As the sun overcame the dawn resistance of the mountainous horizon, I was ushered by an unseen but gently firm hand towards a temple. The building looked almost imposing but I was unable to compare it with any others as no others were in sight - they were there, to be sure, but not in sight – as if comparing were not permitted.
I climbed the broad shallow steps towards the doors and caught sight of the windows high up and on either side of the impressive entrance way. They were beautifully coloured and spotlessly clean. On closer inspection I saw that some were cracked and one even had a hole in it. The doors were strong and well-maintained. The varnished sheen reflected the early morning rays and the handles shone as if recently polished. I pushed on the handles and, at first, nothing happened; then suddenly, there was a crack as under-used hinges were released from the grip of corrosion. This temple, while beautiful on the outside, albeit with the odd bit of damage, evidently saw very little traffic inside.
As the open doors let in the early morning light, I saw that there were lamps already lit, although many, particularly further in, had not been asked to perform their duty for some time, if ever. The lamps were of gold and their transparent panels were spotless and seemed to aid the light in its quest to illuminate all around it. Where the lamps remained unlit, there were snuffed out candles on the floor beneath - the sort one could buy at any store outside - as if the one visiting here had preferred to use their own purchased candles because they did not have the energy or will to light the much more effective, already existing, purpose-built lamps.
Although the dawn light was weak and the lamps did their best, darkness was in no way in control. There was light but its source was unseen. In fact, source is the wrong word as it would seem to indicate that the light was coming from somewhere. In this case, that was not so - it was just there.
The interior was beautifully clean. Not a smear of dirt anywhere. There was no accumulated grime, no piles of abandoned clutter. The rich wall-hangings breathed-out the sumptuousness of a royal palace, a home of kings. The banners that hung suspended from rich wooden beams declared hope and victory, strength and resolve. This temple exuded life in every one of its positive and fruitful dimensions. This place was of the present and the future. The past seemed to have no place here.
In fact, it would seem that this temple had no history at all except that it was under-used. This lack of expressed living was evidenced by, here and there, small piles of dust which were mysteriously not dirty in any way. The little piles indicated that an attempt at collecting the dust had been undertaken but the visitor had failed to sweep them up. In fact, these little lines and piles of shepherded dust were quite irritating. The dust was just inside the door about halfway to the centre of the room. There was no evidence of anyone going any further. It seemed such a waste as the further reaches of the interior beckoned with an offer of an other-wordly adventure. The dust would not cause the destruction of the temple. It was not even able to diminish the quality, presence or purpose of the place, but was in some way evidence of an unwillingness to go further.
The farthest corners of the interior were not dark, despite the lack of lamplight, just seemingly unexplored. It was not a darkness that hung there - just an air of not knowing. They had the look of areas that no one had ever visited. No adventure had ever been undertaken there. There was no sense of foreboding, no evidence of threat - only an inaudible voice calling for the visitor to go in further.
The room was empty to the natural eye and silent to the created ear, and yet somehow full and abounding in activity. The air was sweet, pleasantly so, excluding the possibility of anything profane, anything threatening. No death or decay could exist here. The atmosphere was pure but somehow faintly echoed a time when it was not so. There was no tangible evidence for the change, just an inner knowing that something extraordinary had taken place here.
The interior was full of knowing, not mere knowledge, but a knowing that comes only by experience. I could not think negatively in that place. Even the dangers and conflicts I would face outside could not change the atmosphere of peace in there.
Then I saw it - I had all but missed it. As I turned to go, a table set for four appeared in the corner of my eye. Three of the chairs were large, golden and encrusted with all manner of jewels. The fourth was a little smaller and it was made of silver with eight perfectly crafted jewels worked into the frame. The table was of glass, but not the fault-filled product of this world, but a glass that was as clear as crystal.
On the table were only one plate and one goblet from which to partake. The table and chairs, I am almost convinced, were urging me to come, sit and partake. I felt as if I had the right. I was convinced that I should. I even knew within myself that should I take that fourth seat, the Three Hosts would appear. But I did not.
The world outside raised its voice and demanded my attention. It was as if unseen hands on unimaginably long arms reached over the threshold to pull me away. I surrendered weakly and went.
As I went down the steps on the outside, it was as if the entire building sighed. I was sure I could hear voices within, not angry, not sad; in fact, I am not sure what emotion was being expressed - I just felt so loved, so wanted, so desired - yet, for today at least, so out of reach.
In order to really understand the allegory above it would be helpful to read the following Scriptures and the definitions of the following symbolic numbers and elements.
I Corinthians 3:16; II Corinthians 10:12 Revelation 3:20; John 14:23.
Gold = Holiness, purity.
Silver = Redemption, redeemed.
The number 8 = Resurrection, new beginnings.
Tuesday, March 2, 2010
Wednesday, February 10, 2010
THE PORCH AND THE WORKSHOP
Like the sun at the centre of our solar system, so Christ at the centre of our lives allows us to make sense of the many things that impinge upon our existence. Of course, we cannot fully work out all that God allows. To be able to do that would mean that mere man could understand and explain God. What kind of God would that make Him?
Jesus Christ is not a guru. He is not some nameless ethereal entity, but the Lord of all who can be known and be known intimately. Furthermore, He wants me to know that He knows me, intimately. As such He wants to speak with me, converse like old friends. In fact, He wants to sit upon the porch of our lives and for us to watch the sun go down together. At such times, words are not necessary, only presence.
My wife and I spent the last six weeks in England. While old friends made us welcome, the snow did all it could to freeze out our plans. In some instances it succeeded, forcing a change, or at least a postponement, of intentions. Inevitably, such proved frustrating as control was wrested from our grasp by an imprisoning period of weather. So much of those periods of postponement were wasted. With the benefit of perfect retrospective vision I can now see opportunities for porch time. Instead? Being human (lousy excuse, I know), I did human things like trying to catch up on some of the work I took with me. Conclusion: practically beneficial, but very little porch time. Do you think I might have missed the obvious?
When the white blanket was drawn back, we carried on with our plans without so much as a “by your leave”. It is a good thing that Jesus is omnipresent. The amount of times I would have left Him behind if He was not is a frightening fact of my life.
I find Him amazing. He never gets offended or gives me the silent treatment as is the wont of so many. No, quite the opposite. In fact, as a Sunday sailed serenely into view with the realization of ministry on that day, He was ready to assist me in my patchy, at best, preparations. I have always felt so inadequate as regards preparation. Please do not get me wrong, I can do the technical stuff. You know: dictionaries, concordances, commentaries, books, anecdotes. It is that prayer preparation that gets me every time.
Those who raised me in the Kingdom and others I have observed would, seemingly, pray for hours before preaching and teaching in any context. Me? Oh, once I have hunted down and captured my thoughts I will pray until the next mass break out of my mental inmates. My mind, for whatever reason, is not the greatest high security facility. Things seem to get lost inside and much of what remains finds holes in the fence to make good their escape. End of prayer time. Hunt, capture, recommence.
You know, the amazing thing is that He comes through on the Sunday morning every time; each Bible School lecture, Fellowship Bible study, Sunday service, conferences small or otherwise, He shows up and makes me look really good, quite together, not a little eloquent and, on occasion, reasonably funny. He loves me and those He has called to hear what He has to say through me. A miracle.
Jesus is real to me when I am real with myself. I really want to do my best. Honestly, I want to be able to teach and preach so well that no one, no matter how hard they try, could possibly miss the point. You see, that desire sums up my humanity. Wanting what I cannot have and not surrendering to the fact that without Jesus at the centre, I cannot even begin to make a dent in such a desire.
So, how do I make sense of it all? It is a good thing that Jesus was a carpenter, so I can think of life in terms of His workshop: hammers, chisels, saws, planes. Without His hands upon them, they are merely inanimate tools. Good quality tools, no doubt, manufactured in the finest factories with the best components, but, for all that, still inanimate. However, when His hands take hold, His creativity flows in and through them.
What begins as an idea in His mind, flows through His skilful hands and makes the tool do what it could never do. The tool does not prepare, but it is available.
My lesson? Stay available, keep close to the porch as there will be time to talk and wait for His hands.
Jesus Christ is not a guru. He is not some nameless ethereal entity, but the Lord of all who can be known and be known intimately. Furthermore, He wants me to know that He knows me, intimately. As such He wants to speak with me, converse like old friends. In fact, He wants to sit upon the porch of our lives and for us to watch the sun go down together. At such times, words are not necessary, only presence.
My wife and I spent the last six weeks in England. While old friends made us welcome, the snow did all it could to freeze out our plans. In some instances it succeeded, forcing a change, or at least a postponement, of intentions. Inevitably, such proved frustrating as control was wrested from our grasp by an imprisoning period of weather. So much of those periods of postponement were wasted. With the benefit of perfect retrospective vision I can now see opportunities for porch time. Instead? Being human (lousy excuse, I know), I did human things like trying to catch up on some of the work I took with me. Conclusion: practically beneficial, but very little porch time. Do you think I might have missed the obvious?
When the white blanket was drawn back, we carried on with our plans without so much as a “by your leave”. It is a good thing that Jesus is omnipresent. The amount of times I would have left Him behind if He was not is a frightening fact of my life.
I find Him amazing. He never gets offended or gives me the silent treatment as is the wont of so many. No, quite the opposite. In fact, as a Sunday sailed serenely into view with the realization of ministry on that day, He was ready to assist me in my patchy, at best, preparations. I have always felt so inadequate as regards preparation. Please do not get me wrong, I can do the technical stuff. You know: dictionaries, concordances, commentaries, books, anecdotes. It is that prayer preparation that gets me every time.
Those who raised me in the Kingdom and others I have observed would, seemingly, pray for hours before preaching and teaching in any context. Me? Oh, once I have hunted down and captured my thoughts I will pray until the next mass break out of my mental inmates. My mind, for whatever reason, is not the greatest high security facility. Things seem to get lost inside and much of what remains finds holes in the fence to make good their escape. End of prayer time. Hunt, capture, recommence.
You know, the amazing thing is that He comes through on the Sunday morning every time; each Bible School lecture, Fellowship Bible study, Sunday service, conferences small or otherwise, He shows up and makes me look really good, quite together, not a little eloquent and, on occasion, reasonably funny. He loves me and those He has called to hear what He has to say through me. A miracle.
Jesus is real to me when I am real with myself. I really want to do my best. Honestly, I want to be able to teach and preach so well that no one, no matter how hard they try, could possibly miss the point. You see, that desire sums up my humanity. Wanting what I cannot have and not surrendering to the fact that without Jesus at the centre, I cannot even begin to make a dent in such a desire.
So, how do I make sense of it all? It is a good thing that Jesus was a carpenter, so I can think of life in terms of His workshop: hammers, chisels, saws, planes. Without His hands upon them, they are merely inanimate tools. Good quality tools, no doubt, manufactured in the finest factories with the best components, but, for all that, still inanimate. However, when His hands take hold, His creativity flows in and through them.
What begins as an idea in His mind, flows through His skilful hands and makes the tool do what it could never do. The tool does not prepare, but it is available.
My lesson? Stay available, keep close to the porch as there will be time to talk and wait for His hands.
Tuesday, January 5, 2010
Christ at the storm's centre
It is all well and good speaking about keeping Christ at the centre of our lives. What we have shared together in the last few blogs makes good teaching, even if I say so myself. However, how does it all work out in practice? After all, teaching is only worthwhile if it is practical and applicable to our daily lives with its challenges, victories and disappointments.
Towards the end of December 2006, I was hit by two completely unexpected events: the death of my mother-in-law and the discovery, at the age of forty-seven, that I was adopted as a baby and had lived in ignorance of the fact until that fateful moment of discovery.
As my late mother-in-law was a Christ-centred believer, the fact of her passing, or, preferably, her promotion, coupled with the great hope of the resurrection and the knowledge that once one has left the body one is present with the Lord, softened the impact of our loss.
The news of my adoption, on the other hand, was not a blow lightened by anything at all. To find out that one has lived the best part of half a century in a lie is not an experience I would wish upon anyone. It is not overstating the issue to say that everything that I had relied upon as fact disappeared like a morning mist being vapourised by the rising sun. Everything, that is, except the Saviour at the centre of my life – the Lord Jesus Christ.
Had He not been there (by invitation) there would have been very little to hold on to that could have been relied upon. Do not get me wrong, my marriage is very secure and successful. My wife has been my helpmeet, and, at times, someone I could lean upon and at others one who could lead the temporary blind and often deaf.
Every story I had been told by the person I believed to be my father, every tale delivered by my newly revealed adoptive mother were thrown into immediate and extreme doubt. Heritage, inheritance, genes and all that one associates with biological family were now an area of confusion and doubt.
What was I to do? What was I meant to think? Was there a particular way one was expected to respond to such unsettling news? Questions. Possible answers were dashing across my cloud-covered consciousness so fast that I could not apprehend them. They teased me from behind clouds of doubt and confusion, playing a ghoulish game of hide and seek.
In the midst of it all, from the moment of finding out and the hours and days that followed, there was one constant, one isle of stability, one rock of salvation. In amongst the shouting voices, the onrush of guilt and the collapse of supposed truth, there stood a Hiding Place and His Name was Jesus.
In the confused tangle of this emotional tumult, He stood. His face was that of compassion, His heart vulnerable to my hurt. I did not need to assume a particular posture or recite a preset mantra or regurgitate some positive confession nor, unbelievably, did I have to rebuke any demons or other nasties. All I had to do to secure Divine help, fellowship and comfort was to be honest, vulnerable and willing for Him to take the load, take my hand and take the lead.
Finding out such a vital truth about one’s origins so late in life (relatively speaking) is a big thing. Emotions can be strong; feelings of betrayal can be demanding taskmasters. Every element within wants to rise in rebellion, wants to stir the waters of life into a raging tempest; the tyranny of bitterness seeks to secure the throne. All seems lost until He stands and says, “Peace, be still”.
For Him to speak to the storm, He needs to be in our boat. He can and will only come aboard by personal invitation. When my life erupted into a storm of doubt, uncertainty and betrayal, He that was invited aboard took control when I stepped aside.
Towards the end of December 2006, I was hit by two completely unexpected events: the death of my mother-in-law and the discovery, at the age of forty-seven, that I was adopted as a baby and had lived in ignorance of the fact until that fateful moment of discovery.
As my late mother-in-law was a Christ-centred believer, the fact of her passing, or, preferably, her promotion, coupled with the great hope of the resurrection and the knowledge that once one has left the body one is present with the Lord, softened the impact of our loss.
The news of my adoption, on the other hand, was not a blow lightened by anything at all. To find out that one has lived the best part of half a century in a lie is not an experience I would wish upon anyone. It is not overstating the issue to say that everything that I had relied upon as fact disappeared like a morning mist being vapourised by the rising sun. Everything, that is, except the Saviour at the centre of my life – the Lord Jesus Christ.
Had He not been there (by invitation) there would have been very little to hold on to that could have been relied upon. Do not get me wrong, my marriage is very secure and successful. My wife has been my helpmeet, and, at times, someone I could lean upon and at others one who could lead the temporary blind and often deaf.
Every story I had been told by the person I believed to be my father, every tale delivered by my newly revealed adoptive mother were thrown into immediate and extreme doubt. Heritage, inheritance, genes and all that one associates with biological family were now an area of confusion and doubt.
What was I to do? What was I meant to think? Was there a particular way one was expected to respond to such unsettling news? Questions. Possible answers were dashing across my cloud-covered consciousness so fast that I could not apprehend them. They teased me from behind clouds of doubt and confusion, playing a ghoulish game of hide and seek.
In the midst of it all, from the moment of finding out and the hours and days that followed, there was one constant, one isle of stability, one rock of salvation. In amongst the shouting voices, the onrush of guilt and the collapse of supposed truth, there stood a Hiding Place and His Name was Jesus.
In the confused tangle of this emotional tumult, He stood. His face was that of compassion, His heart vulnerable to my hurt. I did not need to assume a particular posture or recite a preset mantra or regurgitate some positive confession nor, unbelievably, did I have to rebuke any demons or other nasties. All I had to do to secure Divine help, fellowship and comfort was to be honest, vulnerable and willing for Him to take the load, take my hand and take the lead.
Finding out such a vital truth about one’s origins so late in life (relatively speaking) is a big thing. Emotions can be strong; feelings of betrayal can be demanding taskmasters. Every element within wants to rise in rebellion, wants to stir the waters of life into a raging tempest; the tyranny of bitterness seeks to secure the throne. All seems lost until He stands and says, “Peace, be still”.
For Him to speak to the storm, He needs to be in our boat. He can and will only come aboard by personal invitation. When my life erupted into a storm of doubt, uncertainty and betrayal, He that was invited aboard took control when I stepped aside.
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