Several times now I have come across people in a pastoral context whose perception of their experience of God has become dangerously skewed. Some have even thought he was telling them not to eat.
Granted, the Bible does encourage us to fast occasionally. Nonetheless, when the supposed command from God not to eat is taken to a dangerous medical extreme, it is not only legitimate to wonder whether the spiritual experience is genuine, but it is imperative to seek professional help. I have come across other even weirder messages purportedly received from God. The psychological difference between people who think God is telling them to cut their wrists and those who think they are Napoleon is not as great as we might wish.
Suffice it to say that Christian leaders do not always greet enthusiastically the claim ‘God is speaking to me’. Of course, people who feel they have a word from God do not necessarily need psychiatric care. Christians believe in a speaking God who has spoken and still speaks today. It is the idols that are dumb. But while it may be relatively easy to discern a mental imbalance camouflaged in religious language, other more mundane and subtle confusion can arise from high claims to spiritual experience. If someone says, ‘I feel the Spirit is leading us’, it could mean they are especially sensitive to God’s direction. It could also really mean they want something and are using religious jargon, perhaps unconsciously, to manipulate the situation to their own ends. Claims of spiritual experience can be profound, profoundly self-deceived or even profane, not to mention positively devilish, for Satan masks himself as an ‘angel of light’ (2 Corinthians 11.14).
