@wolfwint I don't like the comparison / guilt-by-association idea. (A.K.A. One person does something bad... So everyone with that hair color must be guilty of it too). So I"m going to simply use myself as "the bad guy with the holy ghost, babbly modern tongues-talking that did something super stupid" so we don't have to look for someone else.
I'll briefly tell you what I did, how bad it looked, what it resulted in, and THEN I'll tell you how God fixed all that stupidity because that's what God does when we repent and love him. He doesn't bash us with a YouTube video of our stupidity for the rest of our lives and tell everyone we were stupid for allowing ourselves to be vulnerable.
I was new to the faith, though I'd been raised reading the bible, going to a Baptist church and following Baptist doctrine. (Not trying to bash Baptists) But I'd recently been baptized in Jesus' name for remission of sins and received the Holy Ghost with the "modern", babbly, non-understandable speaking in tongues (through another church). And I loved it. I realized God was REAL, and he'd given me something I didn't have before, to pray things I didn't know. So I wanted to do anything I could to get more of God, and to get God to move more. So I thought "How did they get God to move in the bible? What else did the powerful ones do?"
And I thought of Moses and Jesus...what did they do that others didn't? Answer: FASTING They each fasted 40 days and God moved with them mightily.
But I was young and in a hurry. So I thought "40 days is a long time to wait. Isn't there a faster way?" Then I remembered Saul/Paul when God showed up to him on the road to Damascus. After God spoke to him, he was left blind for 3 days and
neither ate nor drank until Ananias arrived to pray for him....and he received the Holy Ghost and God moved mightily for and through him. So I said "That's it! I've just got to add the not drinking part and I can get the same results in a 3-day fast!"
So I set out to do that. And guess what. The not-eating part is easy but the not drinking part (when you work full time as a cook) is kinda hard because you dehydrate, get hot, and your heart starts pounding as your blood thickens. So I repeatedly would fail my fast, eat, drink and start over to fullfil my promise. Turns out that fasting alot causes a loss of body mass. (Who knew?..lol) But I wasn't letting anything (including advice from pastors, teachers and brethren in Christ) sway me from my task. I was zealous and determined to complete my fast and get God to move. I eventually did but only JUST before the next thing happened.
So my repeated fast/fail/fast cycle caused a dramatic loss of body weight. At 5'11-1/2"tall
I think I was 128-lbs when the cops took me from my home to the Psych ward for a "48 hour evaluation". <--yup, that happened (They weighed me immediately upon arrival). And if you show up on a Friday evening, they don't count the weekend so you get a bonus 48 hours of Saturday and Sunday (Just so you know).
It also turns out that if you've recently joined a Holy Ghost, speaking in tongues church just before you radically change your life style and lose a bunch of body weight, the group you just joined gets labelled "A CULT", and they start investigations.
(Did I mention I don't do anything half-way?) The next morning God opened my understanding as to what I was doing wrong, and I immediately stopped the fast I was currently on, and was eventually released in the minimum amount of time. (Had to ask him why he couldn't have shown me that a day or two sooner..lol)
But meanwhile, I'd embarrassed my family, embarrassed myself, embarrassed my church and ruined my reputation in my home town (in which I also worked at the local Happy Chef Restaurant). And I asked God " I know you have forgiven me, but how are you going to restore my reputation?"
Fast forward 20-ish years and I was elected mayor of that same town, serving 3 terms. (At which point I concluded that God had more than restored my reputation.) Feel free to Google "Kelby, mayor, Iowa" if you need to verify the last part. I'm guessing HIPAA laws restrict looking into the other.
My point is that you don't have to say "look at the stupid things those other tongues-speakers do". You can just point at me. But God's got my back. He did then, and he does now.
And now that you know some "bad", it would be of value for you to ask "What kind of benefits make all of that bad (and more) worth enduring, along with the ridicule?" because the benefits are what this thread is about. They greatly outweigh the downsides.
Love in Jesus,
Kelby