17/11/2021
Beach .. Like
We are all grains of sand in this image. No matter where we start in the upper chamber, no matter the route we follow, or the other grains we bump into, we must ultimately pass through the neck constriction in order to enter the lower chamber. Once there, there are many routes to follow to our ultimate destination.
This illustration can only take us so far, the analogy breaks down all over the place. It is not a perfect representation, indeed we do not have to meet Christ in a single file, and there is no hierarchy.
The neck is also known as a singularity, a point in space and time that famously stands at the center of a Black Hole. This image is apt for this situation. Christ is the Singularity that all in the world must pass through in order to enter the Kingdom of Heaven.
Beginning fully in the world we slowly accept that there is a God, that He did send His Son to Earth to live amongst us, teach, suffer and die for our sins. We slowly come to the realisation that all our loud protestations are a smoke screen designed to cover our weakness and to stop us thinking about the Truth.
The Truth!
The Truth we can all live by is that there IS a God. It follows that I have lived a life in denial of this God and in doing so I have hurt Him badly. Just as I feel the hurt of rejection by my fellow man, the pain when someone I love leaves me, so it is for God.
1913: A scene on the beach at Whitby in North Yorkshire. (Photo by Hulton Archive/Getty Images)
Remember your youth, all your peers were pairing up into couples? Remember the relationship that did not work out, how he or she decided to break up with you and how you felt at the loss? This is the pain God experiences when each of the children He loves turns their back on Him. Knowing how much pain we have caused is often an insurmountable barrier between man and God. “How could He ever forgive me?” “How could He ever accept me because of what I have done?”
We must come to the realisation that God is Love, and Love forgives and forgets all who have wronged Him. But that forgiveness comes at a price. That price is that we sacrifice ourselves to Him in our entirety. Sacrifice is a strong word to use at this point. Perhaps we can find a less problematic word?
Once we were pure, free from the ‘sins’ of the world. Over time we became distracted from our purpose by our learning about the world, by friends, by new exciting entertainments. With each new thing our minds became less and less interested in spiritual matters as we revelled in the pleasures of the flesh. Food, comfort, pleasure, distraction, entertainment, each a separate garment with which we clothed our minds to insulate us from the cold hard realities. With each new experience we added another layer until we found ourselves comfortable in our society living the life, keeping up with the Jones’s, looking for recognition, power, love and receiving it in adequate measure.
Eventually we find that more stuff, more power, more adulation is not enough. We need more and more. At some point we become dissatisfied with the lust for stuff and eventually that dissatisfaction turns to seeking some alternate path. We start looking for meaning, for purpose. In my case I recognised that living the dream life (Driving Trucks long distance across America) with a wife, home, car, children etc. was not enough. Looking inside I found a void, a hole. I remembered that my wife filled a similar hole in my being, now I wondered what could fill this other void and make me complete.
Over time the answer revealed itself. As I admitted my need and fervently sought an answer, an answer indeed appeared. The God I had been rejecting for 36 years was exactly the right shape to fill my need. But how to meet the guy?
I have been on the wrong end of many theories on how to join with the Godhead. I concluded that most people did not know how they met Him, if they in fact HAD met Him. I had tried and failed many times to follow this formula or that. Each time coming away convinced that I had been conned once again.
So I had to find a way of my own. The standard formula seemed nonsensical. Cry out to God and admit Jesus Christ as your saviour. This was vague in the extreme. Exactly how does one do that?
Believe in the Lord Jesus Christ and believing, you will have eternal life
Believe. Such a simple formula. Believe!
John 3:16ff
But I did accept that there was a God, I did accept all the biblical stuff about Jesus. I did read the Bible. Something was lacking.
A friend of mine, Dennis Moss, coined the phrase “Breakover Point” to describe the place where, having built up sufficient energy, the dam breaks and the barriers come crashing down. Dennis used this term to describe that time in a prayer session when the Holy Spirit fills the room and every one in it, when made up prayers cease to be important and in silence the group simply ‘is’.
“Be still and KNOW that I am God”
Psalm 46:10
This fits the situation exactly. God is in us and connects us together. So words are not necessary.
“The Spirit helps us in our weakness. We do not know what we ought to pray for, but the Spirit himself intercedes for us with groans that words cannot express.”
Romans 8:26
But I am getting ahead of myself.
There is a threshold. A bar. A hill to climb. Evidence is needed to meet the conditions necessary to broach the threshold. Once enough information is amassed and it has been understood and rationalised, then we reach the peak of the mountain, and are able to pass the barrier down the other side. This passing over the peak, topping the threshold, bursting the dam is the breakover point.
For me this was one final realisation. Self sufficiency is a curse. “I don’t need anyone, I can go it alone.” Once you realise that you cannot go it alone, that you need something or someone else in your life, you are open to Love.
Love in its basic definition is “Where another person’s welfare is more important to you than your own.”
God
This is the beginning of sacrifice. When you marry you give away your toys to your spouse, things are no longer yours alone, but shared between you. Children take more love and a greater share of your worldly wealth. You sacrifice your own needs for the benefit of your family. In the process there is a return, the more you give the better the response – the deeper the mutual love.
If the hole in my spirit was part filled by a wife, could it be that love with God would fill the other?
“May the God of hope fill you with all joy and peace as you trust in him, so that you may overflow with hope by the power of the Holy Spirit”
Romans 15:13
But how to love something you cannot see?
In marriage we feel greater love for someone we can trust. We feel deeper trust when we let ourselves become vulnerable to our partner and we receive comfort and love in return. With greater trust comes greater love giving the opportunity to reveal more of our true selves to our spouses, until almost all the barriers have come down. I say ‘almost all’ because we never truly reveal our hurts and fears in their entirety to our spouse, there is always the fear of rejection, the knowledge that many marriages fail, so there is always (In my experience) a little bit held close to the chest. We maintain a semblance of self sufficiency even within the full partnership of marriage.
Taking that example, we can expand the concept to meeting God.
How did you court your spouse? Tentative meetings and the swapping of information; Learning about the other and fitting their personality to yours; giving little secrets about yourself and observing how the other treated the information; learning little secrets from the other and gaining trust as the self revelation deepened; learning to trust the other through trial and confirmation; allowing the self control to slip slightly as emotional attachment forms. These are mental activities. We cannot discount attraction, sexual attraction, pheromones, flirting and plain lust in the human context. These are extremely important to us.
But with God there is no physical interaction, it is purely mental and spiritual. Thus we follow the same model given to us as a picture of God and by the same process we grow in trust and love for God. But the final hurdle is always personal vulnerability. “I am Not alright, I NEED you Jesus” is not an easy admission to make. But at some point we have to amass the courage to admit our need.
THIS is the breakover point. As I admitted my lack of ability to go it alone, my need for help, my need for love. The barriers came tumbling down and I was flooded with an overwhelming sense of Love and Forgiveness and Acceptance and a myriad of other similar emotions.
With that wave of emotions and Spiritual Power I felt the weight of years lifted from my shoulders. I felt free, I felt accepted, and I felt part of something greater than myself.
I was now a Christian, one of God’s elect. Now what?
Admit that God is; Place Faith & Grow in Christ; Seek a closer walk with Christ ; Unity with the Godhead
After conversion there are a myriad of routes to growth. Some folk move faster than others. Some reach a stable equilibrium where they can live a comfortable and devoted Christian life. Others do not find that equilibrium so early. There is no competition to see who is the most Holy. We are one body in Christ. We cannot all be eyes, or hands or feet. Some must take up the roles of supporting and feeding and nourishing the body. Over time we each find a place to settle down and just ‘Be’. “Be still and Know that I am God.”
“Just as each of us has one body with many members, and these members do not all have the same function,”
Romans 12:4
I was not comfortable settling down, I needed to know more. Here is an outline of my story of growing in maturity in Christ.
I continued in Bible study and attended church regularly, asking probing questions of my teachers, trying to understand more of the faith I had so recently entered into. I found the sermons pedestrian, the pace so slow as to almost infantile and so I resolved to seek the answers on my own.
As I learned I constantly checked back with my main teacher and advisor Jim Snell, asking him those probing questions and benefiting greatly from his wisdom as he showed me the errors in my thinking, redirecting me on the path to truth.
My personal Bible study increased apace, cross referencing Old and New Testaments, Prophesy to Revelation in Jesus Christ. I read the Epistles and looking between the lines I found what Paul and the others wanted to say but were often restricted from doing so by the level of growth of their audience.
Learning and checking, testing my personal revelation against established biblical teaching, teasing out greater and greater truths from the text.
Soon I formed a picture of God and the Holy Spirit. A unified being with triple aspect, able to speak to us in whatever form we are able to handle, as Paul was all things to all men, so is God. He comes to us where we live. He does not require any special liturgy or ritual. There is no one single formula to reach Him.
“When I was in trouble, I cried out to the LORD, and he answered me.”
Psalm 120:1
So I tried it!
“but if by the Spirit you put to death the misdeeds of the body, you will live, because those who are led by the Spirit of God are sons of God. For you did not receive a spirit that makes you a slave again to fear, but you received the Spirit of sonship.
And by him we cry, “Abba, Father.” The Spirit himself testifies with our spirit that we are God’s children. Now if we are children, then we are heirs—heirs of God and co-heirs with Christ,”
Romans 8:13b-17a
By the Spirit indwelling our bodies we become sons of God in direct relationship. The distant God becomes our father in familial relationship. No longer Father but now intimately ‘Daddy!’
I did not say a prayer to a distant almighty God of the universe; I spoke gently and quietly to my Abba, Father, personal God and friend. I did not speak lofty prayers of supplication, but talked about my everyday life, and my biblical researches. I spent my time in my work day (as a truck driver) chatting away with my new invisible friend. Over time I began to feel a tangible presence in the cab with me, an overarching feeling of love, confidence in me and comfort and most of all an understanding and encouragement to go on talking. Then after I had spoken, as if this was a real conversation I listened for a response. It didn’t happen immediately, I often felt a bit of a Wally waiting for something to happen, but in the space of perhaps three months I began to feel a response.
Initially God’s response was an encouraging kind of nod or shake of the head. It was intangible but definitely there. As time passed and my confidence grew in the process, I started to hear the odd word directing me, suggesting, encouraging, guiding.
“And after the earthquake a fire; the LORD was not in the fire: and after the fire a still small voice”
1 Kings 19:12 KJV
God spoke in silence, though there was no sound. The new thought boomed into my consciousness with awesome power in a place in my brain that had never before initiated thoughts. I was in no doubt that I was experiencing a connection with a supernatural being. But was it God?
“Dear friends, do not believe every spirit, but test the spirits to see whether they are from God, because many false prophets have gone out into the world”
1 John 4:1
This powerful thought could have been a false god (perhaps the devil) trying to confuse me. So I checked up on everything He said to me, and with each utterance and confirmation that the information was in line with Biblical truth, my confidence grew apace and I began to trust this silent but booming voice in my head to be an emanation from my Abba.
And so over time the conversation began to move toward the complexities of the Kingdom. I would question my father about some aspect of the biblical plan and incorporate the responses into my philosophy, taking the results back to Him for checking. Periodically I would talk with Jim and check my conclusions against his wisdom and knowledge and modify my ideas when he showed up inconsistencies. Never did Jim tell me I was flat out wrong, never did I encounter a blind alley, the conversations with my advisors allowed me to advance deeper into understanding the spiritual realm.
Then one day it happened. Out of the blue, totally unexpected as my mind was drifting in odd directions I suddenly had the sensation you get when you have looked into a bright light. My eyes could not see for a glowing after image of light. Of course I pulled to the side of the road and considered my predicament.
As I was beginning to worry that I might be blind forever, the familiar voice boomed silently in my head.
“You will go into the ministry!”
“What? Not me…” I voiced endless objections to this idea.
“You will be in ministry within five years!”
Well what could I say? This was the verified Voice of God speaking to me. When God commands, you obey.
As soon as I voiced agreement, the after-image of light instantly disappeared and I could see clearly.
Ministry, to me, meant professional ministry in a Church or Para-church organisation, perhaps even missionary work. And so I started looking for bible colleges. My wife and I chose Ozark Christian College in Joplin, Missouri, because it was an excellent school with a high standard of teaching and also because most of her family lived in that City.
It was only a short time from May, when I received the call, to June, when my wife moved to Joplin and found an apartment and job there, then to September, when I quit the trucking job and moved from the Bartlesville House to Joplin to enrol at the college.
And so I began my formal training for Ministry.
What can we draw from this story?
This is a simple description of one man’s journey from conversion to the call. As said earlier it is not the only route, merely one of many. Remember, whatever works, works! I have known highly spiritual men and women who have never heard from God directly. It is not necessary for spirituality. I do not claim elitism because I made a rare connection with the Godhead. Anyone can aspire to what I found. It simply takes time, concentration, faith, and an open mind.
I have known highly spiritual people who have spent a lifetime seeking just such a connection and get a small glimmer after many years of concentrated attempts. I know other Christians who achieved connection a lot quicker than I.
So my 12 month connection time is somewhere in the middle of the range. What this says is that anyone can aspire to this, and many will reach it. No special ritual or club membership required.
One thing I have not yet mentioned. As my connection with the father grew so did my experience of the Spirit within.
Work day conversations with God are one thing, but a spiritual session of abject worship and awe is another. By following the biblical mandate “Be still and KNOW that I am God” I calmed my mind through meditation on the Word (The entirety of my understanding of the kingdom boiled down to first principles) and through repetition and meditation I managed to set aside my conscious thoughts, still my mind and allow the Holy Spirit to come in and infuse my Spirit with His Awesome Power.
During meditation I used a symbolic token image of a glowing cross in my mind’s eye, I would soon be able to switch into that state at will and maintain the spiritual ecstasy for minutes at a time. Before long I would spend the entire worship service in church in blissful silence and worship, my mind and spirit suffused with the Glory of God. There are really no words to describe this thing properly. You just have to experience it for yourself! I highly recommend it.
