MAJOR ATTITUDE ADJUSTMENT

A few days ago, my senior pastor was telling this story to a meeting he was leading in the town of Ermelo here in South Africa. In this town, several of the churches of *very* different denominations and traditions are having waiting meetings together. During one of these meetings, a pastor from one of these churches noticed a man in the row in front of him who was well known for his unpleasantness and terrible negativity who had written many protest booklets and pamphlets. It seems he was against just about anything on principle. For him to be in a meeting like this one, was most unusual and was almost certainly going to lead to a publication condemning this move of God.

Since there was a spare seat there, the pastor felt the Lord would have him move and go stand next to this man. While standing there, the Lord clearly said to him, "Put your hand on his stomach and pray for him!" In obediance he did so. The immediate and fierce reaction from this man was "GET YOUR HANDS OFF ME!" The pastor ignored this and carried on praying. "GET YOUR HANDS OFF ME" said the man again. This went on several times until the power of God was so strong upon the pastor that he fell on the floor dragging the man down with him. It was learnt later, that the man had wanted to pull the pastor's hand from off his stomach, but for "some reason" found himself quite powerless to even move or try.

The story goes, that later when he eventually got up, the man who was so negative was wonderfully changed for the better. I'm not even sure if he was a christian or not. Anyway, our senior pastor was telling this story to the congregation in Ermelo, when a woman jumped up and stuck her hand in the air to get his attention. She said the story was perfectly true and she knew the man very well - he was her brother-in-law, and she could testify that he was a totally - but *totally* changed man after this.

Makes you think - here was a highly critical man who wanted nothing to do with this move of God and was out to run it down, and like Saul of Tarsus, got zapped! Halleluja! Praise you Jesus!