okay. here is my heart on this.
i believe that as with the earliest believers; peter, john, james, paul, timothy, etc. where each individual spoke and wrote differently, in the language they were familiar and comfortable with, we here on this forum do the same. some of those followers of Christ, when even giving account of the very same event, told the story the way they experienced it, the way they felt it in their own hearts, minds, spirits, and souls. some were more articulate, some passionate and more colorful, some seemingly more meek, and some were very blunt and to the point. we are no different in how we express what we are experiencing on our individual journeys to our LORD.
no, not one of us knows for a surety if we are of the few and chosen, the Elect. i don't see deborah/arc saying that she herself was for sure one of the very Elect of God. i don't believe that was the message of the post. i did hear in her words the desire to attain that position, the joy of knowing each or any of us could indeed be of the few, all the while knowing that it is all of God's doing. the excitement of deborah's personal experience with her LORD, i believe may be what inspired much of post. on first read, deborah's comment about the thousands of posts she has made, can surely sound like boasting, and self-indulgent. the "I" statements can be abrasive to some, but it is a story of her life, her experience, her testimony of things she has learned through the Spirit of God on BT and this forum.
after reading the original post over a few times, instead of seeing a lack of humility, i see a message where arcturus is trying to say that it doesn't matter how many posts we may write they are but shards of clay which fall to the ground in our excitement to tell the others on this forum of how wonderful our LORD is. our posts, our words, our best intentions don't carry His Spirit because we are 'so special'. we are only as clay pots that are earthen and broken. if we carry within us the Spirit of Christ, it is because our Father knows we are His. i know that deborah believes this.
okay. that's it. i think.
claudia