I can see more clearly now the depth that might not have become apparent. Once I had heard the gospel message there were many times I had sat and spent time with God pouring out my heart about how sorry I was for all of the wrong I had done in my life and thanking him for Jesus Christ dying on the cross to pay the penalty for my wrong doing. I truly was of a contrite spirit. [...] My conversion certainly wasn't just an intellectual experience but rather a deep intimate experience with God / Jesus Christ.
This makes me a lot more confident that you are in fact saved, Kevin, so thank you for writing this. If it had been included in your original testimony or in one of your earlier responses though, it would have helped a great deal. When it comes to your salvation experience, you really need to be quite specific and not just expect people to "fill in the gaps". It's not something you should gloss over, which it looked like you were doing when you said, "Just like that, I was a believer". But you have now filled in a very important gap in your testimony, so thanks again.
A part of what made this whole conversation more difficult is as I wrote some time back about a guy I used to work with who was a narcissist (One of two major narcissists). In any interaction I would have with him he would think it was acceptable to just bombard me with questions. If I would answer a question then he would just immediately come back with more. Because I'm a fairly easy going sort of a person and friendly and get along with people, he obviously thought he was going to take advantage of that for his twisted little ways. [...] Hence, I do find it uncomfortable when there are a whole lot of questions asked which I thought the answers might have easily been picked up on. My feeling ill from being in pain certainly didn't help things. I'm also from a background where as a soldier and as an engineer, when training, those teaching you can only meet you part way and the rest is up to the individual to keep their eyes open and watch and think and learn. In both of those jobs I had seen people get a bollocking for asking questions about things they should have known the answers to or if they were switched on they should have been able to work out the answers or gone and found out things for themselves.
Strangely enough, something that I have experienced from narcissists in my own life is that they expect you to read minds. For example, they might make a request of you that is intentionally ambiguous. If you ask them for clarification, they just snap at you to figure it out. And of course, whatever choice you make in that situation will be the wrong one. That's because no matter what choice you made, it was
always going to be wrong. They love setting you up to fail. With a narcissist, the game is always rigged. So when I see vague and evasive answers being given to questions, or an outright refusal to answer them, it sets alarm bells ringing for me. I like everything laid out plainly without the need for guessing games, and I think part of the reason for this is because of these mind games that narcissists have played with me in the past. However, this isn't just the domain of narcissists (and I wasn't suspecting you of being one, just saying that this is a behaviour I have frequently encountered in them). There have been a good number of false converts who have come on here and done the same thing (i.e. dodged direct questions). So again, it just looked a bit suss. And that was what made me feel really concerned for you.
I don't normally have the same issue that you do with being asked questions myself, though I will acknowledge that there are some situations where people should be able to figure things out for themselves. I will also admit that it can get a little irritating when people don't do this. However, part of Christian charity is to be patient with such people and give them the help they need. Sometimes they may not be well trained in working things out, or they may have some type of learning disability. Even if they're simply not very bright, we still need to show them charity. (Actually, we probably need to have more compassion for them in that case.) In this particular instance though, I think greater clarity was genuinely needed (and again, thanks for providing that now).
But while I don't mind being asked questions, I will say that narcissists tend to ask different types of questions to normal people. For me, it is important to discern the type of question and motive. I will willingly answer honest and open questions. However, narcissists are fond of
loaded questions. This is like what the opponents of Jesus did:
And as he said these things unto them, the scribes and the Pharisees began to urge him vehemently, and to provoke him to speak of many things: Laying wait for him, and seeking to catch something out of his mouth, that they might accuse him. (Luke 11:53-54)
This is exactly what a narcissist will do when asking you a question. They are trying to ambush you, to catch you in your words so that they have something to accuse you of. (Once they have that, then they can openly attack you.) Then if you react evasively or defensively (which is a more natural reaction to these types of questions), they gaslight you by saying, "I'm just asking a question", or "I'm just trying to have a conversation" - in other words, playing innocent when they know as well as you do what their game is. I also once knew a narcissist (the married woman who stalked me 22 years ago) who loved to ask highly inappropriate questions, and then play the same "I'm just asking" game. "I'm just curious" was another phrase she was fond of.
But there is a big difference between someone asking you loaded or inappropriate questions like that, and someone doing what Anna and I were, which was just seeking some clarification without any hidden agendas. I most assuredly didn't want to catch you in any words or accuse you, but when you answered as you did, it set off some genuine alarm bells for me. However, after this last post, those bells have now quietened down, and on that note, I am now content to let this matter rest. Although before I close, I would like to say how much I enjoyed the discussion over all this in the Sunday meeting. Everyone was very calm and charitable, and we all just reasoned things out together. That's how it should be done among brethren. Even though you were the subject of it, I think even you might have enjoyed it, Kevin. In any case, it was a most refreshing change from how discussions usually go with narcissists or unbelievers generally!
