Church of Tyre Prophecy

Woe to a people who are comfortable and complacent, and who take solace from the destruction of others. You think you will prosper at the expense of your brothers; you think you will replace Jerusalem as the apple of my eye? Have I not made known my salvation to you and revealed my goodness to you, in spite of your many sins? Then why do you delight in the judgment of your brother? Why do you, in glee, lord it over the people of the circumcision group? Why do you dismiss curtly and without compassion? Surely you should be wounded if your brother is injured? Surely you should share the suffering of your brother. But you are higher than he and you think that I am with you. I charge you with callousness and I find you guilty.  

You think I speak through you and yet your heart is far from me. You delight in your status and reputation and you pour scorn on your brothers. You think I am with you? No, I am not; I am against you. Remember what I did to Tyre when I punished her for all her haughty words. I pushed her into the sea, never to rise again. I am sending a dry wind from the east to test you and to sift you. Will I find faith when I come or will I find the rules and the religion of men? 

To those who are comfortable: you will be comfortable no more: the rug shall be pulled out from underneath you and your many buildings will be sold to unbelievers. Your goods will be seized and your broadcasting will come to an end. I am sick of your traffic and trade. You have enslaved your fellow brothers. Did I not call them out of darkness to be my children but you have enslaved them all over again to your teachings and to you gross practices. You excuse yourself and all those exposed in public. You use grace as a cover for wickedness. Not only does this greatly grieve me but I find myself aroused and jealous for my people, the sheep of my pasture. You have interjected; you should have brought them to know me but you have brought them up in your own faith, your own kingdom. 

You have not established my kingdom. Therefore I swear by myself that I am against you and I will not delay in sending this wind. It will scorch you and crack your lips, your tongue will stick to the roof of your mouth and your power of speech will be taken away from you. You shall look for relief but you will find none. You will look to the world but the world will scorn you. All who pass by you will wince at your suffering but none will lift a finger. Your tents will be emptied on the day of your wedding and your campus deserted. You were much vaunted and flirted with by the world. You drew the world into you, for the world saw itself in the mirror you held up. For a while it turned aside to see, but you will be ripped to pieces and my little ones will flood out of you as wine bursting forth from a dropped wineskin. They will escape your clutches for lush meadows and escape your reach. I will bring My People and settle them in a land far from Egypt. Once more they will call on me and I will be their Lord. The sheep of my pasture will come to me for they know me and I will gather them up in my arms. And when they walk through the desert neither their shoes nor their clothes will wear thin, for I will look over them.


Given November 2011

Confessions of a fool

When I don't post for a while you can be sure I'm either on holiday or God is dealing with me. It's November and I don't live in the southern hemisphere! I haven't been on holiday.

I have a question for you: do I sound oh-so-worthy when I write, self-important and wanting you to think the very best of me in spiritual terms? (Even that question could hide a false humility!) If I do sound like that, it is most probably because I am like that.

It's not that God's finger is sharp it's just where He's pressing is sensitive and sore and you and I both want to get out from under it. He got me in a corner this morning, digging up another piece of rubble in my heart. I don't know about you, but I seem to go round and round in circles with the same problems, the same faults of the heart. Just hold still; He's drilling deeper! The drill bit is still in the same place! I'm not going round in circles; His drill bit is. There's another sweep that scrapes off another layer. It is not His sternness that provokes this in me; many peope have said to me I'm too hard on myself. It is true; I am too hard on myself. I thought I was being humble but have since realised that the person who is truely humble isn't even aware that they are. (Oh dear, failed again.) For someone like me, it is always God's kindness that drills deeper; it feels like a drill bit, but it is just His hand bringing His truth that confronts the very need of my heart. This morning He called me His brother (Hebrews 2:11) and said that there was no condemnation for those in Christ (Romans 8:1). All my struggling and striving that had built up over the last few weeks was undone in seconds and glorious freedom came, accompanied by tears.

I was so concerned with my own character and being right and walking around with utter self-contempt that my eyes were blinded to the truth. When I realised it was His character in me that was to be seen and that He had fulfilled all righteousness, then and only then was I delivered from a priggish self-hatred that masqueraded as piety.

"Determinedly take no one seriously but God, and the first person you find you have to leave severely alone as being the greatest fraud you have ever known, is yourself."

Oswald Chambers, My Utmost for His Highest, 22nd November, page 333.

At Home in Reality

Devotions should bring you to God - not man . . . including yourself.

You cannot stand upon the wisdom of man to glimpse God.

Devotions do not have you at their centre: not your relationship to God, nor your faith, nor anything prefaced with 'your'. Devotions should exist to bring you into the life of God and should therefore take you out of your own life, so that what concerns you or what you are holding clatters to the ground as you forget what is behind. These true devotions do not preoccupy you with a new set of problems; they do not rake over old ground; they do not require you to solve problems; they do not require you to use your wisdom. These are all bleached and rolled by the confontation with God.

Anything: any writing or any speaking that is not taken with the Lord only deals with peripheral things. Devotions do not stroke your self-worth or your gifts or your ministries. Devotions have at their centre Jesus in His risen glory or in His manly life. Your ears are not cluttered with quotes from from others or interjections from well-qualified third parties. You are with your beloved. Any other noise is sandled feet on holy ground; this is why the door to the prayer closet is closed: to disallow interruptions. It is you and His voice.

You have an anointing that is not counterfeit but true and therefore He teaches you Himself. There is no intermediary, no High Priest to represent you to God continually. He has done it once and for all, the way is cleared: you are the Priesthood to minister directly to God. Anything else will muddy the water. Any figure of Moses in your life must be sidestepped; the Lord will lead you Himself from the pillar of cloud and fire, day and night. The old categories of this life and psychology will mean nothing to you. Worldly ways to diagnose the troubles of your ailing heart will prove of no value, they can only observe symptoms from afar; they can only modify the behaviour.

God is not interested in your mental health or your inconvenient behaviour, but He is interested in you; He wants you for Himself. Why let anyone or anything stand in the way? God does not call us on out of our own self-interest but out of obedience to Him. God does not bargain or barter with you, it is always on His terms. He is not interested in our dignity before men or ourselves, but our status before Him. He is not interested in you becoming 'more yourself' or being 'more human'. These so-called devotions should not try to get you back to the comfortable Garden of Eden but into the blood-sweated dark Gethsemane. We no longer become God's original intention but His greatest intention: to lift us up into God himself, wherein before we were below the angels - now we are in Christ. He is not intereseted in a 'better world' or helping you to 'cope' or to avoid suffering. He Himself is our Peace and our Truth. The reality is always found in Christ and nowhere else. God does not want you to be what He first designed you to be, the first creation of man has been abolished just as the first convenant has been surpassed. He wants you to be what He created you to be in Christ. This is the first of the last creation. We are the firstfruits that supplants the previous age, for only in Christ does the new age begin.

How we know what is in the heart

God brings us to the end of our strength, to the end of our joy, to the end of our resources, to the end of self.

Why?

To know what is in our heart. He pours us out until we are empty, until he reaches the dregs, the rotting detritus left at the bottom that should have been sieved long ago (Deut 8:1-5). A thing is not known to be in your heart until it comes out through the mouth or the hands, for the heart is hidden and deceitful (Jer 17:9); it must be drawn out by circumstance so that it can be seen. You need to see yourself in the mirror of this trial so you are confronted by your own heart. How else can we be disciples unless we are disciplined? God is making us his sons, we are not just sons by birth but by upbringing as well and what son is not disciplined. We are apt to forget that in the midst of the trial our feet did not swell and our clothes did not wear out. (v4)

We are brought into the desert to eat the manna from heaven, to depend entirely upon his word, to know that every blessing is from His hand and not ours, to make you dependent upon him - not your strength, your wits, your skill, your ingenuity: these things come from a man's pride. We are often interested in what is at the end of the journey rather than the journey itself, we cannot wait to get there but you have to isolated, your are on your honeymoon with your beloved. He needs to snap the ties of Egypt and the lust for the blessings of the Promised Land, that you will be dependent upon Him and only Him. He leads us out that we might be led-in once more; He finds what is in our heart so that we would know Him in our heart, and there the convenant is made from one heart to the other, so that we are not just sons by blood but sons in actuality. God is becoming our Father in a way we have never seen before. It would not be enough for one circumstance to expose out heart; the human soul is equipped enough to survive one night trudging through the desert and the Red Sea; one event in public with drama does not make a man and does not expose a man to God. Years of battering and daily weathering only denudes our pride until we come to the end of our tether; 40 years in the desert will do this; daily drudgery in the small things of life is where a disciple is born. Faithfulness and joy in obscurity because you are with Him are what really sustains you. Then you are led by the hand out of the wilderness by the one you truly love (Psa 77:20).

(Based upon, in part, on Oswald Chambers "My Utmost for His Highest", 21st October, Direction by Impulse)

The Want of Elegance

A quote left by a christian on a website in response to an article about Steve Jobs (founder of Apple):

"I am convinced that the world is awaiting someone, somewhere somehow who will bring hope. I can only hope that we as christians can find provocative, meaningful and engaging ways to convey the hope we have as elegantly as Steve Jobs."

Reading this left me cold. What could possibly be wrong with this? It is well meant. Indeed, it is well meant. It sounds so reasonable and relevant to today's society. There is the clear empathy with the world, someone to "hope" for and a hope to give in "meaningful ways". And how should we do this? With elegance - something pleasing on the eye, something the world can applaud and not get offended by, something that is seamless and fits with ease into our present life without a jar, a pleasant accessory or update, something useful but also beautiful. I am thinking of a ballet or a Renoir painting. Perhaps they're not useful, but they're definitely beautiful. Wouldn't it be great if we could mimic the world but do it in a 'christian' way so the whole world would be surprised. If only we could make christianity less ugly and brutal; if only we could make it pleasing and easy for the believer and the non-believer alike; if only we could make Jesus look and feel like an iPod or a Loreal advert.

But what do I see on the Place of the Skull? Blood-stained splintered wood and a naked carcass battered beyond any recognition of humanity. Four groups of people looking on: those giving approval of the execution, those who delight in the entertainment of its brutality, those who are drawn to the innocent out of compassion and those who turn their back because it is all too much and all too violent.

How do we dress this up in elegance? How do we hide this away? What tarpaulin is large enough to cover the offence of the cross? The only thing large enough would be a bigger distraction, a show, an open-air concert with fireworks so people could look up into the sky rather than consider the pathetic piece of humanity hanging from the cross. Maybe there would be an orchestra so at least if anyone did look in that direction then at least they might think they were in a cinema. There would definitely be a picnic - you can't expect people to come and not be fed. We could have a small play or  a comedy sketch. Actually, the open-air film sounds like a good idea; we could drape a lovely white linen sheet from the city walls and project a film onto it, maybe Bruce Almighty - the kids would like that. We can't have the kids upset now, can we?  A dance troupe might be an idea but nothing revealing, something with flags. There could be a stained glass window with some 'christian' art. Some sculptures would look nice around here wouldn't they? Perhaps we should have a cross after all. I know, we could have a representation of it like in a painting, stylised and covered up, showing his holiness, looking up to heaven in a spiritual way. Or we could have an empty cross wrapped in red garments so no one would get splinters; it would be a symbol of his resurrection and his blood. Hang on, it's a bit daunting having it right there in the middle where everyone's looking, let's stick it on the outside of the building, then everyone will know who we are and not to mess with us. We could wear liitle versions of it round our necks. Cool christians eh? The last thing we ought to be is uncool. We should be hip and trendy, that would give God the most glory. We can't have the world disrespecting us because that would dishonour God. We should be elegant christians so people can see how wisely we spend God's money.

Man is very creative and very resourceful; he is able to do many things without God while doing them for Him.

We look for ways; God chose One Way.
We look for techniques, but God prepared a body.
We look for methods, but God has sent His life in His Son.
We look for a means; God's means is to break a man.
We look for what we should do, but God says we should BE with Him.
We look for ways, but He is the Way.

We are so desperate not to be seen as dreary christians that we sing and tap-dance our way through life as if the cross were just the start to our wonderful, new and improved life. The cross is only elegant in one way: it is the most appropriate punishment to deal a death blow to all sin once and for all. It is the perfect solution because it is the perfect sacrifice. There is your elegance; everything else is bloody.

God has already provided a provocative way to convey this hope we have, it starts with a sacrificed man and then a sacrificed life . . . your life. God does not send technology or culture or events - He sends people. If we do not see the cross we cannot say, "Woe is me! I am a man!". If we do not see the cross we cannot offer to be sent, so instead of sending ourselves we avoid the issue and send money and organisations - these are just the WAYS of men, we ourselves avoid going. We cannot engage with the world for we do not speak their language and nor should we; we should not speak to the culture of man though we may put it in cultural terms; no, we must speak to the dead, God-hungry spirit within him. The measure of any man or woman is their response to the cross itself, first in Jesus, then in you.

If we continue the St. Vitus dance of the saints, eagerly distracting from the cross, one day we may turn around to find there is no cross but, in front of you, an audience - not a congregation. And who will be smiling that day? The very kind of man that the world is waiting for to give them the type of hope they want; a hope that is bought and not bled for; the very kind of man who is waiting to give them the hope they deserve and want. He will give hope to the whole human race for all the wrong reasons. He will pander and compliment and sound soo smooth and speak so many wise and elegant words. They will love him for tickling their ears for he will tell them what they want to hear. He will affirm the whole human race in its rebellion. Such will be the man of lawlessness with apparent integrity and human respect from a religious heritage.

A cross-less christianity is the pathway for the antichrist.

Jachin and Boaz: He Establishes in Strength

If a man is to be made by God he must be alone with God: not in a bodily sense but in a societal sense. He must feel the estrangement of those nearest and dearest to him, who have his 'best interests' at heart. He must be rejected and scorned by them; he must be patronised by them. They will think him mad and try to restrain him with derision. Why? So he can stand alone with God without looking for support from 'Egypt' or any other source: his allegiances and alliances must be rendered null and void. Once he is torn away from the familial and societal structure everything is exposed, the soul ties and the affections. He is pulled until something snaps.  But this isolation is NOT self-enforced, it is the result of trying to be near those he loves, of speaking to those he loves of Him whom he loves, and then he finds he is totally alone with God in the heart of all the people. This is what God wanted all along. He wanted that man for Himself, He wanted to see what lay in his heart and now He knows. Then he will be made a fortified city, an iron pillar and a bronze wall (Jeremiah 1:18). He will become the embodiment of God's stout word. He will be established in strength (2 Chronicles 3:15-17).

True familial ties are not based on blood but upon obedience to God. This man, who has no place to rest his head, is willing to sacrifice his family for God, he is willing to replace his family and allow his family to be usurped by another, all for his obedience to God. We might say, Jesus has done this. There is no need for me to go through the same suffering. Our limbs do not just belong to Jesus as if we are a separate entity, these limbs are Him Himself (1 Corinthians 6:15). Therefore the privilege of being made by God and being made like God is to walk like God (1 John 2:6); we will go through everything He did if we follow Him. Why would we expect anything else?

'Not by might nor by power, but by my Spirit,' Part 3

"What are you , O mighty mountain? Before Zerubbabel you will become level ground."
Zechariah 4:7

What is the dirt that has to be dug through? First to go is the life that grows out of that dirt: that which has a semblance of life and fruitfulness, that which seems to be benefitting you, that which has been with you most probably from the beginning - olive groves that have been here longer than the mountain - that which simulates the life of God and in some way it is unthinkable to lay the axe at its root: but I have been blessed by it! we declare. These things are the closest to our heart, that which we have yearned for and prayed for and God has allowed us to have and yet it comes between us and God. Will you lay it down? These are simply the extremities, the levers God uses to prize open our heart. The real work has not yet begun. Others will wonder: why have you done that? It will make no sense to them. Why would anyone cut down such beautiful olive trees? Even then you may be tempted to replant them.
Next will come the dirt out of which this purported life grew. Soil is a mixture: weathered rock, rotten life, water and air. In short, death. But it's fertile! It gives life! Life only comes by one death: the death of Him, not you! The death of your 'death' - the death of your sacrifice on your terms is the real death; it's not about your sacrifice, it is about His in you. But this is what I've achieved; I've spent years and decades on this! The death of your self-appointed and self-conscious sacrifice, where we whitewash our tombs, must come. We cobble together from the remnants of our life something that approximates to life, but supplants the real life. We stitch it together and rationalise it. The life of God needs no such explanation; it is self-evident.
The dirt is cleared to reveal what the Lord really wants to get at, and this is where the real work is done by the hands of God. Something which sticks up vertical needs to be laid down. At its core it is the rock-like obstinacy and stubbornness and self-will that will not bend or yield in certain or any circumstance. It will not allow the circumstance to dictate to it but wrestles with it. It bucks beneath the circumstance - not accepting that this is God's will. We wanted the victory and the triumph but He must conquer our hearts first. On first contact it must be broken and then peeled back and excavated to reveal the strata of the rock, its secret and hidden ways of how it was originally made. We protest and complain that its uprightness was for God. It's hardness and strata will be put to more glorious uses than it was otherwise intended for: an indefatigability for God, a defiance for God in the face of the world's onslaught, a strength that will take the whole weight of the House of God because it has been laid in a tomb of rock and not of earth.

'Not by might nor by power, but by My Spirit,' Part 2

"What are you, O mighty mountain? Before Zerubbabel you will become level ground. Then he will bring out the capstone . . .."
Zechariah 4:7

We want to start something; we want to plant and we want to build. Man has been doing this for millenia and he has built one of two cities: Babylon or Jerusalem, both with different foundations. One city of the 'I will' and the other of 'Your will'. But before a single stone can be dragged onsite, before a single stone can be laid as a foundation, before any of that starts, there is a mighty work to be done and it is not to build up into the air as in Babel - it has always been to dig down, down into the dirt to get to the rock.

And who is it that digs? It is not us who performs the work; it is the High Priest. And who is the High Priest if He is not Christ himself? And upon what or whom does He perform His destructive work? It is upon us. We are the object of His levelling. Up to this point we have got it completely wrong. We thought we were doing a work for God, but - in fact - it has been Him who needs to turn us into the workmanship of God. Like David, we have offered to build a house for His Name when in fact the Lord has turned round to refuse the offer. Instead, He will be the One to build a House for David to rule over for ever. We can always offer but God will always trump us; He always has something better in mind. We look to build something temporal when God looks to build something eternal.

That proud, rugged and wild mountain must be brought low and circumcised before God can begin to build. Where once people would say, 'Look at that fine, beautiful mountain,' they now say, 'Look at the temple mount, the house of God!' They no longer see the mountain, it has disappeared. Its pride has been brought low. Where once nothing could touch it save for groves of olives and wild animals, it is now brutalised under a building site, marred and scarred beyond recognition. Its lofty heights laid low, all that it took pride in is now despoiled. It is a woman bereft of her hair, a soldier shorn of his weapons. The mountain lies naked and exposed. The guts of the mountain have spilled over to reveal what is inside. And when people pass by to look at the work in progress they will be appalled - disfigured beyond that of any mount. They will not recognise the likeness of the mountain ever again. They will remember the former mountain and shake their heads. But the haughty mountian must go through this if it is to be beautiful once more for wholly different reasons. Before, it was beautiful for its own sake, now it is beautiful because of what it bares - a place for God to dwell.

Remember this when the stone masons get to work on your stone heart, when the chisels and the pick axes fall, when God digs deeper and flattens you out. You thought you were a mountain; now you are a footstool.

It will stop. The rasp of metal on stone will cease and all will feel like paradise. And when they bring out the capstone what a shout will rise up from the mountain. What delight will be yours when the perfect stone is laid on a perfectly level surface. Before anything is built the mountain has as its heart one joint, one union upon which everything is built, from which everything is measured. What delight will be yours when God comes to rest in your centre, upon you, without a gap between you . . .  complete contact.

You thought you were a mountain, now you are the resting place of God.

Confession of Total Losses

At times there is no godliness in me, just jealousy and competition to be better than someone else: a deep abiding wish to be more correct, more holy, more right, more powerful.

In the past I have griped and complained and judged, nursed bitterness over debateable matters, ignored warnings given by the Spirit, not recognised direct intervention from angels. I have been wreckless with God's gifts and promises.

This is the type of man you have been reading. Want to read on? Or am I too contaminated? Is this too close to the bone?

We want our leaders to have a dark night of the soul elsewhere, in private, so we can invest some of our God-stock in them and we don't have to deal with the mess. Ignorance is bliss. Would we invest in something that was as totally bankrupt as this? A total loss? Perhaps we wouldn't, but God definitely would. In fact he invests in nothing else. But we are so ingrained with our own value and worth through what we do that we cannot conceive of coming to God with empty hands. We bring our 'talents' and 'gifts' and we expect God to import these into the new life.  We bring the shame of our conduct and past lives and expect God to forgive it over and over again. How can life be new if it has the old? Until all is considered a complete loss how will we ever know the surpassing greatness of knowing Jesus? Even the greatest things we have done in our own strength must be considered unclean and must be expelled through the Dung Gate. For all the 'good' and 'bad' we have done are all alike under God's gaze. Only God is good, so be prefect as your heavenly Father is perfect. If you are His child then inheriting his nature will bring this perfection forth unconsciously.

How often have you heard it said: "God could use a man like this . . .". God will use no such man or woman, not until they are 6 feet under or at the bottom of the River Jordan or in the stomach of a whale.

Of Dreams and Log Jams Part 2

When I cogitate these log jams appear as symbols and metaphors in dreams; stories to unlock that I will think on for days and weeks after. They, at times - much to my shame - have a way of prizing open my heart in a way that undiluted scripture doesn't, a bit like a parable. They are impenetrable; I come up against a wall I cannot scale. I meet the end of my own understanding. I flounder in my own weakness and can't fathom it because I am in the flesh or using the power of my soul. Spiritual signs are spiritually discerned by the Spirit of God.

When we hear scripture we are in danger of thinking we know what it means and maybe apt to dismiss it. Characters with actions and metaphors with meaning are there to be understood and unlocked. It is because we are weak. If God were to speak plainly our conscious mind might object to it and reject it. His command would give a chance for disobedience. Reason it away and we will be in peril. God persuades us in story and anrrative. Then I am led full circle back to the scripture in the first place to say, 'Ahhh, that's what it means!'

One thing we mustn't do in public is admit our weaknesses; the show of 'faith' must go on. We must look competent and in control. Our weakness and emptiness is the door for the grace of God to get to work to fill us up. Let us hold to no pretense.

Our weakness is the beginning of dependence on God.

Of Dreams and Log Jams Part 1

Last night I dreamed; I have been dreaming a lot recently. A friend once said to me that a person only dreamed when they weren't listening to God - when God couldn't get their attention. The implied criticism at the time was that I wasn't listening to God. It may well have been true, but I think my friend was simply stating that they didn't dream and they listened to God and He spoke to them clearly.

I have always dreamed, big swirling epics and little flashes. It occurs most often when I'm deep in thought and mulling things over, when something concerns me, when I search or yearn for something, when there are rocks in my heart and I hate myself for something, when something is frustrated and the life of God does not flow easily, when peace has seeped away, when I doubt, when I am in disobedience, when I have neglected prayer, when a burden will not let me go. Somewhere there is a log jam and something has to come out, otherwise I'll go mad.

The conclusion being: when I dream something is wrong, in me or somewhere else. If God isn't digging up the rocks in our heart, what is He doing? Do we assume to be so prigishly perfect that this will never happen? We must keep up our facade of being 'spiritual' and holy. Sometimes a hard questioning cynicism(distrustful of the presented virtue of yourself and/or others) is the only cracker that will crack the nut of prudish religiosity, to provoke what is truely inside.

If we are on a even keel then the waters haven't risen yet; we are still in dock. The door of the ark may be shut and we may be sealed in pitch but we await the deluge. We cannot see what is happening let alone understand it. We can only hear it when it starts to fall. Will the seal hold? It starts with a slight movement, then a jolt and a judder, a bob. We are afloat in a waterproof nave being taken by God through the difficulties of life - not taken out of but through - with walls of gravity-defying water hanging beside us. Nevertheless, we must look at the pillar of fire, not at what surrounds us.

Beware of harsh metallic faith, like Paraoah's chariots, that reduces life with God to a succinct dismissive rule - when it rests upon a person. Flee from them. They cut you open like a surgeon, gutting you like a fish while they themselves remain immutable and untouchable. A rough ride awaits you upon the good ship 'Ark' rather than upon the smooth chariots as a captive. Beware of smoothness, ease, convenience, routine that lulls, inward neatness and tidiness. Nothing will remain the same while the ark bucks and tosses through the waves.

"It is dangerous to get into a settled state of experience. It is preparation and preparation."

Oswald Chambers.

So dreaming occurs when everything is in flux, when something that means everything has been tossed into the air . The music starts again and we are up and running, not knowing where to go, only knowing we MUST go and go now. Respond now lest our hearts congeal and become hard. Dreaming is God's kneading of the heart before the oven, it is his pressure and hands upon you in an unseen way, getting your attention, especially when you think deeply. The heel of his hand rolls into you again and again, flattening and moulding, spinning and throwing into the air: His - not to play with but - to do with as He pleases. Dreaming comes when there are phases of resistance to this. His fingers press in. Respond to Him now before He sends circumstances to shape you, respond in the small and mundane; be faithful in the little. The perplexity of that dream will nag and annoy, it is meant to be inscrutable until your heart keeps pace with it and then it unfolds (or evaporates into nothing as it was born of the worry of your soul). It forces you back to God knowing He is the holder of yours secrets. You have been trained by the sheepdogs of God's dreams, hounding you into submission; He tracks you down and corners you into a decisive moment in time and the decision is not left or right but it is down: down and submit, yield!

He MAKES me to lie down in green pastures!

Then the peace will come.

What is true fellowship with God?

It is not the tingling of the hands or the hairs of your neck standing up. It is not the flitter of your closed eyelids or any relaxed respiration - though all these things maybe present while in the presence of something 'other'. However, this is still not fellowship, it is not even the signs of fellowship. It is not by the flesh, it never starts with the flesh - it is always by His Spirit.

We must not confuse His Presence with His Fellowship. It is possible to be near God and not know God; it is possible to enjoy His Presence but never let His essence and character possess us. We can be tourists looking for another experience, another march up to the top of the hill with the Grand ol' Duke of York with the trumpets in tow - but never enter the holy citadel. We may admire its imposing gates of pearl and its immense walls of pure crystal from the outside, but then it's just an object in our lense and the conceit of the eye is to control what it sees; what should be truth to us suddenly becomes a lie in our own mind, and we deceive ourselves. We say: I have experienced God. We might as well have dipped our finger into the still waters rather than go down completely into the River Jordan. Our world is saturated with synthetic and simulated experiences of one kind or another. We go from one meeting to the next looking to re-live something past and it becomes nostalgic and if we ever experience it again we reminisce; we look over our shoulder at something we should flee from: the reduction of God to a series of senses. It is not by flesh . . .

God is not in the earthquake nor in the storm, nor even in the dark clouds that shroud his immense light from the known universe. These are all 'things about the thing'. We must concern ourselves with the Root and not the leaf, the cause and not the symptom. We could build a whole life around these 'things' and never know the 'thing' itself.

God is light; in Him there is no darkness at all. If we claim to have fellowship with Him . . . we walk in the light, as He is in the light, we have fellowship . . .. (1 John 1:5-7)

There is no fellowship without light; light that searches and knows; light that deals and exposes the shadows of the heart we have long since been blind to; light that prepares and prepares; light that reveals every secret. Fellowship with God is exposure to God's searching and testing, standing still for His plumbline to stop swaying, falling upon Him to be broken, being spun to be moulded, being poured out to be refined in the fire. Fellowship is not knowing God's secrets but allowing God to deal with yours so there is nothing between you. God longs to remove from you all that stains and casts a shadow so that there is nothing between you, that He might enjoy you for Himself. This is the highest calling of man, not that you might enjoy God in your flesh but that God might enjoy making you like Himself for darkness has no fellowhsip with light; only light fellowships with light.

Prepared in Obscurity

God prepares in the desert, in the quiet places out of the way of gazers. They disappear and then reappear. You cannot set your clock by them and they may seem inconstant. An earthly kingdom is not theirs and they will appear feckless in the ways of the world. They have not come to tend gardens but to the Lord. And - like an iceberg - the unseen dealings of their God are hidden from public view:

"Can anything good come out of Nazareth?"

"We know your parents!"

"Your brothers and sisters are here with us!"

"We know who you are! You're nothing special!"

Hidden is Bethlehem and the manger, the wise men, the shepherds and the angels but also the long trip into Egypt. Few will see these things. So don't get all antsy when you are not seen, for when you are hidden then you are with God in the secret place to abide. Obscurity is the birthing ground of the men and women of God: Moses, Gideon, David and little Israel. They begin and end in obscurity so that God will give them a lasting epitaph. And their praise is not from men but from God.

The Hidden Question of my Heart - Part 4

There is one person I must mention. I see her ruddy face and round spectacles framed in a nun's habit so clearly, a ready smile, great warmth and a face like a cherub: Sister Paul Joseph.

If it hadn't been for her I am sure my whole life would have been different: I wouldn't have got into grammar school and I wouldn't have liked learning. The whole class loved working for her and I would have done anything for her.

I fainted one wednesday morning in mass when the church was really hot. I was in the front pew and must've collapsed across the wooden bench in front of me. The next thing I remember was my little 10 year old body being swept up into Sister Paul Joseph's arms as she rushed me outside into the cool air. There was some urgency in her stride and I felt cared for. It was a stark contrast to the general sternness I received at that Roman Catholic primary school where teachers could be tad harsh and firm without any gentleness. I revived almost immediately when she swept me up, but I just lay there in her arms. To this day no one has ever carried me like that - not that I would expect that thesedays at 13 stone! To be loved and cared for in the midst of an abrasive school was the difference I needed.

If there was a test for her compassion, this was it and she passed it with flying colours. By the grace of God Sister Paul Joseph rescued me from more than just banging my head on a pew; she rescued me from myself, from being lazy in school and behaving badly. She put the joy back into life and learning and I have much to thank her for . . . now that I'm a teacher myself.

I am sure if you look back at your own life people have been placed there at crucial times: from God and from the Devil. The war for your attention and your heart might still continue and you may still have many choices to make along the road. Before you make that choice consider this: wide is the road to destruction and many travel on it for it is easy - the path of least resistance. However, the way to life is narrow and at times treacherous for it often goes against the grain of the masses. Few travel on it for it is difficult to find its beginning. (Matt 7:13-14)

Who are you following? What crowd are you going along with? If life is easy, ask yourself: has God made it so or have I avoided all those difficult decisions to make life easy. Are you cocooned in your little world or would like to take the first steps on an epic journey? There is a narrow alley, a side street just for you to slip away with the Lord. Go and walk with Him; He will give you His lifetime to know Him. And if you faint be sure of this: there is always One who will scoop you up into His arms and let you rest until your are revived again.