Recently when I was contemplating one morning, I felt that all too familiar, but arresting Voice say to me: " You are going underground". It was explained to me that, there is a place with God among His people that I have yet to experience. I sensed this place is not to be found among the typical Christian circles that I have been accustomed to. I had a dream which seemed to verify this a few days later.
For the record, I haven't really moved in Christian circles for quite some time. My heart just hasn't been in it. If you knew me and my history you would understand, I think.
It makes sense that it would come to this in that, I'm at a stage in my walk where I can barely stomach so much that I see around me in the name of Christianity, even among Catholics. Well sometimes, especially Catholics.
This theme is really nothing new to me, it can be seen in a few of my past posts. For some reason it's becoming more pronounced though in my heart.
I see a lot of denial and childish play more than I see truth and honesty in following Jesus. I become so angry when I witness people playing with the Holy Spirit as if He is some puppet to be manipulated, or they simply deny Him altogether. He certainly does not need me to defend Him in the least, as He is all power and glory. The First and the Last. So many seem to want to play Christianity more than they really want to know God.
I have noticed in the last few months my tolerance for b.s. is becoming increasingly limited. It never was that strong to begin with. In the past I may have lingered for a time in the name of compassion, but now I just walk away, and I do it quickly. I have learned that in certain instances my compassion was misguided. I no longer try to explain myself, or try too hard to be understood. I just move on. I'm starting to become much less concerned with what people think, in the right sense. I don't mean in the sense that I won't listen and take in what another well meaning and sincere person has to say to me.
I'm not angry in the wrong sense either. I believe I feel a righteous anger, as far as I can tell. I'm not unhappy in a sense of feeling hopeless. I am most definitely hopeful....and I believe I have gone through everything I have for such a time as this. It's all coming together. I have to go where my heart is led.
"Blessed are the pure in heart, for they shall see God." I feel like shouting from a mountain to all of Christendom, "Learn what this means!". But, I have learned over the years that purity of heart is something you either have....or you don't. It's not something that can be learned. It is the gift of God.
I'm going to conclude by posting something written by A.W. Tozer. He was not Catholic, but he was and still is truly a voice in the desert. I love his book, "The knowledge of the Holy".
I read the following for the first time today....and all I can say is that I can relate so much. It was a comfort to me to find it. This man has articulated very well what I honestly feel on a daily basis.
THE LONELINESS OF THE CHRISTIAN
by A.W. Tozer
The loneliness of the Christian results from his walk with God in an ungodly world, a walk that must often take him away from the fellowship of good Christians as well as from that of the unregenerate world. His God-given instincts cry out for companionship with others of his kind, others who can understand his longings, his aspirations, his absorption in the love of Christ; and because within his circle of friends there are so few who share his inner experiences he is forced to walk alone. The unsatisfied longings of the prophets for human understanding caused them to cry out in their complaint, and even our Lord Himself suffered in the same way.
The man who has passed on into the divine Presence in actual inner experience will not find many who understand him. He finds few who care to talk about that which is the supreme object of his interest, so he is often silent and preoccupied in the midst of noisy religious shoptalk. For this he earns the reputation of being dull and over-serious, so he is avoided and the gulf between him and society widens. He searches for friends upon whose garments he can detect the smell of myrrh and aloes and cassia out of the ivory palaces, and finding few or none he, like Mary of old, keeps these things in his heart.
It is this very loneliness that throws him back upon God. His inability to find human companionship drives him to seek in God what he can find nowhere else.
"Then Jesus was led by the Spirit into the desert to be tempted by the devil. After fasting forty days and forty nights, he was hungry. The tempter came to him and said, "If you are the Son of God, tell these stones to become bread." Jesus answered, "It is written: 'Man does not live on bread alone, but on every word that comes from the mouth of God.'" (Matthew 4: 1-4)
