Addicted to Experience
 

If we were honest, some of us Christians get addicted to the highs of "experience" at church on Sunday, and that's what we live for---one mountaintop experience after another. But today Oswald Chamber's "My Utmost for His Highest" devotional really puts experience vs. real life into proper perspective:

Re: Addicted to Experience
 

You know, that's pretty good.

Many people are disappointed when life is not one long mountaintop experience and some discard the walk with Christ because of this.

The true learning experiences are in the valley or through the desert. It's for the perfection of some hardheads like me. It's to help me understand so that I can relate to other people and the problems they go through.

If I had never known what it was like to be hungry...prolonged days without a real meal in my belly, I would not have compassion for those who are hungry.

Mountaintops are for the breath of fresh air. For times of refreshing to go on walking through the valley.

If we going to live for Christ, we must continue to walk wherever He takes us.

After all, living in this world was not a rose garden for our Savior either.

Re: Addicted to Experience
 

Amen. I was recently looking for
what I was supposed to be learning
in a situation, when it dawned that
I was witnessing, just by being
present, I guess. "While you are here,
this will not happen" is a distinct
impression I remember getting; weird
for me, as I don't think of myself as that guy.

Re: Addicted to Experience
 

Remember...David found the 5 smooth stones that he used to defeat Goliath in the valley.

Re: Addicted to Experience
 

ha whoa.

Re: Addicted to Experience
 

Sure...he did...but I don't read where David actually stayed on a mountaintop after that.

Re: Addicted to Experience
 

hmm, defeating a nine foot tall guy,
most would say a monster, prolly,
with a rock, would have to be a mountaintop experience.
Dave did go on to become king of Israel afterward,
even if he did die the sin unto death.

Re: Addicted to Experience
 

I have enclosed this from a book I am currently reading "They Drank from the River and Died in the Wilderness" - David Ravenhill

"We are content to pursue an experience rather than the God behind the experience.
We crave the anointing while forgetting that God's anointing does not automatically result in holiness or true spirituality.
The problem is we seek exposure before people rather than hiddenness before God. We settle for the "charisma" of the moment over the "character" of a displaced walk in in the Spirit.
Charisma will only take us only so far. It is character that will carry us all the way to the finish line."