Quest for God

Introduction

The Lord had brought us to the point of ending the Ministry, but He had not given us any clues to our future, so we stayed with the farm, supporting ourselves, and awaiting further guidance.

But a time of crisis came, and, still with no clear word from the Lord, we began to try to sell the property. There followed nearly two years of stress, before the Lord mercifully intervened in His loving way, and concluded for us the perfect cash sale.

There followed a joyful time of relocation, of the Lord’s repeated signs of His loving care, and time to write this record of my quest to do His Will.

6.1

Now we knew why we had bought the farm in our own names and not in the name of the Ministry. Now we knew why the Lord had said, "You can make a living off this property". We became pig farmers in earnest, and we made a living, and our love and trust in God remained strong. He had led us to this property; He was still guiding us; He did not change.

God does not change; but the economic forces that control our society do, and Christians are not exempt from the effects of such forces. What happened next was not something we had anticipated. Grain growing farmers had a poor season; the price of all grains suddenly sky-rocketed and the price of pig-food almost doubled, while the market price of pigs remained stable. We had not been in the work long enough to ride-out this sudden slump, and our income plummeted.

The remnant of our Ministry people had continued to meet in suburbia, and made occasional week-end visits to us; but, as far as we knew, nothing spiritual was emanating from them, so we did not feel it right to share our problems with them. They probably would have offered us money again - a ransom for the life they still declined to fully surrender! In a way it seemed just like a repeat of our situation when we were in our house-in-the-forest - the money could be available, but no help with the work. But our work this time round was not, as yet, with tourists in tents but only with pigs in sties! Here we had not even started a spiritual outreach. We were burdened by the seven-days-a-week physical labour of our farm; and I was becoming even more burdened by the apparent 'vanity' of it all. I struggled with questionings, doubtings, even despair. What had I learned from our previous ventures, where we had eventually to sell up? A degree of double-mindedness was seeping into me!

When Greg and I had decided to buy the property in our joint names, we had also agreed that if, for whatever reason, one party wanted to sell up, the other would not stand against it. So when Greg - who was carrying almost the total work-load - said he felt it was time to quit, I could only respond that I was hearing nothing from the Lord, but if that was what he felt was right, we should talk to a Real Estate Agent. There followed nearly two more years of anxiety and frustration, out of which we had to learn more deeply the difference between doing what seemed sensible and trusting that God would be with us through it all - which is the way most Christians live their lives! - and really waiting for the Lord's guiding voice in the whole situation.

We proceeded to do what seemed sensible, and the Lord allowed us to just struggle on. We put the property into the hands of the local Real Estate Agent. He must surely best know the area and the price we were likely to get for the farm. He did his calculations and gave us a figure which was higher than our expectations. That made us happy, of course, and we gave him sole selling rights. He advertised regularly, and brought a number of people through, but by the end of six months we had no buyer. He said times were tough, and did not suggest lowering the price.

We transferred to a second Agent, who also assured us that the price was right. Four or five months later we discovered that he had quietly disappeared without telling anyone or leaving a forwarding address!

Meanwhile we had experienced a second long summer drought. Our dams were empty of water, and we now had no option but to sell off our pigs. We decided to give away our goats and hens, and we took a short holiday and reassessed our situation.

We had to sell. We now went to a large city Agency who was advertising their interest in listing country properties. We sought out a Salesman who had been highly recommended to us by an acquaintance. He suggested a slightly lower price, enthusiastically took videos of the property, and made us feel assured that a sale was just around the corner. What he produced for us was a rather complex offer from a man who wanted to buy the machinery and equipment at once, and lease the farm for up to a year, by which time he would have funds available to purchase it at the currently agreed price. The Agent made noises about a good suburban property to be sold as a result of a marriage break-up. We trusted the Agent; we were relieved to be free at last. We signed up and moved into a suburban house.

Three months passed quite happily. Then a lease payment became very overdue. Unable to make any contact with our tenant, we eventually drove down to the farm - to find it devoid of life and equipment - empty, deserted! It took us weeks to unravel the mystery, and then to legally reclaim our property. We eventually learned, via the media, that our tenant had been a drug-runner, and was now in police custody on a charge of rape. He had apparently been using our property as a base and a ‘cover’ for his activities!

We were by now at a point where we had to confess that doing what seemed 'sensible' and trusting that the Lord would support us in our actions was not the way He wanted us to walk! We knew that we ought to have more patiently waited for His guidance, and then we would have been able to act in the full confidence of knowing His Will. Instead, we had lived through nearly two stressful years with the property still on our hands. Now, with a deeper understanding of the depth of His Lordship over us we prayed "Please Lord, get us out of this mess." And He did.

There was a local man who had been a farm labourer all his days, and had probably never owned anything more than his battered old ute. Anyone would identify him as a typical Aussie Battler. Right at that time he received a considerable sum of money - an insurance payout or some such - and decided to make an offer on our property. So, nearly two years from the beginning of our saga, we had a Cash Sale - and to someone whom we felt would cherish the land! We were free!

6.2

We were free; but as "bondslaves of God" (1 Pet.2.16) we needed to be very sure what God wanted of us next. I was almost seventy, and knew that I was beyond starting a new work: Greg felt to stay with me until he received some sure guidance for his future: in fifteen years of ministry together we had a relationship which would not be lightly broken.

A remnant of the old Ministry were still meeting together, and made their overtures to us that they would be delighted to re-form the Ministry and try yet again. But this time there was no Amen in my heart. For fifteen years I had laboured with them and there was nothing more I could do for them. They all knew what they needed to know for salvation, but had, at almost every testing, failed to live by that knowledge. The Lord had closed the Ministry.

During our stay in suburbia, while the saga of the farm sale was continuing, we began visiting the local churches I was even wondering whether we should try to reintegrate with 'the church'. But there was no Amen to this. We could find no oneness of spirit with either ministers or congregations, and they were not able to receive anything from us.

One example should suffice to illustrate our experiences. At a mid-week Bible Study we corrected the leader on a fact of Scripture. He checked the reference, and agreed that we were right and he was wrong. But while he was yet checking the reference, the people turned upon us angrily, for daring to contradict their Leader. Later, Elders requested us not to attend their meetings again - we had disturbed their peace! One of them even said to us, in an outpouring of rage, "If you are looking for a church without hypocrisy you are not going to find one: we are all hypocrites here". We did not argue: we left!

As the time for the legal Settlement of our farming property approached, we sought the Lord yet more earnestly concerning a new home: our little suburban house was not totally suitable as a longer-term dwelling place for the two of us; we were feeling more certain about continuing to stay together, and we felt a desire to shift into an entirely new environment. We flew east, and the Lord led us to an idyllic spot - a lake, a mountain, trees, birds, and solitude, in a house which is right for our rather unusual needs.

Of course we visited churches here, in our new home, but again there was no joy. We were presenting ourselves simply as two strangers, about whose background they knew nothing, and who were asking questions simply to help to decide what church they could most happily fit into. Nowhere did we find any loving outreach towards us, either from the preachers or from the pew-sitters. In two different congregations we were told rather angrily that we ought to just sit silently for at least three months while we learned to conform to their way of worship and could accept their teachings without question. Inevitably, we were again asking the Lord what He would have us do now.

Then the Lord gave me this dream. I dreamed that I was in an assembly of churchmen who were being addressed by an aged and fragile pope. He was saying nothing of any importance, but the assembled churchmen were listening to him with reverence. On the table before him he had a glass of water with a drinking straw, and as he spoke he intermittently sipped a little water through the straw.

After he finished his speech his eye caught mine, and he moved through the crowd to stand right in front of me, and behind him was his assistant with his glass of water on a tray. And he opened his mouth and in a cracked old voice sang a little hymn, still sipping intermittently on his water. At the end of his song he motioned to his assistant to give the glass on the tray to me, that I might refill it, and then moved off for a time of intermission. I had to fill his glass with water ready for his return appearance.

I went out to a back room where I expected to find a sink in which to rinse his glass and a tap from which to refill it. I found many taps, but all with 'test tubes' attached to them, through which the water had to flow. Inside these 'test tubes' floated various little objects, good and bad, pretty and ugly, alive and dead - stones, shells, flowers, spiders, bugs, and so on. I was dismayed. The water must be tainted which flowed through such an array. Then I saw one tap on which the 'test tube' appeared to be empty. I could see that even this could not be pure water; but people were saying that the pope was back in the assembly and his water should be there.

So I filled the glass, put it on the tray, and dejectedly began the walk back to the assembly. But the walk was up a steep incline, and the tray was incredibly heavy, and just before I reached the pope I felt I could go no further, but stood there, clinging to a hand-rail for support. After a while, someone whisked the tray from my hands and put it on the table in front of the pope, who contentedly resumed his speaking and his sipping through a straw. And I was left, clinging unobserved and exhausted, to the hand-rail, till I woke up.

Step by step, the Lord showed me the meaning of this dream. The figure of a pope was simply the official voice of the church; a voice that is old and fragile; a voice that is saying nothing significant to its people; a voice that is singing little hymns and choruses that are basically irrelevant to our daily existence, and are not even pleasing to our ears: but a voice that does know that it needs water to survive - the Living Water which comes forth from the Lord by His Holy Spirit.

The Bible always speaks of Living Water coming forth from springs or fountains or rivers: but in my dream the only water available was from a variety of taps, each fitted with very polluted 'test tubes'. These 'test tubes' were the denominations through which God's Word was syphoned, and the theologies through which the purity of the Gospel is obscured. In the whole of that building, which was His church, there was no true, no pure, Living Water - but no one seemed to care, or even to notice.

The polluted water was too great a burden to carry. Jesus said "My yoke is easy and My load is light" (Matt. 11.30), but this polluted water bore all the burdens of denominationalism, creeds, theologies, hypocrisies, mammon, and more, and I could not be a part of it, though I had tried: the load was far too heavy! But the 'show' which is the modern church, went on, while I disappeared, as an apparently irrelevant failure, from their notice.

I knew that my dream was a valid parable of the state of the modern church, and that the Lord was showing me that there was no acceptable way – acceptable both to Him and to the church – that I could serve in it.

From this time I have ceased to search for a church-in-the-world in which to worship, and have understood more and more deeply that "our citizenship is in heaven" (Phil. 3.20) I take in the words of the writer of the Letter to the Hebrews: "But you have come to Mount Zion, the city of the living God, the heavenly Jerusalem, to the general assembly and the church of the first-born who are enrolled in heaven, and to God…. and to Jesus, the mediator of a new covenant … " (Heb. 12.22-24). I know that I have been given to eat of the "living bread that came down from heaven" (John 6.51), and that I have been "raised up in Him and seated with Him in the heavenly places" (Eph.2.6), and that there I can serve and worship Him into eternity. And I am content!