The way home: Yes, I am lost

I have not written for well over a year. For a long, long time, I felt like I could not be a faithful witness to the truth that I professed to live and teach out of. Silence felt more truthful than anything I could possibly write from the shadows. And so, I pushed my craft away from me. I buried my gift of writing under a mountain of emotions I didn't want to name or face - until I heard Him say distinctly a few days ago, "It is safe to start writing again". And I knew it was the truth. I had come home to the Father. He had found me through a Father Heart school which I attended in Auckland last week. 

The weeks leading up to my break were very intense and stressful. I didn't have the presence of mind to think carefully about my travel plans and kept putting it off. I'd only heard about Father Heart Ministries in passing from two friends. I checked out the website, but don't even remember reading it carefully. There was a school in Auckland that would fit into my schedule. It just seemed like a good idea to receive some personal ministry over the course of my 2-month break, as well as do some travelling in the civilized world far away from the chaos that is my daily reality in East Timor. I mulled over it for a while and finally signed up because the time to leave was drawing close and I had to buy my air tickets soon. There was nothing distinctly spiritual about the decision.

On the first evening of the school, we were told not to take notes. This school wasn't about intellectual understanding, nor about learning new concepts so we could dutifully teach others like the good Christians we were. We were invited to encounter God where it truly mattered - in our hearts. I was rather surprised by what I heard, but something in me said yes to that invitation. And so, like the good student that I am, I obeyed instructions. That first night in the motel, I told God to open my spirit to receive and remember whatever it was He had for me, without having to rely on taking notes. 

Frankly, I was both relieved and worried. Relieved because I was given permission to stop thinking for a change. Worried, because I didn't know if it was possible for my mind to actually stop, or if my heart could really receive anything in the state that it was in.

One of the greatest tragedies that can afflict us is when we don't know, but we think we know.

We think we know because we have heard an elegant exposition, or read a beautiful passage somewhere. We have learnt the facts, regurgitated them accurately, maybe even taught on them eloquently. We mistake knowledge about, for knowledge of.

But secondhand knowledge is vastly different from personal experience. It is like the difference between what an eyewitness at a crime scene has seen with his own eyes, and what a crime reporter has found out from a police press briefing. It is as different as looking at a postcard of a mountaintop, and being physically present on the mountaintop. Or the difference between reading a recipe, and tasting the dish. 

Studying in all its form can be the doorway to personal experience if the Spirit of God chooses to meet us there. But the mere act of studying is not it.

True knowing almost always requires a journey. It starts with an honest admission that may sound like, I don't know. Or, I am lost. These can be hard words to say. It is act of grace that actually gets us to that starting point in which we can look at the true condition of our hearts and say, I am lost. 

It has taken me many years to fully recognize the extent of my lostness. And it is as we grieve our lostness, that our hearts are slowly awakened from its numbing slumber. 

It starts to stir, to feel again. It wants to be found. It reaches out. It waits. It starts to speak, at first tentative and unsure, then gradually comes alive.It says things that the mind cannot comprehend, but which the Spirit can hear, because He has been listening out for that voice since eternity past. The weakest, faintest groan is all it takes to call down His relentless, furious, loyal love. Yes, when He comes, you will know that you know, that you have finally been found.