Mendenhall's "Hit Man" bogey man lesson

Learning the need for each person to have a direct line of communication with deity.

From: "Sterling D. Allan" <sterlingda@greaterthings.com>
Sent: Friday, October 26, 2001 12:24 PM
Subject: Mendenhall's "Hit Man" bogey man lesson

ast night I finished reading the Mendenhall's book "My Peace I Give Unto You."

I love the ending. It is perfect.

Let me explain.

Let's put ourselves in Doug's place. Here he is, a man who until the experiences described in this book, has not really been a spiritual person, but has been focused more on the successes of the world and having the nice things in life. He certainly has not been an evil person. It's just that his involvement with making money, providing a comfortable income for his family, has been a focus in his life and a source of pride. He was doing very well, bringing in $14,000 a month. And he was able to do it out of his own home, thus being able to spend a lot of time with his family, which certainly is a good thing.

Then in the course of just a few short weeks, his job is yanked out from under him by the conniving jealousy of those who were supposed to be his friends, he has a heart attack, and his daughter is whisked into the emergency room with a diabetic coma from which it appears she will not recover but will die within hours.

His first lesson is one of finding gratitude in all things, even for his trials, and this situation provides the perfect environment for him to learn that lesson.

He learns it well, for in the midst of the darkest hour, as his daughter lay languishing, rather than turn on God, he turns to God and expresses his trust in him and his gratitude for this situation, and an acceptance of the outcome, whatever that might end up being. In return, he is filled with a profound peace and sense of well-being. In fact, he and his wife are so calm after this that the people in their congregation become concerned that they might be in denial.

This is really quite a milestone in their spiritual progression, and it wasn't the only one described in the book.

The highlight experience of the book, of course, is the miraculous recovery of their 10-year-old daughter and the fact that she returned from death but without the veil, so she is in constant touch with whoever she wants from the spiritual realm, mainly Jesus.

You can imagine that the tendency for anyone in this situation, who is even partially spiritually minded, would be to pump your daughter for information, taking advantage of the circumstance of having your very own oracle.

Doug even envisioned having a 1-900 number that people could call and talk to his daughter.

Of course he was out of order in this desire, and was rebuked for it by the Lord.

Even as Doug progressed in his own spiritual connection, his tendency was to turn to his daughter for answers. One of the replies that he frequently got from her was simply, "look in here," pointing to his heart.

The conclusion of the book is the account of how Jesus, through Denise, cured Doug and his family and close associate and author of the book, Rob Lake, of this flawed tendency to look to Denise for answers rather than seeking an individual connection with the Lord for themselves upon which to rely.

The story is basically that Doug looses his keys and asks Denise where they are, knowing full well that she was capable of telling him exactly where they are located. Jesus tells Denise that he is going to teach Doug a lesson, and that she is to answer his questions with a simple "yes," no matter what the question.

What ends up happening is that as a function of the questions Doug asks, and Denise answers with a "yes," the Mendenhall family gets worked into a frenzy because they now think that a certain acquaintance of theirs with mental challenges has taken the keys so he could come to their house at 11:00 pm, enter the home, and inflict harm on Denise. They hurriedly change the locks on their house and have a friend come over to help protect the home.

This whole time, Denise is completely unphased, and playfully goes about her child-life endeavors. Finally, around 10:30, Doug and his wife realize what it is Denise has done, that she has merely answered yes to every question. It is obvious to them in retrospect because usually when she responds, she waits for a moment first, consulting with Jesus, before giving her answer. But that evening she merely happily blurted out 'Yes' without even thinking. It was really quite funny to her, because she knew it would end well and that there was in reality no threat.

When the Mendenhalls realized what had happened, they all had a good laugh.

The lesson, of course, is that we are each to develop our own connection and not rely on another person's spirituality, or we could be taken for a ride.

Indeed, the day is coming when all will have this personal connection.

We all know of the prophecy in Ezekiel about the Lord establishing a "new covenant." "And they shall teach no more every man his neighbour, and every man his brother, saying, Know the Lord: for they shall all know me, from the least of them unto the greatest of them, saith the Lord." (Ezk. 31:34.)

The Mendenhall's book is indeed a message of hope, as reflected in their website domain name: publishinghope.com. They are not setting themselves up as spiritual guides to the world, but they are saying that what has happened to them is accessible to anyone and everyone who will but receive it.

That is the theme statement found at the bottom of every page at greaterthings.com "Would that all were prophets."

Sincerely your brother in Christ,

Sterling D. Allan
www.greaterthings.com

See also:
Sterling's Report on the First Portion of the Book

Posted Oct. 26, 2001