Was Denied

Hello everyone, it has been another long time since I updated. I hope you are all well.

A lot has happened since I was last on here to update about my life. First I was denied disability. At this point I have decided not to appeal the application. Perhaps it is due to my moods and depression and other symptoms being better then when I first applied. In any case I am looking for work now and hope to find a job. I am nervous about this for a number of reasons. Firstly, it has been a number of years since I worked. The last job I had, I disassociated so much that I could not hold the position. And even the job before that I was hearing so many voices while working that I could not focus. So, I am not even sure that I can maintain a job or not.

Since updating last time, my wife has had more seizures. She has an appointment in Indianapolis with a specialist in August. Meanwhile her seizures continue. They have gotten so bad that her job told her not to come back until they get under control. She has had the problem for two years  now so not sure what to do since both of us are out of work now.

If there is a positive in all of this, today I was able to get a job interview at Kroger, so prayers would be appreciated that it would go well and that I would snag this job and keep this job and my symptoms would not hinder me from having this job.

 

Still Waiting…

Hi everyone,

Things are not going well for us. I wish I could report that things are great, but they are not.

First my disability has not come in. If it would then things with our finances would be so much better. So far the judge is three months late on his “30 days and I will decide” (this was in September 18th).

I ran out of money for going to school. Not sure if I should even work on my class or not. I have negative motivation to do so, especially as since there is a hold on my student account I will not get my diploma even if I finish this course. I am at the point where I just don’t care one way or the other on school. I only have gone this long so that I would have some money but that is not the case now.

As I was saying, our finances are not doing well. We are nearly out of money. If my disability would come in then that would solve this. Right now we are struggling even to get food for us. We are low and cannot even afford to go shopping. We have enough for rent and that is about it at this point. This makes it hard to look for a new place as well because most places want money for an application fee. Then even if we found a place we would need money for deposit and first months rent. We will just have to wait until my wife’s school money comes in January I guess. I can’t even pay my wife’s child support right now and that is not good.

Well let’s see if there are some positives…

We were adopted by a family at the salvation army and they got us some gifts. Namely gifts for our daughter. One of them is a bear that is almost as tall as me.

Well writing this has improved my mood slightly. I have been feeling depressed lately with all that is going on… I try to have faith in God in these moments but I am finding this challenging some due to my depression and some due to me knowing Bible verses such as how God takes care of birds and we are more important than birds. Also we are God’s children. I find myself shouting this in my prayers.

Please pray for us.

Update after my birthday

Yesterday (10/25/2017) was my birthday. Not a whole lot to update though. Still waiting to find out if I get approved or not on my disability hearing. They told me that it takes 30 days after the hearing to know one way or the other. Its been past that though. I did call my attorney and she said that it usually takes longer like 2-3 months or longer. I just want to know one way or the other.

One thing that I haven’t talked about is that next year we will have to move. The apartments that I live were originally hotel rooms. They converted them into apartments though. However, they have decided to turn them back into hotel rooms starting sometime next year. We are planning to move around February or March… unless the apartment management decides to shorten the time and kick everyone out sooner. Not sure what we would do if that happens so pray that it doesn’t happen. Also pray that we find another good place.

Still in school. Finishing up one class and then I have one more class to graduate (finally). I gotta say, I have zero motivation. It took me almost this whole week to read and do my assignments.

Well hope all is well with everyone.

 

 

Another Update on 9/26/2017

I guess its time for another update.

I had my disability hearing a week ago from yesterday. My attorney thought it went well. Now it is time to wait and see if I get approved or not. Not sure what to do if  I am denied. My attorney said I could appeal it or try and go to work again for a while and see if either my symptoms allow me to work or not and if not reapply again. The problem with appealing it is that I would have the same judge whenever I would have the next hearing. So let’s just hope I get approved.

In one of my last posts: https://wordpress.com/read/blogs/8118996/posts/444

I talked about how I was frustrated with churches. I thought by now maybe it would decrease, but it has not. I still feel like by going I am settling for what they (the church participants) call community. Meaning that they meet once a week and never talk or see each other again until the following Sunday. I am just tired of this. Is it wrong that I miss the community at Good News Mission? Where we had fellowship daily and ate all of our meals together? I really don’t know, but it really causes me to want to return to GNC. I thought this feeling would pass too, but it stays within me.

Well I hope all of you are well and take care,

 

Eric

So Feeling Frustrated With Church

Hello everyone again,

Lately I have been feeling frustrated with Church in general. I feel like I want more community then what the church does. It seems like all the community that the church offers is to meet on Sunday morning and then never see each other until next Sunday. I long for the way church is described in Acts 2 where it met daily and broke bread. Heck, we do not even break bread or eat a meal except for once a month. And the people in the church call this community? How?

Part of me just wants to walk away from the church altogether. I feel as if it is not giving me what I want, need, and desire. I feel like by going I am just settling for something that is not even close to sub-par. I just don’t know what to do.

Sometimes for this reason, I feel like going back to Good News Mission because the community there was actually community. We did meet daily and ate meals together and I did not feel isolated. That is what bothers me the most, I feel isolated.

Another frustration that I have is that the school and study I am doing is not even what I want to do. I would rather be going to a seminary or Bible school (if I am to go to school at all). However, no Bible school or seminary that I applied to several years ago accepted me. I then settled (again) for the school that I am going to and the degree that I now feel like I just have to finish as there is only two classes I have left.

Well that is all I have to say for now,

Take care everyone,

Eric

casting out demons and the battle of the wills

Here are some passages that I see that I have been wondering about one is in Luke 4:33-37

³³ Once when he was in the synagogue, a man possessed by a demon—an evil^[a] spirit—began shouting at Jesus, ³⁴ “Go away! Why are you interfering with us, Jesus of Nazareth? Have you come to destroy us? I know who you are—the Holy One of God!”

³⁵ Jesus cut him short. “Be quiet! Come out of the man,” he ordered. At that, the demon threw the man to the floor as the crowd watched; then it came out of him without hurting him further.

³⁶ Amazed, the people exclaimed, “What authority and power this man’s words possess! Even evil spirits obey him, and they flee at his command!” ³⁷ The news about Jesus spread through every village in the entire region.

Here it seems as if with a short word the demon left the man with just a word.

Here is where Jesus gave us the authority to cast them out in Mark 16:17

These miraculous signs will accompany those who believe: They will cast out demons in my name, and they will speak in new languages.^[a]

It could be that we just do not believe as much as we should. An example of this is that in all honesty the church is not equipped to do the casting out of demons… in fact I think often the person is quickly dismissed with psychological problems and referred to counseling, therapists, etc.

In Mark 9:29 the disciples themselves once encountered a demon possessed person that they were unable to cast out and then Jesus ended up rebuking them because of their lack of faith and dismissed the demons and said this to them,“This kind can be cast out only by prayer.” I know in my experience there were five that it took a few of my friends giving time doing this passage for them to come out of myself when I was demonized. In fact they even requested friends they had to pray with them (some of which I never met or they have never met me.

I also thought I would add that in the OT times once a person had a demon (as far as we can tell from the Bible) he/she had to live with it. One good example of this would be Saul who had demons who came to him after he rejected God and the Spirit of the Lord left him.

It seems like the idea of casting out demons comes with authority and in the NT Greek the word is often used is exousia which means privilege, that is, (subjectively) force, capacity, competency, freedom, or (objectively) mastery (concretely magistrate, superhuman, potentate, token of control), delegated influence: – authority, jurisdiction, liberty, power, right, strength.”

So we only have that authority because of Jesus giving us that authority and here are some passages you can look up: Luke 9:1, Luke 10:17.

However still Jesus was able to cast them out with a simple command (see Matthew 17:14-21, Matthew 9:25).

However, even the early apostles from what one may think were able to do so in the following passage in Acts 16:18

This went on day after day until Paul got so exasperated that he turned and said to the demon within her, “I command you in the name of Jesus Christ to come out of her.” And instantly it left her.

However, one may wonder what happened behind the scenes as this person followed him around for several days. Was there more interactions? Was there a battle of the wills? Was him and the other apostles praying and fasting? We do not know.

That is something I am curious about as well. It seems as if the times that Jesus cast them out of people with a simple command there was a crowd gathered. Was there times during one-one interactions where Jesus had a battle of the wills between the demons and Himself? Or could it have happened in giant crowds? Also why is it we have a hard time not just giving a command and they leave?

In closing I just want to ask this and hear people’s thoughts on it:

I often wonder if when Jesus cast out demons from people if there was more to it then Jesus just commanding them and they leave or if he ever had to do a “battle of the will” with someone demonized as is often the case with people who get delivered. If not why do people who try and deliver someone from demon possession have to often battle the demon(s) often for hours to months or even years in some cases. The best answer I have come up with is that demons do not want to admit that Christians have the same authority that Christ had over them and He has given us the same authority. I would be interested to hear other thoughts on this.

Update on August 24th 2017

Well thought I would do an update on what is going on with me.

First, I have my disability hearing on September 18th, which is less than a month away. I hope it goes well and that I get on it. Its been a long three years since I applied and it has been hard on the family as well since I am unable to work.

My class starts on Monday. The class is Community Psychology.  I have already started reading for the class. Its interesting stuff, but very complex and not sure I understand it.

Can’t remember if I posted on this yet, but my wife got a new job! She was working at McDonald’s which after her switching jobs I am convinced was the cause of 90% of her seizures. Since she switched jobs she has only had one seizure, when before she was having at least nine a day. That is a lot better. Guess I wrote all this without saying where she works: Arby’s. She even got a pay increase by a dollar and a half. She told me when she applied there that she would take a pay cut if they paid slightly lower than McDonald’s. That just shows how terrible she was treated there. In fact getting her final check turned into a battle with the manager as she wanted to refuse to give it to her. But in the end we got the final check.

One last thing, been having trouble sleeping lately. I have been having a lot of flashbacks lately and such. I also have been having some nightmares which wake me up in the middle of the night and then it is hard to go back to sleep.

The Church

I am mixed about the church to be honest. Sometimes I wonder why I go to church. In a lot of ways as much as I hate to admit it, I don’t like the way the church operates. I have studied things about how the early church operated and I must say that I wish we could get back to this. No church currently operates the way it did whether it is the one I am going to or Good News Mission. Back then they were about healing the sick casting out demons, helping the poor, providing catacombs for people, taking care of orphans, etc.

I am not saying that churches aren’t doing these things, but an issue I have is that they are spending all this money at the same time on a building that often costs thousands of dollars to obtain and even more to maintain.

I have often wondered if we should go to the way countries like a friend of mine from Ethiopia described where they do house churches. I think for this to catch on though Christianity needs to be illegal.

Well those are some of my current thoughts on the church for now. I still am going to my church mostly for the community aspect.

Classes done for now

At the start of this week my school started a break from classes. I am off until the week after next or starting August 28th. I have two more classes left until I graduate or two more terms. This means I will be done in mid February of 2018.

I will be honest, I am feeling so uninterested as I am not seeing the point in what I am doing. The class sounds interesting don’t get me wrong: Community Psychology.

Sometimes I can’t help but wonder what the point is of it if I am going on disability (hopefully) next month. I cannot work due to some of my psychological issues that I have mentioned in a previous post: esfes1025.wordpress.com/2017/08/07/about-me-currently/

Well I guess that is all I have to say for now. I hope you all take care and have a blessed day.

Good Link

This is not going to be much of a post other then to share a link. The idea of the link is that it gives good reason why Good News Mission is a cult. One of my favorite parts of this link is where it has Ock Soo Park’s teaching and what the Bible actually says in a column. Hope this helps people and maybe it will stir up some good dialogue.

 

http://www.truth-that-matters.com/iyf.htm