelady
YEOCH!!! Does that bring up the past.
Took me a long time not to cringe at the very word "believing". Even now I have to take a millisecond pause to check that I am in the hear and now when I hear it used. Using "believing" in the way TWI used is , sort of a wellness measure -them vs us-, colors your experience out of TWI. Because "Believing" is core to our lives both in and out of church, we believe in God or not, we believe that our spouses love us, we believe our children are telling the truth, we believe our boss when he says we are doing well. Corruption of the meaning of "Believing had and has a long term effect in our lives, period.
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bliss
Ahhh yes, good ol ''believing"....
don't you all know that God Almighty, rearranges the whole universe to accomidate "me?"
Oh, yes, one time, I ''believed'' to sit next to a "normal'' person on a flight, and wouldn't you know, it happend!
Sorry, couldn't help it..................recent example from an innie....
I do not negate God doing MIRACLES in peoples lives, but that is NOT because of OUR believing, it was because we just believe in HIM.
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outofdafog
I am still trying to tread through all this "believing=receiving" stuff. I know after 6 years out I have to really control my mind sometimes when something negative happens in my life and I want to immediately condemn myself for "the results". Most of the time, I just live life the best I can, thinking basically if I endeavor to follow the 10 commandments in my life (that helps pare it down to manageable day by day application of the bible - without the religious "traditions of man") everything will work out and maybe I can learn some great life TRUTH if I can maintain during the storms of life.
"As a man thinketh in his heart, so is he" has always caused me to believe the "law of believing". That is the one verse that I cannot reconcile with my newly found thinking regarding the law of believing. I believe they used this verse to propound that. Sometimes I just think it means that we should have a good self-image. But then that would be "private interpretation".
Anyways, just some thoughts. The folks that left during the 90's and to the present were really bombarded with "any behavior or thoughts outside of the household will bring great calamity to their lives". This is really a putrid doctrine to have ensnared so many of the wonderful folks. The box was so small and any movement to the left or right would cause the roof of your house to collapse on your head. Sounds rather silly now that I think and post about it, but when you are living in the middle of it, it can really mess with your mind. The control was unbelievable and the freedom I feel now is so free . I love it.
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Oakspear
The biggest difference IMHO between "believeing" as taught in TWI and plain ol' praying as taught in most churches is blame.
Most people don't look to condemn you or cover you with guilt if you didn't see the answer to prayer that you expected, but in TWI "not receiving" was analyzed to death.
And then there was the double standard: if you were one of the favored elite, bad things happened because the adversary was attacking you because of your great stand; if you were one of the peons, bad things happened because you weren't believing.
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Oakspear
...and another thing...
The pressure referred to in the title to this thread was the doctrine that believing, if you were really believing, always worked. The whole "saint & sinner alike" thing. It's got nothing to with with whether miracles happened, or God talked to people or intervened in situations. I doubt that even the staunchest proponents of "the law of believing" can say that it worked every time in every situation. We were taught that it worked every time, for everyone, but were then taught explanations for when it didn't work. And it was usually our fault!
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Bramble
The practice of the law of believing Oakspear speaks of is the one I'm familiar with.
In the nineties we often had situations that we did NOT take in prayer to the household of believers.
One time I had a kindergartener who caught the flu. A week later the child also had double ear infections, a throat infection AND pnuemonia, despite being kept home and cared for diligently.
We did not take it to our fellowship, because instead of love or support we would have been reamed. We figured the emotional fall out of a reaming session would not help us believe for our child, the situation was too serious to risk.
We should have walked that day. We walked a few months later, though.
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Oakspear
Bramble, the sickness thing brings up some memories:
I raised 6 children. Sometimes they got ill, and sometimes they got ill and passed it on to another child or a parent. We were criticized by our WC BC for not "believing", since it semed like one of us were always missing fellowship due to a sick child. I thought that the fact that we had 8 people in our family just made it appear that we were sick more often than others, and said so. I was reamed for resisting leadership.
For the next several months I kept a calendar. I noted whenever each of my family were sick, and when the BC or his wife were ill.
Sure enough, the next time my BC "confronted" us about sickness, I produced my calendar, which showed that on average, each of my family members were sick less than either the BC or his wife :blink:
That "evidence" was brushed aside with the observation that...
...I don't remember what the observation was!
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Belle
Oak, probably the observation that you were thinking evil of them for tracking how often they were sick.
TWI used to make fun of other churches saying that they tell folks to "take it on faith", but they say the same thing it's just phrased, "just believe".
It was a convenient "out" for why things didn't go right. As Oakspear says it was a great excuse when Joe Believer had things happen to him. BUT when leadership had things happen, it was because they were believing so big and moving the word so well..... "standing in the gap" doncha know?
It all comes back to blance, imo. We want to think and expect good things and sure, Christians pray for things, but like that Garth Brooks song goes....some of God's greatest gifts are unanswered prayers. Also, chit happens. It's just life.
How freaking arrogant we were to think that we have that much power over God. (Thank you, Garth, for so kindly pointing that out to me. :) )
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T-Bone
Had a wreck while driving to work one morning listening to a TWI Sunday Night Tape. It was raining - I was stopped at a stop sign and a car behind me skidded into my rear-end [no jokes please
]...The next day when I mentioned this to my Twig Coordinator [Corps], she gave me the third degree on there was some kind of hole in my protective hedge of believing...Man - I puzzled over that one for days - going over every detail of the wreck - and what really bothered me was that I was listening to a TWI tape when it happened!
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Abigail
T-Bone, your not from Michigan are you?
I remember a limb coordinator going on and on about the "lack of believing" in an individual who was rear ended while sitting at a stop sign. Apparently, it was the opinion of the leadership that had this individual been listening to God, God would have told him to run the stop sign or get out of the way in some other fashion. :blink:
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bliss
Here is an example of how I started getting OUT of this mindset:
We live behind a farm. New developement here. Developers are trying to buy the land behind my house, which means, instead of trees, I'll get a neighbor. Now, I could say, "I am believing for nobody to sell this land". That was my knee jerk response. Then a neighbor came over and we discussed it, and she said, "well, what if a family is PRAYING for a home and this is the only place it can be?"
All my believing ??? What am I believing?
Even Jesus PRAYED :"Lord , THY will be done on earth, as it is in heaven?"
God does say to pray a lot....... (James 5:16) then, let HIS will be done. Boy is this a weight off my shoulders.
I like to now say "Lord, what is Your pleasure?"
It sounds better than "will" to me, but same heart.
We are to believe that He is, believe who He is, and believe that He is a rewarder to those that seek HIM.
It doesn't say to believe for a new car, or for no neighbors, or for a "perfect" life..........
He seeks His glory, we are not to revel in our own. The whole "believing" concept makes us glory in ourselves, or condemn ourselves.
The whole 4th and 5th chapter of James is awesome in this aspect;
"...13 Go to now, ye that say, "today or tomorrow WE WILL go into such a city, and continue there a year, and buy and sell, and get gain: 14 whereas ye know not what shall be on the morrow. For what is your life? It is even a vapour, that appeareth for a little time, and then vanisheth away. 15 for that ye ought to say "if the LORD WILL we shall live, and do this or that." 16 but now YE REJOICE IN YOUR BOASTINGS: all such rejoicing is evil....
as always...imho
bliss
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topoftheworld
I always thought it was interesting (or devilish, now that I think about) that TWI consistently managed to connect believing and condemnation. Someone tell me where in the Bible it says if you don't believe you are condemned?
I mean, really! Is that what God wants? If I don't have my believing together, I'm worthless in God's eyes? That is such crappola! But that's how we were made to feel. Over and over. And from what I've seen here, it just got worse in the 90's.
Last time I checked, it said "Believe, and ye shall recieve". Not "Believe not, and your house will fall down, your loved one's will get sick, your finances will be ruined, you will die." That's TWI's private interpretation (ironic, isn't it) and not so subtle effort to control people.
And it's a tough one to shake. I finally just had to go back to a simplistic view of a loving God who was working for me, not against me. And take the ups and downs of life as just that-highs and lows, victorys and defeats, sucess and failure, joys and sorrows-the mystery of being a imperfect human. And believe that God will guide me when I'm at the end of the rope.
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T-Bone
No - Abigail - this happened in another state...But maybe the similarity of how your Limb Coordinator handled it he got out of the standard issue crisis-management book of double-talk given to leadership. :)
Or maybe there's a freaky-someone-in-TWI-listening-to-a-teaching-tape-and-gets-rear-ended kind of a thing available for each state...
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dmiller
I agree with Oak on this 100%.
I've said it before, and perhaps it's worth repeating (again) ---
THE LAW OF BELIEVING IS THE MOST INSIDIOUS TEACHING
TO EVER COME FROM TWI.
That ONE teaching, has ruined more lives than all the others. (My IMO).
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Oakspear
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T-Bone
Well, Oakspear - I'm just glad I didn't suffer a Broke Back
...What?!?! - is there any rule saying I can't throw stones at myself?
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SafariVista
Many thanks to everyone for the input here.
My dear husband is tortured by this teaching over & over.
He frequently finds himself very down because 'something' happened, and wonders what the heck is wrong with himself and his believing.
It doesn't matter what I say, it's that hideous teaching STUCK in his mind.
I read through several of the Living Epistles articles. Thank you Goey for the link.
Oakspear, I agree with the Blame & double standard... and keeping a calendar and standing up for yourself, I LOVE IT!
Bramble, like you, we learned after a while to just keep quiet. Our friends first baby died... there was no sympathy for them, they were attacked for 'missing' it someplace
something like.. "that's really sad... BUT YOU MUST HAVE blah, blah, blah
T-Bone, man that's terrible how you were treated. How about rejoicing in the fact that YOU were alive and well?
Bliss, excellent points on what we are to believe and where to have our focus.
This has helped me understand. Going to type out some of your responses (if you don't mind :) ) & articles for him to read... he doesn't visit the Cafe
:)
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Oakspear
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T-Bone
Good point - Oakspear - and hey, that reminds me I've been meaning to ask you - did you ever ride on the Staten Island Fairy?
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Oakspear
:wub:
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outandabout
I've told this story before but,
My truck got stolen and I tryly BELIEVED it was definitely somewhere in a chop shop.
Well, the police found it and we got it back.
My "negative believing" didn't bring the negative results we were taught it would.
The great thing is that I got blessed anyway.
I guess God does stuff for us believing or not. And sh1t happens, believing or not.
TWI thought they had all the answers, that everything that happened was due to positive or negative believing, thus we were all responsible for EVERYTHING THAT HAPPENED.
Like when those useless school buses broke down on the way to the Texas farm on the way back to Emporia.
I recall the Corps Coordinators yelling about it at lunch and blaming the passengers.
Geeeesh
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