Holy Spirit

by Sassy 20 Replies latest members private

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  Sassy

  Did you ever worry if you left the Organization, that you would lose Holy Spirit/God's protection?

  I think one of the things that kept me a JW for so long was the fear that if I stopped being one, I'd lose holy spirit and my life would go to hell. I remember being told as a teenager that it was easy to see when someone was leaving the 'truth' or disfellowshipped how God's holy spirit left them. A close family member even told me when she was dfd that she felt this way (she told me after being back in). She said she couldn't remember things like she had before while dfd and felt Jehovah held the information from her. It scared me. I even remember when a bible study in our congregation stopped studying and the comment was made that she knew it was the 'truth' so when she stopped studying, she would lose protection in her life and her life did go down hill I heard through the grapevine and people in the cong said it was because she stopped studying. When I decided a couple years ago to date a worldy man, that night on my way home from work I was hit by another car. My first reaction was, see, I was being bad, disobeying and lost God's protection. I have only myself to blame for this accident.

  I guess in a way this thought held me in as a JW for two reasons. One: FEAR I was afraid to lose protection and have my life be some 'living hell' and Two: If this was truly the case, was it not proof this WAS the only religion pleasing God??

  I asked a friend here on the board not long ago, who had been a pioneer, if she had felt she lost holy spirit when dfd, if Jehovah had taken away her memory of scriptures, etc, like I was always told would happen. She told me no, and it was a relief to me to hear that. Is this how others feel?
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  Phantom Stranger

  I knew the scriptures quite well after I left. Now, 17 years later, I am pretty fuzzy on many - but just becasue I don't care any more.

  I think that the only thing the Holy Spirit is trusted to do in the WTS is help the publishers remember scriptural quotations. Can anyone remember anything else on the HS's job description?
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  Euphemism

  I always thought that the Holy Spirit was supposed to give you peace of mind, help you make good decisions, etc. I have more peace of mind than I've had in a long time, and I think I'm making some of the best decisions I've ever made.

  As far as remembering scriptures... I had a long discussion with an elder yesterday, and I didn't have any trouble with that.
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  pudd

  Personally, this whole ?protection by holy spirit? concept was one of the things that convinced me it was not the truth.

  When bad things happen to witnesses they are told ?time and unforeseen occurrence?.? Yet others are meant to be protected.

  I remember when we were house hunting people would ask if we had found the right place yet, when we said no, it was always ?keep praying about it and something will come up? one time I got so fed up with it I actually said ?why should I expect Jehovah to provide me with my perfect home when there are brothers in other parts of the world living in refugee camps, or mud huts and the like?? this person no doubt felt I was unspiritual or something, I am sure she now feels vindicated in that believe. However it is something I feel strongly about. So many witnesses refuse to look beyond there own life and at the wider picture.

  One final example of this was during the foot and mouth crises that hit Briton hard a few years ago. On a field service arrangement, a bunch of sisters were all talking about how this must mean the end was near as even our food and people?s livelihoods were being affected. Blood boiling I asked if they thought that Jehovah only cared about this country.

  There was an icy silence as I pointed out that the problem was relatively trivial when looked at on a worldwide scale.

  (I think they were glad to be rid of me!!)
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  avengers

  I think one of the things that kept me a JW for so long was the fear that if I stopped being one, I'd lose holy spirit

  Who do you think really lost it?
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  rocketman

  (I think they were glad to be rid of me!!)

  Perhaps they were indeed Pudd - after all, you used your mind and thought for yourself. You used common sense and made reasonable statements. Many jws don't take kindly to that.
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  rocketman

  When I was "in", I never really felt like I had Holy Spirit anyway, so I guess you can't lose what you don't have. I usually felt that HS was kind of imaginary. We'd pray for it at elder's meetings and still have lousy meetings, with bickering and irritation permeating the proceedings rather often.

  Privately, I could not see how my life could be directed by some unseen force when in fact there is so much random badness happening all around. How could I expect Jehovah to "bless" me when the next person was in some dire straits? It kind of goes along with what Pudd mentions, and the big picture looked rather clouded to me.
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  Aztec

  Sns, I no longer believe in the holy spirit or any of that stuff but, I had many worse things happen to me (in fact the most traumatic things that ever happened to me) when I was being a good dub than after I left. The worst thing that's happened to me since I left is my vehicle being stolen. Not the end of the world. I've forgotten almost all of the scriptures but I never cared to memorize them anyway. I was too busy memorizing stuff for my American History class.

  ~Aztec
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  blondie

  I think it is a case of selective memory. People filter out all the good things that have been happening and only focus on the bad. There was a JW family that was murdered on the way home from a convention. Was that because they had done something wrong and had lost holy spirit?

  http://www.angelfire.com/tn/finagen/web.html

  Ecclesiastes 9 (CEV) 11 Here is something else I have learned:
  The fastest runners
  and the greatest heroes
  don't always win races
  and battles.
  Wisdom, intelligence, and skill
  don't always make you healthy,
  rich, or popular.
  We each have our share
  of bad luck.
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  iiz2cool

  I'm not convinced there is any such thing as "Holy Spirit". It seems that the more I did as a JW the more problems I had. Life didn't really start to straighten up for me until I started getting my priorities straight and looking after myself first.

  Walter