"Prophecy": Any other explanations?

[Eldanen]

Hi guys, I have a question for all of you, as to a mysterious coincidental happening in my life:

"One day I was in the Wal-Mart parking lot and my dad and I met a man and started talking to him, and found out he was a Christian, etc... And for a split second the flow of the conversation cuts and he says, "If you stay where you're at God will continue to bless you." I thought, hmm, this is interesting, because it doesn't match the flow of the conversation. Then I figured, "Maybe it's God speaking to me." Later on my dad and I met a guy at the park who was a preacher apparently, and he was openly saying that he was speaking from God and saying almost the same thing, "If you stay where you're at, God will bless you." Okay, interesting. Two guys, two different experiences, same words. Then it happens again at church in youth group one night. Preacher gets up and says, to the general audience, "If you stay where you're at, God will continue to bless you." How do I explain these occurrences?"

So, 3 different people who don't know eachother happen to tell me these statements almost verbatim on 3 separate occasions. (And I have a sharp memory, so I'm sure I'm getting my facts right.) Is this some sort of confirmation bias? Or another bias? Can chance explain it? Or is this some common phrase that I don't know about?

I have been trying to alter my beliefs concerning "God" (Biblegod) for some time now, though this one has been a bit of a stumbler for me. I don't know how to resolve it.

 

[Colors]

Maybe they've all heard the same sermon. All in the same area and all. It's not really confirmation bias if nothing has really happened in which God blessed you, right?

Sounds like that whole "the meek will inherit the earth" stuff I heard about the medieval times.

 

[Eldanen]

Hmm, yeah. Sermons tend to go around, don't they? There's a sermon I've heard of, or an entire teaching (upon which books have been written), that goes along the lines of "Bloom where you're planted." And looking at the above ideas, they all seem to be in the same context. I wonder. I wasn't able to find a similar quote on Google. I had told one minister that I'd heard that line twice before and he said that the sermon he'd preached that night he wrote down maybe a year or three before. He didn't name any origin of it.

I dunno, it's all unusual occurrences. When I think about it logically (as per Paul Simon ), I think to myself, "Why wouldn't God bless me anyway?" (Assuming that God exists in this fashion.) I don't remember being blessed with anything in particular. The second guy talked about God getting me a new car too, strangely enough. Heh. And I didn't really give a flip about having a new car. (Yes, I know how insane all of this must sound, lol, but bear with me.) And the new car never came.... Also, there's a question as to "stay where you're at" -- what exactly does that mean? Stay in my town, in my church, here, there? What?

I could always go with the Chaos Magick, pseudo-quantum mumbo-jumbo, retrocausality-ish belief that I made this happen somehow. . But I do prefer something a bit more down to Earth in this case.

(Now I'm rambling) Of course, you have instances in history where everyone thought the same thing and it was mass hysteria: everyone saw it so it must have been true! Yeah, sure. Well-known psychological phenomenon.

 

[Eldanen]

Maybe they've all heard the same sermon.

One guy was from Raleigh, while the other two were in the same city area.... Still, same state: North Carolina.

On a side note, I had an experience once where I asked a friend of mine a question (yes or no) and I flipped on the television. The words that came out first were, "Yes, Dustin." Freaked both of us out. We laughed like crazy. (I kid you not .) Now what are the odds of a television randomly answering a question in the proper format using my proper name?

I suppose I could justify it by saying "chance" considering this, the existence of something rather than nothing, evolution et al. But if I think like this, then anything could be justified like this pretty much .

Interestingly enough, I haven't thought about that incident for years... But I remember it now.

 

[Not_Me]

You are in a position of doubt. The message says "stay where you are". So God is telling you to be agnostic.

 

[Eldanen]

This happened several years ago .

 

[Rachelinpa]

Honestly, I don't have anything especially helpful to say except that I have had experiences like this and it is why I still believe in God. The words I have been given are so personal and meaningful to me and beyond what a human could make up. I can't shake those experiences because there is stuff about me that I know these people could not have known. And when I think about it, I can tap into the memory in a surreal way. It's like ingrained in my memory or my heart (haha, NF!) or something. I wish I could give you facts, but I don't really understand it entirely myself and I'm still learning what I believe too. It's somewhat unexplainable.

I tend to see prophecy as encouragement of what God has for me or sees for me in the future. Sort of like the possibilities of what could be. I'm not sure why you never got your new car, but that's not to say you won't, right?

"Why wouldn't God bless me anyway?" He would, I think. This might sound weird, but have you asked him what he meant by "stay where you are at" -- that is, assuming it was God who said it to begin with? I find that he usually tells me when I am confused about what he means. Not always, but usually.

At any rate, I can only say that I have had experiences similar to yours. I have no evidence and no facts and nothing but experiences to stand on. But, they definitely have impacted my life and what I believe.

 

[Mole]

The Three 'P's.

Poets create religion.

Prophets abuse religion.

And Priests do it to death.

 

[Eldanen]

Poets create religion.

Prophets abuse religion.

And Priests do it to death.

Nice, did you make that? I googled and this was the only reference I found.

 

[Mole]

Nice, did you make that? I googled and this was the only reference I found.

It's the beginning of a religion, mate.

 

[Ilah]

I think sermons do get recycled and borrowed. In a chuch I visited twice, both sermons were very similiar to ones I had heard years ago at a different church. I think that there are books out there of ideas for sermons.

I think there are fad catch phrases in Christianity. I see them on T shirts, book bags, plastic wrist bracelets, etc. There are slogans like "What would Jesus do?" and "Got Jesus?" So this might have been a catch phrase of the time.