Thanks to the quick reels of social media I recently learned about manifestation and had a realization.
The particular reel in questions shows a woman standing outside shouting up to the sky that she would like either all the things on her plate to do taken away, or her chronic illness taken away so she can do all the things on her plate. Immediately, I related to her and her cry for help. But, then she looks at her camera with a bit of an attitude and says, "It's called manifestation. Look it up!"
Manifestation is a New Age belief that you can believe or affirm something into existence. It's the power of positive thinking, and of speaking into the Universe. As a Christian, obviously I don't believe in New Age practices and personal spiritualism, but BUT I realized that many Christians do practice a form of Manifestation, and that a form of Manifestation was practiced within my old church.
Certain factions of evangelicalism got into the "Name It and Claim It" movement and the various renamed or slightly altered practices of it. While my former church denounced Name It and Claim It, they still held onto a certain belief system that mirrors Manifestation, which is why I related to the woman and recognized it. In fact, before she told the camera what she was doing I thought she was praying to God! I thought she was doing similar to what we did in our old church.
The idea in my old church was the God wants to give us all the good. He wants to heal and fix and bless and all those things, which is true...to a point, but there was this undercurrent of needing to find the right prayer formula, the right amount of faith, the right spiritual practices in the right amount. It was a constant battle of trying to figure out what God wanted from us so that we could do it just right and get our prize at the end, whatever we've asked for.
I remember Evangelists and Pastors saying things like, "So and so tithed 10% on their gross income, first thing Friday when the check arrived, they set aside crisp bills for the offering envelope, and God gave them a new house!" Or, "So and so asked for a new car/a spouse/a job and was very specific in what they wanted and God blessed their bold faith with exactly that." We'd have alter calls where we'd pray and pray and pray, working ourselves up into loud, emotional frenzies, tongues, music, shouting, sobbing hoping to hear from the Holy Spirit or for a prayer to be answered. And there were times when it didn't "work" and we'd be returned to our pews only to be admonished for not having enough faith, or having a hidden sin, or not doing enough. All of these are just Manifestation, a New Age practice wrapped in a Jesus cloak.
There's a difference between believing that the Lord loves to give His children good things and answer their prayers and believing that we can pry good things out of God if we just insert the right formula.
Now, my church would "church it up" by saying "The Lord is ready to give. Are you ready to receive?" This implied that everything is ours for the taking because the Lord already gave it to us. We just have to "go get it" "believe and receive." It took away the relationship, the Fatherhood of God, His Will for us, His design, His purpose, His glory and Kingdom." What if God's perfect gift to us is the hardship? What if His Will is the hurt and pain and suffering that others may grow in virtue and benefit, or even ourselves?
I know many women with chronic illnesses, including myself, who have been spiritual abused by such practices, wondering why God hasn't healed them, but living under this belief system that God wants them healed, they just aren't doing things just right enough to manifest that healing. They hyper-focus on the woman with the issue of blood and how her simple faith healed her and wonder why all of their faithful efforts haven't brought forth healing. I have to remind them that Christ didn't heal everyone while He was on earth. He didn't raise everyone from the dead. Not everyone received his bread and fish. I have to remind them that He allowed for His own cousin, John the Baptist, to be beheaded! The apostles suffered greatly. Christians were persecuted. Saints suffered many illnesses. Not because God isn't good, but because He IS and His ways are not our ways.
Manifestation is a New Age practice. It is witchcraft. In the church, it is American-centric picket-fence witchcraft in which we, based on our culture, think we are entitled to the Christo-American idealism or health, wealth, and happiness.
We can certainly pray for healing and for changes in our life circumstances. By all means, do! But, remember, "not my will, but Thy Will be done."
The particular reel in questions shows a woman standing outside shouting up to the sky that she would like either all the things on her plate to do taken away, or her chronic illness taken away so she can do all the things on her plate. Immediately, I related to her and her cry for help. But, then she looks at her camera with a bit of an attitude and says, "It's called manifestation. Look it up!"
Manifestation is a New Age belief that you can believe or affirm something into existence. It's the power of positive thinking, and of speaking into the Universe. As a Christian, obviously I don't believe in New Age practices and personal spiritualism, but BUT I realized that many Christians do practice a form of Manifestation, and that a form of Manifestation was practiced within my old church.
Certain factions of evangelicalism got into the "Name It and Claim It" movement and the various renamed or slightly altered practices of it. While my former church denounced Name It and Claim It, they still held onto a certain belief system that mirrors Manifestation, which is why I related to the woman and recognized it. In fact, before she told the camera what she was doing I thought she was praying to God! I thought she was doing similar to what we did in our old church.
The idea in my old church was the God wants to give us all the good. He wants to heal and fix and bless and all those things, which is true...to a point, but there was this undercurrent of needing to find the right prayer formula, the right amount of faith, the right spiritual practices in the right amount. It was a constant battle of trying to figure out what God wanted from us so that we could do it just right and get our prize at the end, whatever we've asked for.
I remember Evangelists and Pastors saying things like, "So and so tithed 10% on their gross income, first thing Friday when the check arrived, they set aside crisp bills for the offering envelope, and God gave them a new house!" Or, "So and so asked for a new car/a spouse/a job and was very specific in what they wanted and God blessed their bold faith with exactly that." We'd have alter calls where we'd pray and pray and pray, working ourselves up into loud, emotional frenzies, tongues, music, shouting, sobbing hoping to hear from the Holy Spirit or for a prayer to be answered. And there were times when it didn't "work" and we'd be returned to our pews only to be admonished for not having enough faith, or having a hidden sin, or not doing enough. All of these are just Manifestation, a New Age practice wrapped in a Jesus cloak.
There's a difference between believing that the Lord loves to give His children good things and answer their prayers and believing that we can pry good things out of God if we just insert the right formula.
Now, my church would "church it up" by saying "The Lord is ready to give. Are you ready to receive?" This implied that everything is ours for the taking because the Lord already gave it to us. We just have to "go get it" "believe and receive." It took away the relationship, the Fatherhood of God, His Will for us, His design, His purpose, His glory and Kingdom." What if God's perfect gift to us is the hardship? What if His Will is the hurt and pain and suffering that others may grow in virtue and benefit, or even ourselves?
I know many women with chronic illnesses, including myself, who have been spiritual abused by such practices, wondering why God hasn't healed them, but living under this belief system that God wants them healed, they just aren't doing things just right enough to manifest that healing. They hyper-focus on the woman with the issue of blood and how her simple faith healed her and wonder why all of their faithful efforts haven't brought forth healing. I have to remind them that Christ didn't heal everyone while He was on earth. He didn't raise everyone from the dead. Not everyone received his bread and fish. I have to remind them that He allowed for His own cousin, John the Baptist, to be beheaded! The apostles suffered greatly. Christians were persecuted. Saints suffered many illnesses. Not because God isn't good, but because He IS and His ways are not our ways.
Manifestation is a New Age practice. It is witchcraft. In the church, it is American-centric picket-fence witchcraft in which we, based on our culture, think we are entitled to the Christo-American idealism or health, wealth, and happiness.
We can certainly pray for healing and for changes in our life circumstances. By all means, do! But, remember, "not my will, but Thy Will be done."
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