Theology? Or the lack of it?
Theology isn't a high and lofty strife of academia achieved through the halls of thick dusty books the size of a mammoth and font sizes that of an ant!
I have met countless people who have described who God is plainly by the personal experiences they have had with Him.
I'm not here to judge or to criticize. I would like to suggest that we look at how the world views things compared to how we do and if there aren't no differences, let us seriously reflect on how much we have embrace secular philosophies or idiosyncrasies as a normative and not only that, expect that of others!
Ever watched success stories of millionaires and the "If i can do it, so can you" jargon kinda lights up? If you ask around, what works for him/her, pragmatically, should work for you too? Now, take that and see how we look at things sometimes.
A certain so and so has this anointing to pray over people accurately and that person whom God so shows him/her will start to be ministered, tears uncontrollably and be renewed. What works for him/her now, can it also work for you? If so, everyone would be a Reinhard Bonke or a Billy Graham or a Ravi Zach by now!?
How God has provided for us when we asked cannot be imposed on another as a normative~ If God has provided for me a Macbook pro through a person who loves me and buys it for me, it doesn't mean that I should ask my friend to start praying and believing that God will provide him/her with a person who loves him/her to buy it for him/her!
What have we done here? We have made our personal experiences a yarkstick for spiritual things rather than the bible! That, becomes our personal prejudice instead and we start to feel "self-righteous" believing that because things happened this way for me, it should happen this way for others too! This, will result in a judgmental way of viewing people and an inadequate foundation of Theology!
In fact, if we were to put it in a more applicable context, we take anointing as everything and anguish/trials as enemies! We can never doubt how trials and anguish shape us more than anointing. Anointing enlarges our ministry capacity but anguish shapes our character and that, in turn, shapes our destiny. We learn more through anguish than through anointing! Not that we should take everything bad that happens in our lives now as something we should accept and grind through(sometimes, we need to fight back and reject those thoughts!) but, we shouldn't despise the redemptive use/purpose of anguish to shape our lives!
The balance of our personal encounters,prejudices,experiences and the truth which is written in the bible is, Theology - the intimate knowledge of, understanding of and relationship with our dear God in heaven.