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.

Walls and Gates Prophecy

"Gates have been thrown open so wide that they cease to be gates; doorways widened that the very pillars of the building are removed without thought to the integrity of the structure.

A church without walls is a church that will fall down, a church that will implode on itself and many destroyed in its collapse.

The narrow way has been exchanged for the broad way in the name of ‘love and acceptance and grace’. Many will come in and will not be wearing wedding clothes. Many will be surprised to find themselves there, for they will blunder their way in without realising, for there is nothing to mark their way, nothing that announces their entrance into God’s Ark.

The hedge around My Church that separated Her from the world has been torn down and neither can one tell the difference between her and the world - they have been so fused with one another. Their words are Her words and She touts Her wares in the streets like a trader, like a huckster selling something fake. She attempts to allure, She tries to beckon but She will be trampled by the heathen and the pagan in her midst that She once called ‘saved’, for She has treated as saved those who are not; She has exchanged, She has trafficked, she has swapped her glory for something commonplace and profane. She has left her position of grace, She has abdicated her throne and gone down into the valleys to make herself more accessible, more ‘real’, more ‘relevant’.

My loved one has become a whore and I find prostitution where I should find prayer, worldliness where I should find holiness, noise where I should find quiet, work where I should find rest, lip service where I should find repentance, faith in man’s strength where I should find the faith of Abraham.

Is not My Ark a holy vessel to save utterly through? What would it be if She were holed? How would She float if She leaked? How could She possibly survive any storm that was sent against Her. That sacred boat needs to be sealed by Her Lord and covered in pitch; She must be watertight against the ingress of the world. My unction and My oil does not mix with the world, it sets apart. My Spirit seals those I know and they shall be delivered through the storms. You have called ‘saved’ that which is not; you have called holy that which is profane; you have committed a fatal reversal.

The true vine has withered and in its place is an imported vine, one that I did not plant and that will not produce any fruit – just itself, there will be no bud, no flourish. It will creep and crawl and bind up everything in its midst, it will demand ad demand like a baby that will not wean, like a child that will not learn and all the while it grins and demands more proof of love, “if . . . if . . . if . . .”

Your sin started at the gates and how you think people enter the courts of the Lord. You thought it wrong to judge but does not the man of God judge all things? You thought it wrong to divide but doesn’t the man of God rightly divide the word of truth? Doesn’t the Son of God separate the goats from the lambs?

Isn’t a wall in place to show that which is and that which is not?

Remove that and you remove the courts of the Lord and it merges with the space around it to mean just what the space around it means – nothing! If there is no wall or no hedge then there are no courts of the Lord, no entrance through which to enter. Did I not tear down the only wall that mattered in my own flesh? Did I not rent the veil in two as my body was torn? This was the only rending required.

You have torn away the steps for a man to know me. How is he to find Me if he is treated as one who already knows Me? The hand of the wicked is strengthened and he feels he is justified before God, when he is not.

You have entertained when you should have praised and prayed. You have put on a show when you should have grieved and mourned. You have advertised when you should have kept you mouth shut, but you boasted proudly of your inheritance without living in it or giving thought to how it was obtained.

My baptisms are mere rituals to qualify for church membership. My baptisms are for wholeness and for healing. They have been neglected in this age like no other and I find it an abomination. Where can a man go to dip himself in sorrow for offending me? Where can a man go to be united with me in depths of the waters of baptism? And where can a man go to be sealed with that unction that seals against the world and that jealously possesses a follower? You must go through the former to get to the latter, there is no short cut, no convenient or easy way. It must be whole-hearted, but you have made disciples for yourselves and of your selves to mirror what you are before me . . . tepid.

You speak and your prattle on and on, you discuss theology and doctrine in mere theory, you discard it for you do not see its value, therefore this holy doctrine and theology will not save you. You will go down into sheol and there you will remain like Pharoah’s chariots, rusting. You don’t cherish my word, though you have a doctrinal statement. This is a mere technicality.

It will not save you, none of this will save you, not one jot, for you have abandoned my plan of salvation, you have abandoned me and who is it that saves? Is it not I, the Saviour of Israel? I am the only one who saves. Man does not save though he portrays every day that he does; he speaks of salvation but he shall see none.

Let a man come to me, let him seek me, let him exercise his faith, let him approach the throne of grace in his hour and perhaps he will find me, if he seeks me with all his heart. I knock and I wait, but here is always a door, a wall to separate a place ‘that is’ from a place ‘that is not’.

Did I not divide the day from the night, but you have mixed it together; did I not divide work from rest, but you are in continual upheaval; did I not appoint the sun and the moon to govern day from night? Did I not separate man from the other creatures? How much more the my chosen vessel to reveal Me in the Last Days? How much more my chosen Bride but She has dissolved in anticipation of the end, She has backslidden and not trusted Her Saviour.

There are always walls and there are always gates.

Bring each one to Me; bring them all: they are mine - not yours! Make them disciples of me - not your church: they are mine, you are all mine. They are all mine, if they have the Spirit of Christ and if anyone doesn’t, he isn’t mine.

There is a way and it is narrow. There is a gate and it is narrow. There is a lock and Only One is worthy to open it – even myself. It is by constraint - not by throwing off restraint; it is by tightness and squeezing; it is by passing-by and passing-over that I save. If anyone does not come through Me, he is not mine and you are not to welcome him. Let them come and let them tremble at your holy assembly.

I am the Only Saviour."

Given 02/12/10

'Not by might nor by power, but by my Spirit,' Part 1

'Not by might nor by power, but by my Spirit,' says the Lord Almighty. (Zechariah 4:6)

The signature verse for this blog was given to me as a baptismal 'promise' 26 years ago. I didn't like it at the time as I always wanted some great promise about me as a great man of the future, not some note of caution or rebuke implying some character flaw. I never liked anyone telling me what I couldn't do or the limitations to my evidently great spirituality; my flesh had always to be pampered to and puffed up and very few people in my life opposed this in me. I couldn't take criticism at all and was always extremely sensitive to it. I wished someone had opposed me with some godly wisdom, but I am completely responsible for this flaw.

The upshot was that I spent the majority of my christian walk trying to make something of myself when I should have been making nothing of myself (Philippians 2:7). I got it completely the wrong way round: I had been taking the high way instead of the low-way.

Back to this verse: it has been nagging away at me for decades now, like a bad penny, like the big bit of grit in the centre of an oyster. It has puzzled me in its conciseness and plainness. It's language appears straightforward and it sounds spiritual. I barely know what it means today!

Recently, however, something was unlocked inside of it when I read Watchman Nee's "The Latent Power of the Soul". Something clicked into place. To put it simply, the "might" that is disallowed by this verse refers to the physical strength to achieve and build; the "power" that is forbid may well refer to political machinations to achieve, but for the individual, it prohibits the use of the soul in all its intellectual, emotional and psychological (conscious and sub-conscious) power to counterfeit any work of God; this includes any projection of the soul to persuade and manoeuvre people into your way or methods.

It is not by the use of soul power that God's temple is built, though that could quite easily achieve the required end result more swiftly. No, the Spirit of God must build His temple if He is to dwell in it, He will dwell in nothing less than His own creation. Other temples maybe built with more guile and apparent skill and may appear more beautiful, but they will not stand in the flood or the fire. It is only the true spiritual house with its foundation on Christ that will stand both.

How often are we tempted to counterfeit God's work with our own well-qualified programme or ministry. Therefore, bind up your flesh and your soul as you plant the seed of God's work and make them slaves to the will of God for His purpose - do not start your work and ask God to bless it. The world will but God won't.

Burdens not to carry

Never allow the empathy for pain to becomes pain's reward and pain's attention. The empathy is not for the pain but for the person. Do not become encumbered in their story and their reasonings for their present state, rather carry them. Often, people will want you to carry their burdens, to do their work for them, to give them a brief respite, only for them to pick them up once you have laid them down. They had no intention of giving them up. Many people talk around themselves but there is a nugget inside that needs to be got at. Burdens and 'crosses' are used to avoid all this, the heart of the matter: we speak of the burden rather than the person carrying the burden.

All burdens when carried by a follower have one destination: Golgotha. To the cross the burden must go. We can no longer negotiate another destiny for these burdens; we are not taxi drivers or social workers giving brief comfort. Eternal rest is where we come from and where we go to. To give brief comfort as we see fit is to reinforce that burden's weight and power over the prisoner. Do not carry a burden unless its carrier wants to be rid of it once and for all. To the cross you must go and end all suffering and oppression derived from this burden. The carrier and the burden are tied together with a yolk. To carry another's burden when no eternal rest is given is to subject yourself to the same burden and to come under the same slavery. You were not made for slavery but for righteousness.

Faith and Shaggy Dogs

Faith is simply the trust that someone will do something that you expect because of a simple, transparent request. The foundation of this is knowing that person and what that person is like; it rests upon relationship. The person of faith therefore rejects all manipulation, all coersion, all interfering in someone's life as a means to get them to do the 'right' thing. Their last resort is their first resort - prayer.

This afternoon my shaggy dog galavanted across a field of snow to play with a black lab. I let him go but kept walking. I called him a few times and just kept walking. He's only one years old but he came back willingly and joyfully. He made me smile. I didn't have to bellow or run after him because I didn't trust him, I just kept walking, trusting his need to be with me was greater than his need to play with a black lab - it was.

We must act as if it will happen, not out of a gamble but out of the certainty of knowing the Person of God. The more we know Him, the more we can be certain of Him. We do not need to cry or to plead to persuade God; He knows us already. I am not saying tears will not be present but they will not be used as a lever against God to force Him to act, we cannot cajole Him nor force Him to do something against His will, but we can pour out our hearts in honesty as Abraham did for Sodom and Gomorrah.

The Rest of God and the Work of Man

The Only One to work His way into Rest is the Lord God. He is the Only One worthy enough whose work is sufficient to bring Him to Rest for it is complete and lacks nothing. Man is not like God: his work is not worthy enough, everything he does from his own strength has a canker to it; he has to work his way out of Rest.

He must therefore, as we all should, enter His rest in the first instance. The world works so that it might rest; however, we Rest so that we might work God. The first day of the week, Sunday, signifies the Rest we start from. If spiritual Rest - then physical as well. All of God's mighty work is born of the grace of God's Rest that His complete work wrought in His Son maybe shown in us. All work that is eternal is born of Rest. What He works in, we work out that we would be the perfect workmanship of God.

Adding and Taking Away

I have listened to many children read over the years. There are two types of readers: the faithful and the careless. The former struggles word by word to get it right. They might find reading difficult or easy: it's not the technical ability with words that matters but cleaving to what the writer meant.

The careless reader, often more able, is hungry to finish: hopping and skipping their way to the end of the sentence, the paragraph or the chapter; they want to know; they want to find out. The words are just stepping stones, and they can miss a few out on the way, can't they? After all, they are hungry for the story. They can also slip a few words in if the sentence doesn't sound quite right or if the writer got it 'wrong': writers are often getting it wrong. The reader's eye barges its way through the sentence, ahead of the mouth or the understanding, but there are hidden corners, blind alleys and invisible dips. The undulation of the text is inconvenient; we want a straight Roman road with a sprint to the finish. But the writer is writing their story with their words. Though the story maybe more than the words, it is no less than those words.

How dare the writer make us stop and think and slow us down . . . so, we edit. Isn't this the cut and paste generation? Aren't we allowed to challenge everything that challenges our self-interest? We frequently expect certain sequences of words to occur together and we are seriously put out when our expectations aren't met. Isn't the customer supposed to be right? Therefore we skip our way gayly over the passage, not paying complete attention to the words, but smearing the text with a vaneer of our own story, our own expected meaning. The writer doesn't mean that! He means this! We miss out the little words; we insert a few of our own. The story isn't in the words after all; the story is bigger than the words; the story is in our head; we make it up.

And this is what God's children do to His Word.

One evening, whilst listening to a tutee, it hit me: I was having to correct the tutee frequently; their speech slurred close to an interesting bit; as they sped up, more words were missed and extra ones slotted in. So much was being missed as the speaker hauled their way over the words: gems of meaning were overlooked for the sake of gobbling-up and eating the events. It had to be consumed; it had to be used-up. The fluency and rhythm disappeared as they stuttered in their haste and came to several premature and confused halts. Every few lines, they recomposed theirselves and continued much in the same vein as before: stumbling until their interest waned.

So often we slide over the words as if they're an unimportant conduit, a means to an end, and our balloon sails high above them while we look to the horizon. And nothing must come between us and our destination, must it? But is not God as good as His Word? Was not the Word in the beginning? And isn't His name the Word of God? Satan has railed for centuries against the person of Jesus Christ and maligned the Spirit of Holiness but his defeat means he now attacks the basic premise of how God communicates to Man at all: the meanings of words. Language itself is being attacked and subverted daily, confused and hyperbolised so that it is rendered meaningless in the glut of competing advertising rhetoric, whether personal, corporate or 'spiritual'. A tired Man-World seeks to infuse some semblence of life to his life through various devices of artifice. Where there are many words, sin is not absent. Never in the history of humanity have there been so many words spoken, published or reported. And never has Man been so far from God. The last thing he needs is more words.

When we come to the holy text of His Word we frequently bring the same attitude: manipulation to get a desired result that conforms with our present status. We measure scripture and too infrequently is scripture allowed to measure us. We take the lofty position of examination without the Word of God examining us, rending soul from spirit in spiritual sacrifice. It is God's word that is a hammer or a sword or bread from heaven or rain on a mown field. The Word of God acts upon us and cannot be heard in the human spirit unless the words uttered are Spirit and Life itself, that is, the Spirit of Truth rushing through the vocal chords of God Himself so that the divine Logos of God can be heard by Man. He is the One who speaks; we are the ones who hear and obey. It has always been thus. Let us not be so egotistical to think we are the ones who confront God, rather, it is God who confronts us. And this should be our attitude to His Word. Very often we want answers to irrelevant questions and the Lord would say, "It is not for you to know . . . but you will BE . . .". God's words are Life and Spirit and will speak to your spirit. Your soul may express it but your spirit will apprehend it. Therefore, bind your soul up when you come to God's Word, bind up your love for things material and immaterial and your love for position before the world; it is just you, God and the invisible cloud of witnesses.

The warning at the end of Revelation to not add or take away from God's Word applies to His whole Word, not just the book of Revelation, and it applies to God's testimony in our lives and if the Word does not become flesh in our lives then it is not God's Word that has been working but our words . . . and there are plenty of them.

God's Spirit never empties God's Word of meaning unless it is to dismantle our misapprehensions, but even then the Spirit of Truth is the very one who undercuts our falsity with a truth that can be expressed with words but most importantly with a truth that can be lived and gives life, and if it cannot be lived then it is not truth - just a mere technicality. All scripture is God-breathed and useful for teaching . . .. There is nothing in God's word that is 'obsolete' under some dispensation that God's Spirit cannot utilise for your edification in being living truth yourself.

What is it that the churches and teachers of God's Word avoid? What books, what topics, what sections are simply left out of church sermons? What is it that they emphasise and major on? Answer those questions for you and your own church and you will be a step nearer to ascertaining the extent to which 'adding and taking' has happened in your life and in the life of your church. It maybe that they cannot take you somewhere where they themselves have never been, but the Lord can take you there Himself, if you are willing.

One thing the present church does major on is money and tithing: I have heard more sermons on Malachi 3 than anything else by a very long way. One thing she does avoid is the Cross of Christ. I honestly can't remember the last time I heard a sermon on this subject, apart from the late Art Katz' "And they crucified Him". I am recognising less and less of what is called 'church' as the true church. Their 'adding and taking away' has now accumulated over centuries for certain denominations and decades for individuals. At some point God's accounting year will come to an end and all balances will have to be settled upon the debtor.

Pray therefore for God to show you where you have taken from and added to His Word, disavow yourself of all rhetoric or any leaven that makes you appear 'spiritual', pull you investments out of your word and put them into His, allow Him to judge you in this lifetime - not the next.

Going Barefoot

Tough, tough morning.

I heard it said once: "If Satan attacks you, he's working for Jesus."

It happened before I even got up this morning - a little domestic incident that reveals my incompetence as a husband! (I don't disagree that I'm incompetent.) It's always those tiny stones in your shoe that stop you from walking: too big to be sand yet small enough to slip in unnoticed. Your foot moves in your shoe and that tiny stone moves as well . . . ouch, where did that come from?

I didn't switch the tumble drier back on after I pulled stuff out of it last night. The result? Someone didn't have dry kit for work this morning. I could have sworn I pressed the button, but I didn't check that it had started working again. I should've pressed and held the button. Oh dear.

God does give notice, but why was it such a surprise? I didn't listen. I saw it coming. It usually happens when I'm tired. But it caught me blindside. I complained and blamed, heard things that were never said and, eventually, called out and scrambled in prayer to get out of the hole I fell in.

But it's not the stone that God is bothered about, it's not about the source of irritation or the sandal you're wearing as if He just cares about your comfort; it's about the heart that gets irate and irritated. It's about the heart that responds out of self-defence. There is only one way out, and it isn't up - it's down, not a highway but a low-way. Don't bother to stop and lean on someone so you can whip your shoe off and make yourself feel better - just kick them both off and go barefoot.

When you hold something - anything - against or within yourself there will always be a little 'thing' that can work its way in between you and that 'thing'. It's presence to remind you there is a 'thing' between you and the outside world, that hard skin of leather. Throw it off: it only insulates you from feeling the pain and suffering that are yours, so that when the real thing comes along you are unprepared and give up in despair for comfort's sake.

Go barefoot and take nothing with you; allow the stone and grit of the road to grind against your feet all day long until, at its end, the Lord will be lower than you and wash it all away.

Crossing the River

We congratulate people on being "near the Kingdom of God". We use the 'stepping stones' across the river to avoid inviting the one, who needs to cross, into the river, where the Lord himself will perform a miracle and part the waters for him, but he must first step in; he must descend the bank of the Jordan in front of the whole of Israel and its teachers to meet God in the middle, where the gentle dove will descend. There is no other way but through; there is no 'around' or 'over', that is left to the Lord who will passover us and surround us.

We use the praises of men to avoid this. We throw rocks into the water from those in our heart to help others to cross in the same way we did; rather, let him who wishes to cross into God's country step in deeper and then, after he has crossed, take the rocks out of the river and set them up as a lasting memorial to what the Lord has done for him. Let him take 12 rocks, one for each tribe of Israel, one for each Apostle of God's true church. Then let him say he is IN the Kingdom of God and not just near it, for those who will be weeping and gnashing their teeth in the final judgment were once near it.

The Careful Builder

A clock measures a man's time, tick-by-tick, but it is I who measure a man's life - every beat of his heart is mine and it is where I lay my plumb line in the inner most place. I look at the straightness of his ways.

You are the temple of God and what is it that your life's work builds if it is not the temple of God? Therefore be careful how you build; build not with temporal and flammable things. Rather, build with those things that are eternal, that which is hewn from my quarries and mined from the deeps of the earth. Once I have measured it, I will test it with fire. And what is left will be to the praise of God. That which is done through God will stand and be seen; that which is accomplished in the strength of the flesh and the power of the soul shall perish. Build carefully then - meticulously - not to gain time or honour with men. Do not despise doing the small thing well, for in that day all things shall be built upon this foundation - the foundation of Christ.

The Hidden Question of My Heart - Part 3

So, the rock and the sand and the flood: the wise and the foolish builders. What a picture! Such drama. I was an enthralled seven-year old at Mass.

From then on I made a vow to myself and all my future selves: I wanted to build my house on the rock and nothing else. I didn't want to be stupid; I didn't want my life to come collapsing around me. I wanted to be right. That story has shaped all the searchings and seekings for the rest of my life right until this very day.

I simply had to find out how to build my house on the rock, but I hadn't listened to everything. In missing that small detail I had missed everything. I had just heard what I wanted to hear. I hadn't listened; I was too interested in the spectacle of the story to hear its true meaning. I wouldn't find it for another eight years.

The Crucible of the Heart

The Lord doesn't take the dross from the furnace of our heart continually, otherwise there would not be enough dross to take and some of the gold would be taken with it. Seeing as it is the gold that is preciouos in his sight and that the pruification of our faith is His goal, it would be counter-productive to do it continually. Yes, we are continually pruified, but even a rose, if it is to produce a pleasing bud, must be pruned in-season, not on whim. Rather, the Lord allows for the dross to accumulate and, from a willing and obedient heart, He takes it in one fell swoop: minimising the pain and maximising the benefit. Why submit a believer to continual disaster and trial? For most of us, the only thing that will reduce will be our faith - not our impurity. He knows our frame; he remembers that we are but dust. Thus there is a rhythm to His dealings, there are seasons and we cannot force his hand - nor should we. If this were the case then we would be trying to purify ourselves - not the Spirit of Holiness.

However, there is the trial of Job that looms like a mount out of the darkness. I do not say we shall all take that path but the closer you walk with Him then the closer that Mount gets. Abraham took it with Isaac and the Lord took it with His cross to Golgotha.

As He walked, so must we.

The Hidden Question of My Heart - Part 2

I can well imagine that enraptured seven year old boy, sitting in the front row at mass, all ears as the the Priest spun the story of the 'House Built on Sand'. It was so obvious, wasn't it? How stupid of that guy to build his house on sand! Even my soft seven year old brain could get it. He was so vain, so lazy. I could get the hard-working one, it took time to build his house on the rock; it was painstaking attention to detail, it was back-breaking work. It wasn't easy. As a good catholic boy, I could understand that.

In short, I wanted to be that man who built his house on the rock. I wanted to do things properly and right but I missed something even at that early age. I knew what I wanted but I didn't know how to get it. That little something was hidden right at the beginning of the parable before we got to the exciting bit about the flood knocking down the house built on sand. It was the still small voice that I had missed and wouldn't find again for another eight years. Missing it sent me off on a wild goose chase until I was 15 but even so now and again that wild goose keeps running past my door.

Now . . . what was that little I missed? Ummm . . .

Therefore whoever hears these sayings of Mine, and does them, I will liken him to a wise man who built his house on a rock. (Matt 7:24)