Introduction
The beginning of my exploration into writing came a few years ago, whilst I was overseas in Ghana, West Africa. Writing about what was happening in my situation, on a monthly basis, was considered to be a courtesy. The writing was to inform friends and family supporters of what was happening in the situation where I lived and to enable them to pray in a more informed way.
It was a good way to find out about writing as I have only really written in a personal journal since leaving school and reading through that when I have taken the time to look back makes me grimace at all the assumed things that were going on in my life. In other word’s the reader would need to have some kind of training in how to understand reading between the lines! As I have taken to writing more, I have understood that it is necessary to elucidate what I am writing and not assume that people know where I am coming from, or what I am thinking about as they are not able to read my mind!
Now the subject or subjects that I write about have begun to take shape in the last few years. These subjects I can sum up as mainly connections with nature and connections with God through nature. In the last few months since late July 2016, I have begun to write about in my own journal of connections with God through dreams, pictures, sensing and so forth. All very mystical to some. I say mystical as I don’t really know what else to call it. Mystical as it deals with spiritual matters which you don’t always hear about in the church these days. If you do hear about these matters they are usually considered to be off the wall, strange or weird as I’ve read elsewhere, places as Christian’s we shouldn’t go!
This document isn’t meant to be a teaching piece, it is more about sharing experiences and what I have seen and how these experiences although mystical or spiritual are still relevant to reality, even my reality and hopefully yours too. These experiences are not for their own sake but so that I may know Him better and when I say Him, I refer to the one with the name that was not allowed to be said in past times YHWH simply put The Existing One! When I say seen, I also include hearing, sensing, touching, tasting and smelling (not had that yet, but I have heard it has happened to some people).
Another reason for writing is to help you the reader to also experience these things for yourself by explaining some of the ways I go about seeing. At this point I want to say that I am not an expert in this. We are all learners in different fields and this is one big field. The Kingdom of God is not a competitive Kingdom but one of love. There is a love that is jealous but that should spur us on to love and good works not to do evil. We are building on what previous saints have accomplished however small or big that is. All are welcome into Christ Jesus. The heart of the Father is big and God is greater than our hearts.
I must say at this point I have had some influences from others who I have come across in the wider body of Christ which you could say are forerunners of what I am writing about. People who have tasted of the things to come. (See this page on the website). These things that are to come are the things of The Kingdom, the Kingdom of Jesus. When I looked that word up on one of my favourite word websites www.etymonline.com I discovered it wasn’t as I thought to do with the dominion of the King or the domain of the King but the word comes from doom and judgment. It is about righteous judgements. Jesus said seek first the kingdom of God and his righteousness… and Paul says the kingdom of God is not in eating and drinking but righteousness, peace and joy in the Holy Spirit.
Main
Some of the things I write about may connect for some of you. There are different ways people connect with God. (I don’t really like using the name God as I find it too broad and impersonal, so I may slip into some more specific names of God, which I think also help to ground this amazing being (who cannot be put in a box as we like to say ), who is in operation in and around our lives even though we may not know Him or see Him clearly, but we do get glimpses. I believe He is longing for us to push out the boat more in this area as He has a longing for us to engage with Him as we were meant too. This pushing out the boat can’t always be summed up in words, let alone feelings!
(I say at this point I am only, after all my 44 years of life on this earth touching the tip of the iceberg and boy it’s a big iceberg!)
I think it might be good to share some of my story (this fits in with my wider story) and try and relate it to this subject which I am exploring with you. My background is one where the Bible has played a significant part of my life. The Bible would be read at home pretty much daily out loud by parents and personally by members of the family. I heard a lot of the general words of God right from the start. Certain verses from the Bible have a real resting place in my heart. (Now I am not an expert on which is which, whether it’s heart, soul, spirit, mind and so forth but I’m learning and the Bible does make a distinction between each). I know for myself when words from Holy Spirit have touched me and they become specific words for me and I don’t often have hang-ups about whether they were in context or out of context. It does help to know a context but we need to let more than just words guide us, even the apostles used words that were out of context from the old testament. We in the West may have been told that we are too cerebral or analytical. When you’re a child you do take things on face value and often words from scripture do come back to direct, encourage, exhort and reprove me!
In addition to the Word of God, there were people in my life that God has used to speak to me. The awareness of The Spirit speaking through nature has come more recently for me although I have had a rich relationship with nature through the activities that I have enjoyed within it.
The awareness or understanding that I’m listening to the voice of the Holy Spirit has come more gradually. I need to be in a place where I am ready to listen and I think that is key. An expectancy and desire is necessary for hearing The Voice. This voice doesn’t always come to us when we expect so there needs to be a readiness to hear as well. In some writing’s recently I read that we all hear voices, it is more to do with discerning which voices are the right ones and tune into them. It is up to me whether I want to tune in.
I write what I see both naturally and spiritually….
Returning to the beginning of where I started to write about the Bible. The Bible like I say has spoken to me, or I should say Holy Spirit has spoken to me through it. I have taken to saying Holy Spirit more recently as The Holy Spirit is impersonal to me. I do like the Hebrew version which sounds more like a name to me, Ruach Ha-Kodesh. The Spirit of God is the inspiration behind the words that bring them to life for us. The Spirit of Truth was there inspiring the writers to write the words – he is still in the process of bringing them to life for us.
Memorable Examples of hearing God through scripture.
It is dangerous to be concerned with what others think of you but if you trust the Lord you are safe.
Proverbs 29.25 Good News Bible
Sometimes the inspiration of the words would come through my own personal reading and the words would jump off the page to me. This has happened both in my own quiet times with God and when I have been listening to a speaker. As I write this I am reminded of one special verse from a Christian camp that I went to and heard one of the speakers who was very familiar to me. He was speaking from the life of Gideon and as he shared about the words from Judges 6 v 14 ‘The Lord turned to Him and said, “Go in the strength you have and save Israel…”’ I don’t remember the circumstances surrounding the words or what was happening in my life but it really meant a lot to me. The Lord was promising to be with me and he had given me the strength to face whatever it was I was meant to face. It’s not magic but his own provision which I understand better now.
Another one that comes to mind is when I went to a strange church when I was away from home and home comforts. I was with my parents visiting a church on the opposite side of the country to where I was living at the time. It was a woman speaker and that in it-self was unusual within the church circles we moved in at the time! She didn’t know of the situation in which I was about to go into. She spoke on Isaiah 42 and the bit she shared was about him holding the hand of Isaiah. I think she even used the words in relation to a similar circumstance I was to face. It was pertinent as that week I was going into have a major operation on my lungs and I was feeling wobbly to say the least about this. Her words brought great comfort. “I the Lord have called you in righteousness and will hold your hand;” He was promising to hold my hand something that is very much what is required in hospital situations!
When I went to Africa for the first time one of the key verses was the one from Ps 139: 9,10‘If I ascend into heaven, you are there. If I take the wings of the morning, and dwell in the uttermost parts of the sea, even there your hand shall hold me’. This was one of the biggest things I had done in my life up to this point. It was literally life changing going to live in Ghana. To have this assurance that Jesus would be there with me was what carried me.
One of my favourite times in hindsight was of a time relating to my West African experience. I had taken a trip to Togo which was a real stretch for me to do on my own from start to finish. I went to visit a friend who was working for Wycliffe Bible Translators at the time, who was also on holiday. The trip had come to an end and I wasn’t looking forward to the trip home, in fact I was very anxious. Routes by road which in miles are not actually that long relatively, can take long in time! This one I still have the details of in a journal from that time which is made up of 7 parts. Find a taxi, wait for it to fill up, travel on, off load get another taxi, then a border crossing with some confusion due to language difficulties, English-English versus Togolese-French! Then onto a bus where I had to wait for it to fill up, which took three hours and finally a last-minute taxi. What was about 100 miles, took me from 6am to 7:30pm! Do the maths!
You can see why I was anxious I didn’t know that this was the way forward exactly, I only knew I had a journey ahead of me. Yet when I woke up I realized I needed to ‘Trust in the Lord’ and I needed to make a decision about not being afraid or troubled. The words from John 14:1,27 in two separate verses were key for me in understanding that it was a decision for me. I could make a choice either be fearful and anxious or not let my heart be troubled. I went for the latter. In the end because of this decision it was what held me on my journey and I actually enjoyed the trip even though it was at times potentially stressful.
The whole passage in John 14 came to life for me at that moment but the two verses were key. Verse 27 sums it up the best. “Peace I leave with you, My peace I give to you, not as the world gives do I give to you. Let not your heart be troubled, neither let it be afraid.” From that time on the word had really taken a hold of me and it has been grounded if you like, in my very being. I have often returned to it like all the other verses. These verses are stored up for me in the storehouse of treasure which is another thing I am being made aware of in the time that I write this document.