Snakes and Scorpions

"We are often very picky, very choosy as Christians. We want to accept only certain things from God. Faith, a nice spouse, a nice family, a place in which we like to live, what we consider to be a satisfying or worthwhile career, a certain lifestyle, etc. But we want to refuse, for example, family problems, living in a place we don't like, situations that seem or are dangerous and unpleasant to us, a not-so-dazzling career, illness, death, etc. In the Old Testament, the whole paschal lamb had to be consumed, not just the parts of the animal that everyone naturally likes, but the head and the feet also. We must accept everything that God gives and sends to us."

"As long as the time I have is my time, as long as it is my energy, my effort, my love, my passion, my ministry, my faith, my theology, my ideas, my knowledge, my inspiration, my talent, my resources, my money, my family, my success, it is hopeless, there will never be close to enough, I will always be dissatisfied and unhappy. But if these and all things are His His His, His time, His energy, His effort, etc., they are perfect, abundant, inexhaustible, satisfying."

"But they may not always seem so. In Luke 11:11ff. Jesus asks us a very tough question: which father, when his son asks for a loaf, will give him a stone, a snake for a fish, a scorpion for an egg?" The speaker pointed to the sky and said, "This Father. Let us be honest: are we not often offered stones by Him? When I was put in prison [by the communists] for my sonship and starved, was this not a stone? When I was brainwashed, was I not plagued with the lies of the snake? When I was tortured there, did I not daily feel the sting of the scorpion? Here is a secret that He taught me: to not even look at the thing offered, but at the hand that bears it. Whose hand is it? If it is not His, if I cannot actually see the scar from the nail by which I can recognize Him, then I must refuse whatever it bears, whether it be prosperity or trouble or success in ministry. But A STONE FROM HIS HAND WILL ALWAYS BECOME BREAD WHEN IT IS TAKEN. Let us pray for this in all of our lives."

[FV, 2005]

The Real Love

"So husbands ought also to love their own wives as their own bodies. He who loves his own wife loves himself, for no one ever hated his own flesh, but nourishes and cherishes it, just as Christ also does the church, because we are members of His body." (Eph. 5:28-30)

We cannot experience the real love in our marriages without experiencing this truth. When we regard the body of our spouse we need to have this profound but matter-of-fact realization: "Oh, of course, it's my body." And we need to have our eyes opened to the simple truth that this union includes everything. So that when we encounter one another's sin, "Oh, again here is my sin -- how guilty am I!" And when repentance is revealed in the other, "Oh, at last I can repent!" When holiness appears in the other, "There is holiness even for me!" And with her trials, with his tribulation, "This fight is for me also! Oh, that I should be considered worthy to share this suffering!" This is the real love. In this way our membership in Christ is made real. For, wonder of wonders, the real love is really a Person.

[LH, from a wedding sermon, 2006]

The White Parts of the Bible

Ordinary language is not enough for the true messenger of God. That is why David and Deborah used song, accompanying the words with music. That is why the first Christians used to dance, according to gnostic sources. That is why the church has always expressed its message in sculpture and painting and ceremonial.

Many assert their belief in the Bible as the Word of God. But if you examine them more closely, you will find out that they do not really believe it. The Bible consists of white sheets of paper (in the early days, of parchment), with black letters inscribed on them. Nearly all Christians believe the black letters to be God's Word. But the white pages do not have a place in their creed. Yet these are of enormous importance.

Luke says that at the age of twelve, Jesus was in the temple and all the teachers were astonished at His answers (2:46-47). You will seek for these answers in vain in the black letters of the Bible. They are on the white pages.

Mary chose "the good part." She sat at the feet of Jesus and heard His words (Luke 10:38-42). This may be interesting, but I would rather like to know what was the word to which she listened. This is reported in the Bible, but not in the black letters. You must learn to read the white pages. There you will also find the solution to the mystery of what Jesus did between the ages of twelve and thirty.

The Bible is a message from God, and speaks through its silences, not only through its words. Music is beautiful not only in its notes, but also in its pauses.

Try to understand the silences of God's messengers. The truer the messenger, the more mysterious his silences. He often speaks a great many words to cover the silence about the deepest things. You have to go beyond his words to find the truth which he means to convey. Discover the mystery beyond the words of the messenger, and you will know the message from God.

[RW, SISC, (c)1969]

Deliverance and Judgment

One of these days we received a Word from God through Isaiah 35:4. God had told the prophet Isaiah to tell the people who had a fearful heart to be strong and fear not. God had said that He would come and deliver them and with recompense, and that vengeance was His. These words were such a strength to us, and we applied them to our lives. We had such a longing to be delivered from the place we were in [the Communist prison camp], that we anticipated the joy of our release.... We were awaiting freedom and with a holy emotion we looked for the fulfillment of the promise we were given. It seemed as though almost all the Scriptures that came to us spoke of release and freedom. Anything different, we quickly skipped over thinking it was not for us.

One time a verse from Jeremiah filled our hearts with special joy. "Blessed is the man that trusteth in the Lord and whose hope the Lord is." (17:7-9) It was such strength for us and we thanked God for His Word. But, verse 9 had the power to judge us all. "The heart is deceitful above all things, and desperately wicked, who can know it?"

I found myself caught up in the miracles of God and waiting for my deliverance, instead of daily dealing with heart and all of its imperfections. I had no desire to search myself, and made no time for that. The greatest miracle of all would have been that I recognized all the ties that I still had with this world and ask God to cut them.

Somehow, I had switched from trusting in God's guidance, to trusting in my own heart's guidance. God will not allow me to have this way of cheating myself remain in me. It was through some difficult lessons that He taught me and showed me the deceitfulness of my own heart. The Word of God says that only He knows the heart of every man.... The Lord was soon to take me through such a fire that I was to be consumed had it not been for the grace and mercy of the Lord.

[JF (c)1989]