Deadline And Blaspheming God


By Phil Scovell






     It was Friday.  I suddenly remembered my house payment was
due that day and I was short; way short.  I broke out into a cold
sweat and frantically considered my options.  Was there any? 
Could it be feasible it was an impossible situation?  How could
God, in any way, shape, or form, come through for me this time? 
He couldn't, because I blew it, I determined.  After all, it was
my fault.

     At the time, I was doing high speed cassette duplication,
selling cassette supplies, and editing master tapes of services
for churches and ministries all over the country.  I had one big
contract with the large church I attended, as well as a few
smaller clients, and maybe, just maybe, that was my answer.  They
paid me flat rates for certain tasks, such as mastering, editing,
improving poorly recorded originals, maintaining weekly duplicate
tapes as mail outs, labeling and distributing, cataloging tapes,
music reproductions, and putting complete sets of tapes together
in vinyl cassette vinyl albums, and many other related tasks, not
to mention making copies of sermons on tape which people
purchased.

     Running frantically to my office, a 2-room office built on
the side of my home, I sat down and began to figure.  I numbered
the remastering tapes needed, the blank copies duplicated, and the
other recordings that needed to achieve the amount I would need to
provide for my house payment, yet, none of the work had been done. 
It was Friday, so I figured that amount of work would provide the
needed money if I completed it over the weekend.  I quick printed
the invoice, sent my son over to the business office of the church
we attended, which was just across the street, he turned it in,
and they wrote the check to me on the spot.  My son came back,
after delivering the bill, and handed me the desperately needed
funds.  I was safe.  I could now deposit the check and make my
house payment on time, get all the work done over the weekend, as
intended, but was it honest?  I didn't feel comfortable about it
but, after all, I did, even that day, begin the work itemized on
the invoice I had submitted to the church.

     Later that day, sometime during the afternoon, I was standing
in the kitchen drinking a cup of coffee and listening, vaguely, to
the news on the radio.  A thought suddenly entered my mind that
literally scared me so severely, I thought I'd have a heart
attack.  "See God?  I didn't need you to help me after all." 
Blasphemy!  My heart tripled in beats per minute, I nearly choked
on my coffee, I think my blood stopped flowing, and I honestly
felt the Lord would strike me dead right on the spot for such a
heinous, blasphemous, ungodly thought.  How could I possibly think
such a horrible, wicked and evil thought.  I mean, I was a born
again Christian, for crying out loud, but somehow that thought
alone brought absolutely no comfort.  Of course I immediately
confessed it as sin, asking the Lord to forgive me, and begging
for His forgiveness.  After all, I didn't want to die; I was just
in my mid thirties.  "Please, God, don't kill me."  Words cannot
express the terrible spiritually frightened and emotionally
reaction I had when this thought penetrated my mine.  I actually
froze, as if totally immobilized, for what seemed to be an
eternity as I waited for death to strike.  Never in my life, until
then, had I been as frightened of God as I was at that exact
moment in time.  It felt as if my very life stopped in time for a
few seconds.  I am still alive after more than twenty years so
apparently God didn't think it was as severe a blasphemy at the
time of occurrence as did I.

     In more recent times, I was sitting on my deck swing on the
back of our house.  I wasn't, as I recall, thinking about anything
in particular but was enjoying the comfortable Colorado afternoon
weather as my grandchildren played in the yard.  Suddenly, and
without warning, a thought gently pierced my mind; as if it was
just slipped in into my flow of consciousness like sliding between
cool sheets late on a hot summer's night.  It felt comfortable, in
other words, as if it belonged there.

     "Are you afraid of me?" a kind and pleasant voice said.

     After being familiar with the voice of the Holy Spirit for
many years, I was already acclimated to the sound of His voice. 
I wasn't alarmed, I didn't have to consider the validity of the
tone of His speech, and I knew instantly, it wasn't demonic in
nature.  In years past, if this questioned would have been
revealed to me, I would have freaked.  "God!  Talking to me!  No
way!"  You see, I was taught that God only speaks through His
written Word.  This is why everybody, after graduating from high
school, had to attend Bible college.  I did so and learned a lot;
some good and some bad.  After all, I wanted to know God's will
for my life.  I thought I was supposed to be a traveling
preacher, which I did for a few years, and then I thought I was
supposed to be a pastor, which I also did for a few years.  Then
God called me to something in which I had no interest, desire, or
passion.

     Hearing His inner voice one day as I sat in my office, God
said, "You will be working with sexually abuse women and cases of
multiple personality."  What?  I protested vigorously.  "Not me!" 
Besides, I had no knowledge of such things.  I mean, I wasn't a
Christian counselor, Christian therapist, Christian psychologist,
Christian psychiatrists, Christian podiatrist,  Christian
politician, Christian mortician, Christian pediatrician, Christian
dentist, Christian chiropractor, or even a Christian herbalist. 
Sure, I take vitamins, but that is about as medical as I get. 
Besides, I didn't even want to be involved with anything like what
the Lord was saying.  He was not suggesting it for me to consider,
when I got around to it, to think about it maybe being something I
might do to fill up my spare time.  He wasn't calling me either;
He was telling me.  This created no little concern on my behalf
because it was so far outside the realm of my biblical training,
in a manner of speaking, and I knew absolutely nothing about it. 
God just had to be wrong about this whole thing.  Less than nine
months later, I was praying with my first sexually abused woman
with twenty-three personalities, of which she had been unawares,
for over 50 years.

     I mention all of this simply to show that I was not
unfamiliar with the Lord's Voice when He spoke to me.  No, silly. 
It wasn't audible; it was in my thoughts.

     To refresh your memory of the second utterance I heard many
years later, He said, as I sat on my deck swing, "Are you afraid
of me?"  Without hesitation, meditation, contemplation,
calculation, consideration, ponderosity, musing, reflection, or a
second of regard, I said, "No, Lord.  I'm not afraid of you any
more."

     Now, let me clarify.  If Jesus were to show up on my door
step, and rang my door bell, and I opened the door and there He
was, I'd hit the ground so hard, I'd create a mini mushroom dust
cloud, sort of like John the baptizer did in the book of
Revelation when he saw the Lord in the flesh.  You'd do the same
and so would everybody else on the planet.  This type of
visitation of the Lord is not what I am talking about.  Jesus
wanted me to realize something I had never considered, and that
was, "Are you afraid of me?"  I could truthfully say, by this
time of my life, I wasn't.  Why?  Because I know His voice and I
know a lie when I hear one and God never lies, (See Titus 1:2). 
So, now back to my original story.

     The memory of standing in the kitchen, which continually kept
returning to mind, and hearing that voice say, "See, God.  I
didn't need you after all," was not God's voice and it wasn't
mine.  Demons, to enhance deception, will often speak in the first
person.  Thus, they make you think that you have uttered a
blasphemy.  To back it up, they will often use their feelings to
splash on you like a bucket of cold filthy water.  See?  It works. 
You think you said it and you know you did because you feel it,
too.  You must be a bad Christian to think such a horrible thing
and you believe it, too, because it feels true.

     In my case, the Lord revealed to me that I had not said any
such thing nor were the feelings of fear I experienced mine. 
Besides, I love God and I would never say such a thing because I
truly don't believe God is like that in my heart.  Thus, I was
instantly healed.  No, the memory wasn't changed; I was.  I
laughed when the Lord revealed the truth about this memory because
I was so frightened that such an evil thought would be generated
by my own mind, I was spiritually petrified at the time.  Can you
imagine the joy and the spiritual relief I experienced when the
truth set me free?  You can't imagine it unless you experience it
for yourself.  If you don't believe God cares enough about you to
be this close to you, even uncovering lies, healing your
woundedness, renewing your mind, and setting you free, you never
will experience it.  How sad.  Especially since Jesus wants to be
just that close to you.  Don't you think it is about time you let
Jesus be the Lord of even your Christian life?


How Big Is God?  The Size Of Your Mouth.
WWW.SafePlaceFellowship.com