How to meet God and what to expect.

A virtually virtual farmer's thoughts

2 Timothy 3:12 says: ...All that would live godly in Christ Jesus shall suffer persecution. ---------------------------------------------------------------------So there is a pad in front of me and several ballpoint pens scattered around. A deep longing to write is in my heart. Longing to write about the ways God showed me. Writing about the years of searching and yearning for what only His presence can give. Peace of mind. I was searching for an unbreakable cornerstone in the midst of a whirlwind called life. In this time of earthquakes and tsunamis, didnt I have a desperate burden on my shoulder? It wanted relief. Like Christian, hero of Bunyan's The Pilgrims Progress, I put fingers in my ears (it is a bit yucky) and ran for it. Like a hare hiding in tunnels when the fox is around, I ran. Like a mouse, when the cat is out and about, hiding, yet ever trying to go on, a little further, some small steps closer to the unreachable goal. Like a mole longing to fly. According to common standard that longing is impossible to fulfill. But I needed to go. There are phenomena between this world and the next, which have not been fully grasped or studied. Just knowing them seems to bend the mind, bringing it close to breaking. Flying moles are part of it. Quantum mechanics is another one of those phenomena. Synchronicity is a word for it in physics, the breaking up of the dimensions of space and time. Being able to only be certain of the probability or possibility of any event has replaced that calm knowledge of a certain, ordered sequence of cause and effect man is used to live with. (And how about your facebook-timeline? It orders the world very reassuringly into before and after. And it is so easy to believe and trust it.) Research in applied physics has brought to light a completely different way in which this reality seems to work out. It is very different from what man in western thought patterns had supposed. What he had supposed to even be thinkable. But the knowledge of God bends the mind even more. His unspeakable greatness, His majesty, His way of dealing with mankind is so different, that words never seem to give any justice to Him. Stereotypical religious wording often leaves the mysteries more veiled the revealed. Once the mystery is pierced they may be understood. But it needs much knowledge to give those words adequate meaning. Because the mysteries of God are so well hidden to the eye that does not know what to look for, that much has been thought ludicrous or old-fashioned or simply nonexistent by

modern man. The words have lost their grasp or depth and the meaning has been obscured by centuries of use or abuse of a word, which should have been handled with care. This is the path before me, trying to uncover some of these things. Write about unspeakable beauty and depth, about sorrow and joy, pain and jubilation. I am glad to have this task set before me. I love writing about the things of God and I do hope not to offend anybody, wondering where I would take the dare from.

Writing is a deep urge within me. Even though painful at times, it is easier to give in then to fight it. God gives the desire to do and the fulfillment of it. I guess that is what makes me bold enough to write. It helps me as well to reflect on the wonders I have seen. On those I would like to see and those God might want to show me. Those He thinks necessary for my education. Having to search the depth of my heart isnt always easy or nice. But more so I try to search the depth of His heart. That is daring to me. And His heart is only accessible by revelation. As mathematics are not to be understood by the toddler, and even to the bright mind of a growing child impossible to learn without any apt teacher, so the depth of God can only be revealed by God Himself. To handle this knowledge with care and to stew over it, mull it over, chew it like a cow chews its grass is a delight and a pain at once. The sweetness is so intense and deep that it hurts like a balm may hurt on an open wound that it is still destined to heal. It is discouraging to know, that even the finest crafted words may not convey the meaning I want them to carry. That all talk about God includes a big part of lying. It is not truly lying. But putting emphasize on parts that may be very small in God's reality. It is like putting a magnifying glass on a part without mentioning the rest of it. It is necessary to be able to talk about Him at all. But this enhances parts that may be infinitely small, to a size that may seem inappropriate.

Maybe it is like talking about an elephant by only mentioning his ears. They are special, but overemphasized, they may seem wrongly put to predominance. All talk about God is tainted by never doing Him justice, by never being able to truly grasp His infinite being. Thus necessarily talking or writing about God includes partly lies or exaggerations. It is never complete. And yet it has to be done. In this broken and distorted knowledge, shards shine up and enlighten a path. Show a silhouette, encourage or satisfy a deep longing. They point to forgotten knowledge. It has to be done, knowing about many of the failings this writing will necessarily contain. All knowledge is partial. That does not imply that it has to be unspoken or unwritten. Most of all, I wish I could encourage myself and every reader to trust God. Encourage to abandon the self to His love. We don't understand it. We cannot grasp it. We don't understand. But we can do it.

Every other assertion is certainly more wrong then the assertion of knowing little about a being, that can hold the universe in His hand. To the least. This universe seems to have much in common with a ball. Not unending and yet without ever reaching its confines. Like walking on earth would only lead to wandering around and around, this universe seems to allow us to ponder and wonder round and round. Without finding and end to the journey but without getting any further as well. Like the smaller, so the bigger reality, or should I say greater reality?

There is a terrible reality in its splendor. It is a menace to our well-being, not only physical, but also mental and spiritual. To the unbeliever it must be a poor, dreaded thing, where he can get a grasp of it. To him, thinking about standing some day in front of such a God must be unspeakable terror. As much as the demons fear that day, where they can only loose even the little they have. But as well to God's children the depth of God's being is terrible. The more is understood, the more awe, fascination, terror and reverence fill the mind. God's light shows our shortcomings and our pride. And his greatness. The abyss between the man and God widens, strangely enough, when it is bridged. There may be a day, where those who know may be found guiltier than those who knew not. We are not living in with even the little we do know. And according to Paul every man will be judged according to that. Would it then be a bad turn to write about such things or rather a necessity? Demanding change in attitude or change in the way things seem to be possible? It may be so. A growth in knowledge makes us more responsible. The wonders of God's being are so amazing, that I will not stop from writing what has been laid on my soul to say. Again I am sitting in front of my computer; the stove is burning hot, as far as such a small stove can be burning hot. It is my sole means of heating besides a small electric radiator, costing me a fortune in electricity. Christmas is close. Advent, the time expectation is here.

Millions of thoughts are raiding my mind. They draw me left and right, rarely uplifting, rather trying to carry away what store of faith I may have in my possession. I try to motivate myself. I know, once I start writing I love every bit of it, just getting over that initial moment isn't easy. I love to write. I love the soft tapping of the computer, those black on white abstract signs that only a somewhat learned mind can fill with meaning or purpose. I love those things, characters they are called and they truly are characters, each and every one of them. They stand for other things; replace something too big to be in its place. This in its turn stands for a bigger meaning yet. It amazes me every time anew how a small word, even a short phrase made out of initially completely meaningless lines and dots, take up flight and starts to convey meaning and more. To see it grow. To watch it become sort of a being of its own, a thing I may give utterance and form to, but that seems to have been forever and needed to be found, understood, and expressed. There is something magical about writing. It is not for nothing, that it is written: In the beginning was the word. If it wouldn't kind of kill me I'd do it all day long. The way being

there right now is, I do some, restore a lot, do a little bit and restore lots more. I do get things done, even though it seems awfully slow.

Just to look at the writing amazes me. I made this, I put it into form. As faulty as may be my way of expressing myself, as partial or chunky it is, it is a miracle straight out of God's good grace. Writing gives me a feeling of doing the right thing; it makes me feel alright, as if I was in my purpose. It is a great thing to find the purpose of life and to be able to live it. My life gets centered more and more around that. It is not easy, it asks for a lot of sacrifice and humility, yet the reward is in the doing of God's work. This is a place where nothing is expected in return, where nothing seems to count but the counting of signs and syllables and meanings. Doing the work God has appointed me. Part of it I call gleaning. I have always been gleaning the rich harvest. Learning from others and turning it over so much till it is mine. I am like a math scholar who can later count and multiply without the help of a teacher. It has become his own knowledge. It is my own knowledge then. I leave my dear lights behind, the lighting that so helped me understand the terms of enlightenment. For truly without light all is and remains dark. Even me myself, I remain a dark and unknown object like everything else. At times it is comforting to remain with a ton of half-beings, when I feel like being halfbaked myself. But with growing light comes growing knowledge of surroundings and matters, both material and spiritual.

Enough of that, I can talk for ages of my dear lamps. Seems like I am not that thoroughbred technician I used to be. Maybe they left me for that reason. My only justification is in God. Looking from the outside my life it seems beggarly and forsaken. But to serve a God, who chose a stable as birthplace for his most beloved son, it seems to be the right place. At least for the time being. Poverty can be a gift of God, where it doesn't of cause include lack of bare necessity, like basic food, shelter, and clothing. All else rather diverts the mind and asks for service. We serve the man-made, the not God made so easily. Many are getting lost in worldly troubles instead of serving the maker of all. So, being nearly fifty, living all alone with a mad dog, who takes to chewing walls or carpets, has its undeniable advantages. It teaches about things of true worth, of what really matters. And on how the world looks onto such a shameful way of living by one fairly gifted from the start. Today the drain is blocked; I have already exchanged the dripping shower hose and the valve sending water to the washing machine. But the drain doesnt answer to any chemical or mechanical device I use. As if it had a will of its own. I suspect my neighbor having something to do with it, for when he is gone it is working. And I still don't dare to use the bathroom, because my neighbor gets crazy if I do. He starts scratching the door and turning the key. My bathroom is on the stairs, I have to leave my apartment and go two steps to reach it. Not funny for a girl, not even for an old girl. I

got myself a special bucket.

Is it a sad life, because I lack so many things, I counted as evident just a couple of years ago? Things many people here take for granted? It is true; I miss comforts every now and then. But I have learned that they come at a high price. For they need a lot of looking after, a lot of worrying, investment of thought and time. Time and thought that I can spend on thinking about God, or just trying to let it sink in, whatever I struggle with in understanding. I enjoy my fairly carefree life. Once necessities are covered there is little to worry about. And once I got used to living on a lot less. That was a difficult time, to adapt to it, for my mind thought many things necessary that apparently God didnt think important. Some work to do, to make ends meet, but otherwise lots of room for the finding of God's will, searching his face, meditating on the meaning of words or scriptures. There is nobody now to interrupt. I get so used to it that even small interruptions ruffle me. As if they would steal the moment I could spend talking to God. Steal the one moment I grasp some understanding. Though, if it is so easily to be taken away, it may not be the right thing. But even big trees are torn out easily while they are small seeds. And they never grow. That is how I feel for my prayers or readings or understandings. I do a lot of those. Maybe I don do enough listening. There is sort of deliverance in the fact of not having to compete anymore. Not having to be pretty or smart or cool. It wasn't easy to get there, but as God's word promises, when I am in his will peace and joy follows.

So much, that the thought of getting somehow out of his will is really my biggest source of trouble. So I avoid anything that might get me away. I wonder sometimes, whether I am being selfish to so ravel in God's presence. But as no demand is made on me, I allow myself to be taken by it, transformed, filled, delighted, fascinated, awed, scared and much more. The idea of knowingly offend God seems from this point of view so stupid, that where I don't hurt too much I smile. It seems to be like the mouse say to the tiger: I'll get you, just you wait. It has lost all interest. I struggle enough with unintentional hurts of the code I want to live by. In God is so much more joy, that all else seems like bad copies of a valuable thing. As if a child had drawn a 100 Dollar bill, presenting it as the real thing. Whatever the drawings value, its money value isn't there. It may be most difficult actually for those still watching me. Like my parents, to them this lack of visible success is hard to bear. Just, Jesus warned: Those who look behind will find nothing. There is no way back though. Only going on, trusting God that he will find ways and means for a life I would like to rather center more around him. If I could stand his gaze. If I could stand His look on my small life. I know, he sees it all, has always known it. But to be aware of a wonderful, Supreme Being looking into my life and filling it with His presence is not easy for me. My shortcomings become more evident every day and it is hard to live with that look on myself too.

Dont we all try to live in a way that makes us feel good, look good to ourselves? Now figure it all shattered, even the notion of what might look good shattered. Left with no way to explain it properly for even the idea of what properly meant is gone. And even though I dont wish for it, the knowledge that there is no way back is devastating. It is quite easy to stay cool and wise if I know, I can get out, get back to what used to be me. To have no escape route left, to stare at God with wide, frightened eyes in disbelief. Being pinned down to what I am in front of Him. It is not that I want out, but to have a choice is nice, it eases pressure. Then terror strikes. No way out or back. No turning back. With always just enough light, strength and courage for the next step. And just that: Strength for today and hope for tomorrow. Often that is more than many have, who worry for the next vacation or what a neighbor may think. To stand firm in God destroys much other assurance, but the one won is so strong, that rather a mountain will move before that hope is broken. With just a little bit of faith many storms might be quenched, many mountains that seem invincible can be overcome. Step by step. To cry to the Lord for help and wisdom, knowledge and mercy will help to understand, that God is in control. Being in contact with Gods power makes things possible that were not even to be thought of.