Some thoughts along the way

Relationship
God created us in order that He might have a relationship with us.   Clearly from the prayer of Jesus this  was intended to be of ultimate closeness.[xiii]  

The relationship that God intended was one in which Man shared with the creator in the management of the earth.   It had to be a close relationship to get/hear the orders!    It failed because man chose to listen to other voices, he chose not to spend time with God to develop the relationship of love.    To know God well enough to know His will takes time........but time spent with a lover is not a waste of time.    In that time we are moulded to become what He wants and our requests are what He wants us to ask for.   So even now the petitions of man are heard and influence the world.    But it is love that He wants to share with all of mankind, it is love that will heal and restore the nations, it was love that gave Jesus for our salvation.    This is the prayer of LOVE for the SALVATION of the world and we can echo this constantly with MAY THY KINGDOM COME, THY WILL BE DONE.

We have prayed those words, for generations since Christ, but have we meant them?    We cannot just say that to some great potentate on high who is remote and distant.    We have to draw nearer.   It is through praise and thanksgiving through hallowing the Name of God..............I speak to those who already know but have yet to put it into practice, those who would call themselves Christians but have not taken on board all the implications that come with a renewed spirit.[xiv]

When we draw close enough, God draws close to us, but we have to come humbly.[xv]  Then our prayers will make a difference that we had previously only dreamed of............... This is awesome............This is what God intended when He created us........This is the relationship He wants..............This will change the world.   He chooses to use our love, faith and joy to touch those who do not know Him.    He will do what we cannot do.................

He could have done it before, in so many ways but He chooses to give everyone the choice to say "Yes".   This means that we cannot pray against the freewill of another, however much we care for that person......   So our prayer has to be His prayer, a prayer of intercession that involves our being what He wants.......Holy.....

This is our relationship with Him restored to conform with His original plan............  The wordless prayer of love for God...........the natural observance of the first commandment.    The prayer of contemplation of the most Holy God. 

The Prayer of Love
There is much confirmation on the prayer of love being a matter of the heart and not the intellect.   I find it in St John of the Cross and the Carthusians and feel that it is our rebellion that causes us so much pain in "the night".   It goes against reason and we hold out to have our way and keep control.   Yet as I sit in the presence of the Lord I now feel safe to let Him have my head as it not empty but full of Him and the more I let go the more He can take, the more Love can fill.   But I don't yet see light, I feel that the brain/mind is paralysed and held and thoughts are peripheral to it.   I am drawn into this place and do not want to leave it, most of the time it is as if under an attack by my thoughts.   On one occasion  I was aware of a room called Hope within the castle.

The Purpose
So I would appear to be taking on the different ways of the mystics and becoming aware of the many ways that God has reached us.    So many have travelled the journey within and it makes sense to allow a discovery of self in order that God can purify it and we travel further.   A clear twentieth century guide is to be found in Christopher Bryant[xvi].   My thoughts were of a “returning to the me that God created”.  For His purpose - and so already holy and perfect?    But what when I get there?    When I acknowledge that, there is something very specific for me as part of His plan?    It seemed that that was where creation could begin within me, so that when he has His child in this place the potter can continue his work, and who knows what further use the Lord can make of his creature.   It is a Metamorphosis of the soul.

 And then it is as if my prayers, even the most unlikely, are being answered as others are hearing the things I've been praying about.   For these are not my prayers but God's they are not my ideas but a growing something inside that has still to mature.   This I know to be Love...............

I must not look for credit.   To be what God intends is His workmanship and if I've sufficient love then I will be obedient.   But I know that love for God means more and more loving others, more than myself[xvii] and so I cannot be jealous or proud.   I am aware of the truth of this but it still has to conquer my desires and give way to the hope that God has put within -- that His will be done in all things, starting with me but moving quickly to the church.  Only then can we love the world and so minister to the world.

Sometimes we realise that we sit in  His Holiness rather than Love; because there is a difference.    Sitting in His Love is wonderful, peaceful, joyful and one is happy to remain there.     Holiness is similar because Holiness too is love but this is a painful vulnerable Love, a Fire that can consume.    I feel close to tears here, I know the fear of the Lord but it is not a matter of being afraid because nothing will be consumed or refined until it is first surrendered.    Thoughts here are important because one cannot surrender except one knows what the soul is being asked to give up.   So often these days I don't recognise intercession within me for there is not the burden, the ache in my body.   When I sit in the Love of God and reach to Him then I know that I have to be taught more of this prayer of the heart and Love does its own thing in contemplation.

This seems to be beyond intercession, yet in this is this place of holiness we feel the way of love, the way of the pure heart.    It is only with a pure heart that we can expect our prayers to be answered[xviii] but here we shall be blessed for:

            "Blessed are the pure in heart, for they will see God."   Mat 5:8 

Surely to see God must take us into union with Him, we shall be consumed and can only be a part of the Intercessor.     Can we allow Him to do the necessary heart surgery?[xix]

Dare we ask to see God?    We shall not be the first, we can look at the experience of Moses,[xx] but remember what Jesus said when Philip asked to see the Father.[xxi]   Again we are back to the certainty of answered prayer if we meet the conditions.

Children of God

1 John 3:2 Dear friends, now we are children of God, and what we will be has not yet been made known. But we know that when he appears, we shall be like him, for we shall see him as he is.

1 John 4:17  In this way, love is made complete among us so that we will have confidence on the day of judgment, because in this world we are like him.

God is elusive only because we try to define/describe Him, and that is in fact to make him in our own image.     The mystery of God is beyond our comprehension and His majesty is such that we cannot see Him.     At best it is to see through the glass darkly.[xxii]     However to say that we cannot see Him now does not mean that we cannot experience his presence.     All Christians must do this to a greater or lesser extent, otherwise we could not believe any of the articles of the faith, but the more we are prepared to surrender self, the closer we can come to experiencing His presence.      God is in the whole of creation, all mankind  has the seed of His presence within.[xxiii].    Thus God has a right to expect a response, but those who know that Christ paid the price of redeeming that soul, can begin by acknowledging that we belong to God.    So if we belong then are we going to let God do with us what He wants?     It means giving up on our ambitions, desires, ideas....... our will.     As the will is surrendered to be that of God then there is at last space for God to transform  us into His likeness.     The grace that acts is love,  but how can we give ourselves up to prayer of such simplicity.    Our active, educated, cultured minds rebel. we find it hard to just sit in the presence of God and love Him.    Why?   What good will it do?   Will it help the church or the world etc.?     It doesn't matter what it does it is what God wants and it will change you, if you are really focusing, even in the darkness on God..............There will be fruit.

This might seem a long way from interceding but we have started to get to know God.......... God is so gentle that when we do stop to receive the presence of God, a common call in Charismatic gatherings, we soon recognise Love.    That we can at least receive in faith.[xxiv]    

We can trust God for all things.     He brings to mind scriptures as well as giving pictures/visions, dreams and words.         God has led me down a charismatic road and with the aid of His word has brought me to a point of waiting on Him.    I find that it is that same place of waiting that the mystics come to.    In both cases we can be fascinated by manifestations or favours, they are the same, and be misled by them.   On the other hand we must allow God to give  them as a step on the journey and use them as a guide, not let them get in the way of God having His way.     It is necessary to be humbled and we have to let God do that.    Repeatedly on both routes I've heard,  "Surrender, total surrender" and "love and more love".

I end with some words that I know needs more understanding from Romans chapter 8 verses 19-21[xxv]

The creation waits in eager expectation for the sons of God to be revealed.   For the creation was subjected to frustration, not by its own choice, but by the will of the one who subjected it, in hope  that the creation itself will be liberated from its bondage to decay and brought into the glorious freedom of the children of God.   (see chapter 3 page 6   This must lead to prayer for the world!!)

Through the action of the Holy Spirit we are the sons of God that the whole of creation is waiting for.     What are we waiting for?    We need to know that Love of God and build a relationship before we are ready to surrender to the Will of God for he will never force us - it has to be through sharing in a relationship of LOVE.    Here it will be His prayer working within us that will enable us to become a Holy Church it is not something that we can just will or direct.  

Dissertation.htm

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