The op says, "I have reason to believe from the holy spirit that I need to be making preparations not only for myself but for many others."
NOPE. NOPE. NOPE. NOPE. NOPE. NOPE. NOPE. NOPE.
That doesn't line up with God's Word.
In fact, it's the exact opposite. It's not only fear based & self-dependence, but it's public indiscretion and self-promotion.
There are three reasons why your inference is not valid -
1) The OP did not post a thread saying "There is danger coming! Get out of your city/town and head to the mountains!", but he merely stated the reason behind his question regarding women hygiene products. Imagine he did the alternative - he came here and posted a thread on women hygiene products and did not mention anything about the guidance from the Holy Spirit. What do you think would have happened? The thread could have been closed and he could have been banned.
2) There are many ways in which the Holy Spirit deals with us. One of it is by warning us of impending danger, both spiritual and physical. Considering that we experienced a recent deluge, if someone had been warned by the Holy Spirit to stock up on all essentials, I would have gladly helped him, if I was convinced on his "leading". Also, I have experienced the guidance of the Holy Spirit on a few occasions when there were some dangers ahead of me. So, it is possible that the Holy Spirit could be leading him to prepare for something.
3) He has not mentioned that he is preparing for a disaster, instead this was inferred by us. I am only pointing out that your argument is based on an inference, and not on what he stated.
All the good intentions in the world can’t hide the fact that this op is attention seeking, publicly announcing his financial investment, putting the blame on the Holy Spirit, and then trying to justify delving into women's extremely personal affairs in a public place.
What decent man of God would walk up to a group of women he doesn’t even know and start asking them what personal products they use? If anyone had half an ounce of wisdom, they'd know that you could ask any pharmacist about things of that nature or Google it.
If you look at it from your point of view that he is attention-seeking, your arguments are justified. But I do not share your point of view, so everything that he said makes sense -
1) He had reason from the Holy Spirit to believe that he needed to stock up on essentials
2) In order to give a picture of how serious his commitment is, he mentioned the sum => 16k
3) He lacked information on women's hygiene products, and being a question that arose out of a spiritual connotation (i.e. the prompting of the Holy Spirit), he thought it best to ask here. Please also note that, being a guy, the Women's forum would have been off-limits for him.
Secondly, while it is true that you can get any information from Google, you need to know what to search for, in the first place. What he did was an exploratory research, since he knew nothing about women's hygiene products to begin with. One of the methods of conducting exploratory research is by using Focus Groups - you get a bunch of people together and have a moderator throw open-ended questions at them. The feedback or deliberations by the group of people, will be the inputs for your second stage of research - the descriptive research. In this case, he had his focus group right here - the many women who use this forum on a daily basis. Granted he could have done the same on Yahoo Answers, Facebook or WebMD but imagine the derision he would be faced with if he mentioned that the Holy Spirit had prompted him into action? Hence, the only sensible place that he could have posted it and not be laughed at would be a Christian forum which had at least a few active women members.
Be anxious about nothing.
Cast all your cares on the Lord, because He cares for you.
My God will supply all my needs according to His riches (not mine).
Take nothing for the journey--no staff, no bag, no bread, no money, no extra shirt.
Do not acquire gold, or silver, or copper for your money belts, or a bag for your journey, or even two coats, or sandals, or a staff.
So do not worry about tomorrow; for tomorrow will care for itself. Each day has enough trouble of its own.
Don’t practice your righteousness before other people in order to be seen by them.
When you do good deeds, don't publicly announce. If you do, you won't get a reward from your Father in heaven.
I’m telling you, take no thought about your life, do not worry about what you’ll eat or drink, or about your body, what you should wear… the birds of the air don’t worry & your Father feeds them. Aren’t you more important than a bird? Can any of you add anything to your life by worrying?
Remember the parable Jesus told in Luke 12 about the rich man who had an abundance of crops and planned to build bigger barns to store them? While a bigger barn may not be an evil thing, the rich man's dependence upon his own strength was. In the story, the man died that night and his provisions got left behind for others to take.
All these are wonderful verses, but they do not apply in the case of -
1) A man who has been led to prepare for something - don't we all prepare for future events like retirement, possible future health issues, schooling of a child, purchase of a house, etc.? I am not sure whether you prepare for future events, but I do and I do not think that my preparations are driven out of fear. If his leading is true and if he is not being a troll, his action is far nobler than any of the ones I mentioned above.
2) A man who is preparing or stockpiling not out of selfishness, but out of charity.
3) A man who created the thread to ask a question for something on which he needed some clarity, and not to merely announce what he was doing. The verse you quoted, namely, "When you do good deeds, don't publicly announce", would apply if he created the thread ONLY to blow his own trumpet. From the way I see it, he stated what he was doing only to explain the reason behind his question; if he hadn't explained the reason, he could have been banned and the thread could have been deleted.
My arguments are based on the following assumptions -
1) His leading is true and the Holy Spirit did indeed warn him to prepare for a future event (NOTE:
he did not mention disaster in his post -> that was inferred by us)
2) He is not a troll who is seeking attention
3) 16 thousand is indeed USD 16,000.00 and not any other currency. Though this is fairly obvious given his location flag, there are countries where 16,000 may not amount to much in a country like Zimbabwe where, until 2009, they had currency notes with denominations up to 100 trillion Zimbabwean dollars, or in a country like India, where INR 16,000 on essentials can support up to 100 people for a few months.
Oh, and for those of you who think he spent 16k on tampons and other hygiene products, I quote -
I've taken care of essentials from a wide variety dumping around 16 thousand so far.
The above sentence shows that he has spent 16k
so far on other essentials, and not on women hygiene products. Given the amount of essentials that people need for survival and the number of people that would need to be supported, this could be possible. He has not given any estimate on how much he intends to spend on women hygiene products.
I wish to state that I agree with the criticism that he should have gone easy on Ember. I do not think that what he did was right.
