Dear Doves

I'd like to share some (imho important) thoughts about fleeces. We
have seen a couple of fleeces recently, and I have to admit that they
look convincing. My thoughts are not related to the recently published
lucky fleeces but more sort of a "common concern" is that more and
more fleeces could lead to false conclusions due to simple maths.

For better understanding, let me make an example:

1) Somebody publishes that Event X will happen, as confirmed in a fleece.
2) 1000 people read about it, and each of them is asking "Is this really
true?".
3) 500 out of 1000 people decide to also try finding confirmation in a fleece.
4) Lets say all those 500 people try a rather "unlikely to happen"
fleece with a probability of only 1:1000. It means that chances are
50:50 that at least one of them gets his/her fleece coming true! The
other 499 persons usually tend to quickly ignore and forget about
their unsuccessful attempt.
5) The lucky person with the successful fleece happily publishes his
experience.
6) As a result, many will again try their own fleece, and some of them
will be lucky even without Gods divine hand on it. But you will never
hear anything from the overwhelmingly big majority where it did NOT
work.

TThe main problem is that in fact there is a big majority that proves
exactly the contrary, but you never hear anything from them. Btw, this
is exactly what happened to the infamous weatherbill earlier this year
- do you remember?

My conclusion (and advice) of how to use fleece is as follows: Before
trying a fleece, make sure you "follow the proper rules" and first of
all ask yourself if you 100.0% believe that the LORD will answer you
through the fleece or not. Ask yourself in advance what kind of action
you will take in either case! If you don't 100.0% trust in the LORD or
are not even thinking about your actions in case the result turns out
against your hope,  better spend your time in prayer and the study of
the scriptures, which will truly bless and comfort you!

However, I hope that 2010 is the year! :-) Keep looking up!

Josua