Feb 11, 2014

How is God Using the Prepper Movement?

Abigail and Dolley readers have you heard about the Sustainability Movement?  Ordinary folks have started little farms.  They are growing or making all their own food, building solar panel ovens, collecting rain water, and checking out from everyday American life.  In the not so distant past, this type of isolated life was unthinkable and was reserved for the likes of militia and cults.  Something changed and a significant number of people are living off the grid.

Do a Google search on the Sustainability Movement or Revolution or Lifestyle.  Go on Facebook and rabbit trail around, there are thousands of sites and bloggers.  From a secular perspective, the origins of the movement are laid out very well in this article.  Reading through it, we see it was founded out of the Environmentalist Movement which is in its essence a hard core ideology that has combined nature lovers with anarchists.  Before you shut me down, I am not saying all these modern pioneers are anarchists and environmental zealots, I am simply stating that the beginning of sustainability was born out of this movement.

Modern Homestead
Logically then, the first, second, and third wave adopters are decidedly left of center.  The first being radical, the second probably being more spiritual, and the third probably more idealistic.  The fourth wave? I'd surmise the Homeschooling Parent and that is where it crossed the political boundary.  As the numbers grew, ordinary folks began to pick up on some of what they were saying and eventually the organic movement seeped into mainstream America.  Newt Gingrich was the first conservative I ever heard talk about the environment as an issue where the right and the left can find common ground.  Throw in the hard core right who, under the influence of World Net Daily and Glenn Beck, are stockpiling supplies and preparing for the end and you have a very unique mix of seemingly unrelated groups.  In a nutshell, they are all "Preppers".

Prepper Gun Cache
Today, folks from all walks of life are modern day homesteaders.  They are bartering with their neighbors, raising chickens and goats, growing their own food, making their own cleaning and hygiene products, and weaning their dependence on Big Food.  We find common ground in The Food Babe Army who is pressuring corporations to remove harmful chemicals from their products.  The gardening community is afire with the Back to Eden Film and this is where I had my "Aha" moment.

Survival Tent
I view everything through my worldview filter.  I believe that we are living in the last days and that the Rapture of the Church is imminent.  But what of those left behind?  What of the Tribulation Saints?  How are they going to survive when the Antichrist rules this world?  How will they eat, where will they hide?   I believe that God has been making provision for these people for years.  Without their knowledge, without their understanding, He has called them out and taught them what they will need to know.  He has provided a place for them to hide, a way for them to feed themselves, and an environment where they can be safe.

Prepper Pantry
Since the earliest adopters of this movement are decidedly anti-christian they will be the most well versed and the best established.  They know how to harvest rain, build solar ovens, dehydrate food, raise livestock, and build houses from bags of dirt and shipping containers!  They even feel that we are on the precipice and are frantically calling on their spiritual leaders to promote sustainability.

As for me and mine, I figure some of my unsaved neighbors will use my garden. Unsaved friends will remember the couple who has been preparing for years and will eat the stashes of survival food stored in bunkers, basements, and modern fall out shelters.  God in His mercy knows they will need it.

Feb 8, 2014

Recovering From Word of Faith

Abigail and Dolley readers as a new believer I was starving for all things of God.  If you have followed this blog or are friends with me on facebook you know that I always have something I am passionate about.  I am almost always researching something and I try to find out as much as I can about a subject.  My Mom teased me about this trait this Summer and I realized that there are a couple major themes I usually adopt:  Faith, Gardening, Health/Weight Loss/Cooking, and some times Politics.  Thus, it is no surprise that when I recommitted my life to the Lord that I would dig in deep and I did!  Unfortunately, in my hunger to learn everything about this wonderful life in Christ I began watching Word of Faith preachers on INSP (pre-internet world!).

I was enthralled!  I could pray for healing and be healed.  I could invest in God's kingdom and reap exponential awards.  I could confess and speak things into existence because God promises in His Word and He HAS to do it because that is who God is!  I read books, I taped shows, I confessed the Word, I prayed, I gave, I believed, I made terrible financial decisions based on "faith".... I was sold out and so on fire for the Lord I was tough to be around.

Then, I got sick.  I prayed.  I believed God for healing.  I did not receive that sickness into my body.  I exercised incredible faith.  I did not get better.  Sitting in the Emergency Room one night about 6 weeks into this mysterious illness, I looked at my husband and complained that I was doing everything I was supposed to do and I was still sick!  Something was very wrong with this picture and I gave up on the Word of Faith movement in that moment.

What I did not realize was that I was now very spiritually damaged.  As a new believer, I indoctrinated my soul with lies.  I set up ways of thought, beliefs, and actions based on the words of greedy liars disguised as preachers.  In many ways, I had black highways paved through my soul.  My thoughts and prayers raced across the false roads.  When I abandoned the Word of Faith movement, I abandoned the Word and Faith and the Hope that comes with being a true believer.  Subconsciously, I embarked on the rest of my faith life where God's promises were tainted.  Having Hope seemed like a Mountain Top Proclamations.  Expending my Faith was ruined.

It was 15 years after the fact that I realized that I still carried the damage.  Reciting scriptures of God's promises ran over those dark highways in my soul and reached my heart with unbelief and no power.  I did not even realize it.  As I began to dig into it, I realized that only God can heal me of these spiritual scars.

How many walking wounded are there right now?  How many new believers are sucked into this false doctrine and scarred forever?  How many huge houses went into foreclosure because vulnerable Christians were believing God for the money to pay for their mortgages?  How many sick people are not seeking medical treatment because they are believing God for divine healing?  How many people completely fall away from the faith as seeds sown in shallow ground?

I have been a vehement critic of the Name it and Claim it movement.  I left a church home over a dispute about it and never looked back.  I hate the doctrine and what it does and there is a special place in Hell for the wolves in sheep's clothing that deceive God's people and line their pockets with the proceeds.  Beware.