Women of Spirit:
Women’s Wisdom from Protestant and Pentecostal Christianity

Timothy Conway (Compiler / Editor)

© Copyright 1992, 2017 by Timothy Conway

PROTESTANT and PENTECOSTAL CHRISTIANITY

Contents:

Anne Bradstreet; Phoebe Palmer; Charlotte L. Tshabalala; Anne Morrow Lindbergh; Margaret Prescott Montague; Katharine Trevelyan; Anonymous Episcopalian Author; Agnes Sanford; Kathryn Kuhlman; Corrie ten Boom.

***  Women of the Protestant Christian traditions  ***  

Anne Bradstreet (1612?-1672; Puritan; England-Massachusetts Bay Colony):

                         “The Flesh and the Spirit”

In secret place where I once stood / Close by the banks of lacrim flood,

I heard two sisters reason on / Things that are past and things to come.

One Flesh was called, who had her eye / On worldly wealth and vanity;

The other Spirit, who did rear / Her thoughts unto a higher sphere.

“Sister,” quoth Flesh, “what liv’st thou on— / Nothing but meditation?

Doth contemplation feed thee, so / Regardlessly to let earth go? ...

Dost dream of things beyond the moon, / And dost thou hope to dwell there soon?

Hast treasures there laid up in store, / That all in th’ world thou count’st but poor? ...

Come, come, I’ll show unto thy sense / Industry hath its recompense. ...

Dost honor like? Acquire the same, / As some of their immortal fame...

For riches dost thou long full sore? / Behold enough of precious store;

Earth hath more silver, pearls and gold / Than eyes can see or hands can hold.

Affect’st thou pleasure?  Take thy fill; / Earth hath enough of what you will.

Then let not go, what thou mayst find / For things unknown, only in mind.”

 

Spirit: “Be still, thou unregenerate part; / Disturb no more my settled heart ...

Thou speak’st me fair but hat’st me sore; / Thy flattering shows I’ll trust no more.

How oft thy slave hast thou me made / When I believed what thou hast said,

And never had more cause of woe / Than when I did what thou bad’st do.

I’ll stop mine ears at these thy charms / And count them for my deadly harms.

Thy sinful pleasures I do hate, / Thy riches are to me no bait,

Thine honors do nor will I love, / For my ambition lies above.

My greatest honor it shall be / When I am victor over thee ...

My thoughts do yield me more content / Than can thy hours in pleasure spent.

Nor are they shadows which I catch, / Nor fancies vain at which I snatch;

But reach at things that are so high, / Beyond thy dull capacity,

Eternal substance I do see, / With which enriched I would be;

Mine eye doth pierce the heavens, and see / What is invisible to thee. ...

The City where I hope to dwell / There’s none on earth can parallel ...

A crystal river there doth run, / Which doth proceed from the Lamb’s throne;

Of life there are the waters sure, / Which shall remain forever pure;

Nor sun nor moon they have no need, / For glory doth from God proceed;

No candle there, nor yet torchlight, / For there shall be no darksome night.

From sickness and infirmity / For evermore shall be free,

Nor withering age shall e’er come there, / But beauty shall be bright and clear.

This city pure is not for thee, / For things unclean there shall not be.

If I of heaven may have my fill, / Take thou the world, and all that will.”

 

           “Verse upon the Burning of Our House, July 10th, 1666”

In silent night, when rest I took, / For sorrow near I did not look.

I wakened was with thundering noise / And piteous shrieks of dreadful voice.

That fearful sound of “Fire!” and “Fire!” / Let no man know, is my desire.

I, starting up, the light did spy, / And to my God my heart did cry

To strengthen me in my distress, / And not to leave me succorless;

Then coming out, beheld apace / The flame consume my dwelling-place.

And when I could no longer look / I blest His name that gave and took,

That laid my goods now In the dust; / Yea, so it was, and so ‘twas just—

It was His own; it was not mine. / Far be it that I should repine. ...

When by the ruins oft I passed / My sorrowing eyes aside did cast,

And here and there the places spy / Where oft I sat, and long did lie. ...

My pleasant things in ashes lie, / And them behold no more shall I. ...

In silence ever shall thou lie. / Adieu, adieu; all’s vanity. 

Then straight I ‘gan my heart to chide: / And did thy wealth on earth abide?

Didst fix thy hope on mouldering dust / The arm of flesh didst make thy trust?

Raise up thy thoughts above the sky, / That dunghill mists away may fly.

Thou hast an house on high erect; / Framed by that mighty Architect,

With glory richly furnished, / Stands permanent though this be fled.

It’s purchased, and paid for, too, / By Him who hath enough to do—

A price so vast as is unknown, / Yet, by His gift, is made thine own.

There’s wealth enough; I need no more. / Farewell, my pelf; farewell, my store;

The world no longer let me love. / My hope and treasure lie above.

 

 

                       “As Weary Pilgrim, Now at Rest”

As weary pilgrim, now at rest, / Hugs with delight his silent nest;

His wasted limbs now lie full soft / That miry steps have trodden oft; ...

All cares and fears he bids farewell / And means in safety now to dwell:

A pilgrim I on earth, perplexed / With sins, with cares and sorrows vexed...

Oh! how I long to be at rest / And soar on high among the blest!

This body shall in silence sleep; / Mine eyes no more shall ever weep;No fainting fits shall me assail, / Nor grinding pains, my body frail;

With cares and fears ne’er cumbered be, / Nor losses know, nor sorrows see. ...

And when a few years shall be gone, / This mortal shall be clothed upon;

A corrupt carcass down it lies, / A glorious body it shall rise;

In weakness and dishonour sown, / In power ‘tis raised by Christ alone.

Then soul and body shall unite / And of their maker have the sight.

Such lasting joys shall there behold / As ear ne’er heard nor tongue e’er told.

Lord, make me ready for that day! / Then come, dear bridegroom, come away. [41]

                              ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

 

Phoebe Palmer (1807-74; Methodist Holiness movement; U.S.):

 

     Many sincere disciples of Jesus, by various needless perplexities, consume much time in endeavoring to get into this way [of holiness], which might, more advantageously to themselves and others, be employed in making progress in it, and testifying, from experimental knowledge, of its blessedness.

     How many, whom Infinite Love would long since have brought into this state, instead of seeking to be brought into the possession of the blessing at once, are seeking a preparation for the reception of it!  They feel that their convictions are not deep enough to warrant an approach to the throne of grace, with the confident expectation of receiving the blessing now.  Just at this point some may have been lingering months and years. ... Permit the writer to tell you just how that sister [Phoebe] found the “shorter way.”

     On looking at the requirements of the word of God, she beheld the command, “Be ye holy.”  She then began to say in her heart, “Whatever my former deficiencies may have been, God requires that I should now be holy. ... God requires present holiness.” ...

     Another difficulty by which her course had been delayed she found to be here.  She had been accustomed to look at the blessing of holiness as such a high attainment, that her general habit of soul inclined her to think it almost beyond her reach.  This erroneous impression rather influenced her to rest the matter thus: “I will let every high state of grace ... alone, and seek only to be fully conformed to the will of God, as recorded in his written word.  My chief endeavors shall be centered in the aim to be an humble Bible Christian.  By the grace of God, all my energies shall be directed to this one point.  With this single aim, I will journey onward, even though my faith may be tried to the uttermost by those manifestations being withheld, which have previously been regarded as essential for the establishment of faith.”

     On arriving at this point, she was enabled to gain yet clearer insight into the simplicity of the way ... [by hearing the Biblical statement:] “Ye are not your own, ye are bought with a price, therefore glorify God in your body and spirit which are his.” 

     By this she perceived the duty of entire consecration in a stronger light, and as more sacredly binding, than ever before. ...

     Deeply conscious of past unfaithfulness, she now determined that the time past should suffice; and with a humility of spirit, induced by a consciousness of not having lived in the performance of such a “reasonable service,” she was enabled, through grace, to resolve, with firmness of purpose, that entire devotion of heart and life to God should be the absorbing subject of the succeeding pilgrimage of life. ...

     The following questions occasioned much serious solicitude:—How shall I know when I have consecrated all to God?  And how ascertain whether God accepts the sacrifice...? ...

     Conscious that sacred responsibilities were included in these engagements, a realization of the fact, that neither body, soul, nor spirit, time, talent, nor influence, were, even for one moment, at her own disposal, began to assume the tangibility of living truth to her mind...

     From a sense of responsibility thus imposed, she began to be more abundant in labors...

     While thus engaged in active service, another difficulty presented itself.  How much of self in these performances? said the accuser. ...

     It was at this point in her experience that she first perceived the necessity, and also the attainableness of the witness of purity of intention ...

     The next step taken was to resolve, as in the presence of the Lord, not to cease importuning the throne of grace until the witness was given “that the spring of every motive was pure.”

     On coming to this decision, the blessed Word, most encouragingly, yea, and also assuringly said to her heart, “Stand still, and see the salvation of God.” ...

     So far from having those overwhelming perceptions of guilt, on which she afterward saw she had been too much disposed to place reliance, as somewhat meritorious, she was constantly and consciously growing in grace daily—yea, even hourly her heavenward progress seem marked as by the finger of God.

     No gloomy fears that she was not a child of God dimmed her spiritual horizon...

     “Stand still, and see the salvation of God” was now the listening attitude in which her soul eagerly waited before the Lord, and it was but a few hours after the above encouraging admonition had been spoken to her heart that she set apart a season to wait before the Lord...

     On first kneeling, she thought of resolving that she would continue to wait before the Lord until the desire of her heart was granted.  But the adversary, who had stood ready to withstand every progressive step, suggested, “Be careful, God may disappoint your expectations; and suppose you should be left to wrestle all night; ay, and all the morrow too?”

     ... For a moment she hesitated whether she should really determine to continue in a waiting attitude until the desire of her heart was fulfilled; [but she continued on]...

     And here most emphatically could she say, she was led by a “way she knew not;” so simple, so clearly described, and urged by the word of the Lord, and yet so often overlooked, for want of that child-like simplicity which, without reasoning, takes God at his word.  It was just while engaged in the act of preparing the way, as she deemed, to some great and undefinable exercise, that the Lord, through the medium of faith in his written word, led her astonished soul directly into the “way of holiness,” where, with unutterable delight, she found the comprehensive desires of her soul blended and satisfied in the fulfillment of the command, “Be ye holy.” [42]

                              ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

 

Charlotte L. Tshabalala (n.d.; Daughters of Africa; South Africa):

 

[A litany she wrote for recitation by her people:] [43]

Leader: “Except the Lord build the house, they labour in vain that build it.” “The wise woman buildeth her house but the foolish woman plucketh it down with her hands.”

People: Oh, God, we beseech Thee, make us willing to serve our homes, our communities and our beloved country by working with Thy guidance and Thy love.

Leader: From Thee alone may we learn to be teachers of peace and harmony in our abodes as we daily go about our duties.

People: Fill our hearts with Thy peace.

Leader: Dear Lord, may we abound in grace, that we may be called virtuous women whose price is above rubies, whose candle goeth not out by night, whose husbands are known in the gates when they sit among the elders of the land.

People: As both morning and evening stars may shine brightly in our corners.

Leader: May we open our mouths with wisdom and be kind.

People: “Whose children called them blessed and say many daughters have done virtuously, but ye excel them all.”  Lord, we dedicate our bodies to be Thy temple.

Leader: May we do away with fault finding and let alone self-seeking, may we become more sincere friends and put away prejudices.

People: Lord, live Thyself in our lives, and make us always generous and slow in judgment.

Leader: Straightforward and unafraid may we put into action our better impulses with nobleness of mind.

People: Help us to work patiently, make us grow calm, serene and gentle.

Leader: May we ever remember it is the little things that create differences but that in the big things of life we are one.

People: Lord, help us to be broad and generous in thought and deed.

Leader: We pray for our sisters who have not as yet had the privilege of knowing the joys of service to others.

People: Lord, keep us from pettiness, help us to be large in thought and encourage our efforts to aid our youth in its fight for high and noble living.

Leader: From many homes with many minds we come together this day, each to each, bound as daughters in Thy service.

People: May the spirit of wisdom and understanding, and that of counsel and right, and the spirit of obedience and fear of the Lord rest upon us now and for ever.  Amen.

                              ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

 

Anne Morrow Lindbergh (20th century; Presbyterian; U.S.):

 

[In the householder life,] I want first of all ... to be at peace with myself.  I want a singleness of eye, a purity of intention, a central core to my life that will enable me to carry out these obligations and activities as well as I can.  I want, in fact—to borrow from the language of the saints—to live “in grace” as much of the time as possible.  ... By grace I mean an inner harmony, essentially spiritual, which can be translated into outward harmony. ... I would like to achieve a state of inner spiritual grace from which I could function and give as I was meant to in the eye of God. ... Most people are aware of periods in their lives when they seem to be “in grace” and other periods when they feel “out of grace” ... In the first happy condition, one seems to carry all one’s tasks before one lightly, as if borne along on a great tide; and in the opposite state one can hardly tie a shoe-string. (23-4) [44]

 

The life I have chosen as wife and mother entrains a whole caravan of complications. ... Life today in America is based on the premise of ever-widening circles of contact and communication. ... My mind reels with it. ... This is not the life of simplicity but the life of multiplicity that the wise men warn us of.  It leads not to unification but to fragmentation.  It does not bring grace; it destroys the soul. ... It has always been one of the pitfalls of mankind. ... Yet the problem is particularly and essentially woman’s.  Distraction is, always has been, and probably always will be, inherent in woman’s life.  For to be a woman is to have interests and duties, raying out in all directions from the central core-core, like spokes from the hub of a wheel.  The pattern of our lives is essentially circular.  We must be open to all points of the compass; husband, children, friends, home, community; stretched out, exposed, sensitive ... to each call that comes. ... How much we need, and how arduous of attainment is that steadiness preached in all rules for holy living.  How desirable and how distant is the ideal of the contemplative, artist, of saint—the inner inviolable core, the single eye. ... I begin to understand why the saints were rarely married women.  I am convinced it has nothing inherently to do, as I once supposed, with chastity.  It has to do primarily with distractions.  The bearing, rearing, feeding and educating of children; the running of a house with its thousand details; human relationships with their myriad pulls—woman’s normal occupations in general run counter to creative life, or contemplative life, or saintly life.  ... It is more basically: how to remain whole in the midst of the distractions of life; how to remain balanced, no matter what centrifugal forces tend to pull one off center; how to remain strong, no matter what shocks come in at the periphery and tend to crack the hub of the wheel.  ... Perhaps a first step, is in simplification of life, in cutting out some of the distractions. ... I cannot shed my responsibilities. ... I cannot be a nun in the midst of family life. ... The solution for me, surely, is neither in total renunciation of the world, nor in total acceptance of it.  I must find a balance somewhere, an alternating rhythm between these two extremes; a swinging of the pendulum between solitude and communion, between retreat and return. (25-30)

 

Simplification of outward life is not enough.  It is merely the outside. ... The complete answer is not to be found on the outside, in an outward mode of living. ... The final answer, I know, is always inside. (35)

 

Ironically, ... today more of us in America than anywhere else in the world have the luxury of choice between simplicity and complication of life.  And for the most part, we, who could choose simplicity, choose complication. (33)

 

We seem so frightened today of being alone that we never let it happen. Even if family, friends, and movies should fail, there is still the radio or television to fill up the void.  Women, who used to complain of loneliness, need never be alone any more.  We can do our housework with soap-opera heroes at our side.  Even day-dreaming was more creative than this... We choke the space with continuous music, chatter, and companionship to which we do not even listen.  It is simply there to fill the vacuum.  When the noise stops there is no inner music to take its place.  We must re-learn to be alone.  It is a difficult lesson to learn today—to leave one’s friends and family and deliberately practice the art of solitude for an hour of a day of a week. ... It is not physical solitude that actually separates one from other men, not physical isolation, but spiritual isolation.  It is not the desert island nor the stony wilderness that cuts you from the people you love.  It is the wilderness in the mind, the desert wastes in the heart through which one wanders lost and a stranger.  When one is a stranger to oneself then one is estranged from others too.  If one is out of touch with oneself, then one cannot touch others.  ... Only when one is connected to one’s own core is one connected to others, I am beginning to discover.  And, for me, the core, the inner spring, can best be refound through solitude. (41-4)

 

The world today does not understand, in either man or woman, the need to be alone. ... Every person, especially every woman, should be alone sometime during the year, some part of each week and each day. ... If one sets aside time for a business appointment, a trip to the hairdresser, a social engagement, or a shopping expedition, that time is accepted as inviolable.  But if one says: I cannot come because that is my hour to be alone, one is considered rude, egotistical or strange.  What a commentary on our civilization, when being alone is considered suspect; when one has to apologize for it, make excuses, hide the fact that one practices it—like a secret vice!  Actually these are among the most important times in one’s life—when one is alone.  Certain springs are tapped only when we are alone. ... Women need solitude in order to find again the true essence of themselves: that firm strand which will be the indispensable center of a whole web of human relationships.  She must find that inner stillness which Charles Morgan describes as “the stilling of the soul within the activities of the mind and body so that it might be still as the axis of a revolving wheel is still.”  This beautiful image is to my mind the one that women could hold before their eyes.  This is an end toward which we could strive—to be the still axis within the revolving wheel of relationships, obligations, and activities.  Solitude alone is not the answer to this; it is only a step toward it... The problem is more how to still the soul in the midst of its activities. (48-51)

 

Instead of stilling the center, the axis of the wheel, we [women] add more centrifugal activities to our lives—which tend to throw us off balance. ...In other times, women had in their lives more forces which centered them whether or not they realized it... Their very seclusion in the home gave them time alone.  Many of their duties were conducive to a quiet contemplative drawing together of the self.  They had more creative tasks to perform.  Nothing feeds the center so much as creative work, even humble kinds like cooking and sewing. (52-3)

 

Our daily life does not prepare us for contemplation.  How can a single weekly hour of church, helpful as it may be, counteract the many daily hours of distraction that surround it?  ... Woman’s life today is tending more and more toward the state William James describes so well in the German word, “Zerrissenheit—torn-to-pieces-hood.”  She cannot live perpetually in “Zerrissenheit.”  She will be shattered into a thousand pieces.  On the contrary, she must consciously encourage those pursuits which oppose the centrifugal forces of today.  Quiet time alone, contemplation, prayer, music, a centering line of thought or reading, of study or work.  It can be physical or intellectual or artistic, any creative life proceeding from oneself.  It need not be an enormous project or a great work.  But it should be something of one’s own.  Arranging a bowl of flowers in the morning can give a sense of quiet in a crowded day—like writing a poem, or saying a prayer.  What matters is that one be for a time inwardly attentive.  ...

     Center-down, say the Quaker saints.  To the possession of the self the way is inward, says Plotinus.  The cell of self-knowledge is the stall in which the pilgrim must be reborn, says St. Catherine of Siena.  Voices from the past.  In fact, these are pursuits and virtues of the past.  But done in another way today because done consciously, aware, with eyes open.  Not done as before, as part of the pattern of the time.  Not done because everyone else is doing them; almost no one is doing them.  Revolutionary, in fact, because almost every trend and pressure, every voice from the outside is against this new way of inward living. 

     Woman must be the pioneer in this turning inward for strength.  In a sense she has always been the pioneer.  Less able, until the last generation, to escape into outward activities, the very limitations of her life forced her to look inward.  And from looking inward she gained an inner strength which man in his outward active life did not as often find.  But in our recent efforts to emancipate ourselves, to prove ourselves the equal of man, we have, naturally enough perhaps, been drawn into competing with him in his outward activities, to the neglect of our own inner springs.  Why have we been seduced into abandoning this timeless inner strength of woman for the temporal outer strength of man?  This outer strength of man is essential to the pattern, but even here the reign of purely outer strength and purely outward solutions seems to be waning today.  Men, too, are being forced to look inward—to find inner solutions as well as outer ones.  Perhaps this change marks a new stage of maturity for modern, extrovert, activist, materialistic Western man.  Can it be that he is beginning to realize that the kingdom of heaven is within? (54-8)

 

A good relationship has a pattern like a dance and is built on some of the same rules.  The partners do not need to hold on tightly... To touch heavily would be to arrest the pattern and freeze the movement... There is no place here for the possessive clutch, the clinging arm, the heavy hand; only the barest touch in passing.  Now arm in arm, now face to face, now back to back—it does not matter which. ... The joy of such a pattern is not only the joy of creation or the joy of participation, it is also the joy of living in the moment.  Lightness of touch and living in the moment are intertwined.  One cannot dance well unless one is completely in time with the music, not leaning back to the last step or pressing forward to the next one, but poised directly on the present step as it comes. ... but how does one learn this technique of the dance?  Why is it so difficult?  What makes us hesitate and stumble?  It is fear, I think, that makes one cling nostalgically to the last moment or clutch greedily toward the next.  Fear destroys “the winged life.”  But how to exorcise it?  It can only be exorcised by its opposite, love.  When the heart is flooded with love there is no room in it for fear, for doubt, for hesitation.  And it is this lack of fear that makes for the dance.  When each partner loves so completely that he has forgotten to ask himself whether or not he is loved in return; when he only knows that he loves and is moving to its music—then, and then only, are two people able to dance perfectly in tune to the same rhythm. (104-6)

     The search for outward simplicity, for inner integrity, for fuller relationship—is this not a limited outlook?  Of course it is, in one sense.  Today a kind of planetal point of view has burst upon mankind. ...

     But just how far can we implement this planetal awareness?  We are asked today to feel compassionately for everyone in the world... The inter-relatedness of the world links us constantly with more people than our hearts can hold.  Or rather—for I believe the heart is infinite—modern communication loads us with more problems than the human frame can carry. ...

     We are forced to make some compromise.  Because we cannot deal with the many as individuals, we sometimes try to simplify the many into an abstraction called the mass.  Because we cannot deal with the complexity of the present, we often over-ride it and live in a simplified dream of the future.  Because we cannot solve our own problems right here at home, we talk about problems out there in the world.  An escape process goes on from the intolerable burden we have placed upon ourselves.  But can one really feel deeply for an abstraction called the mass?  Can one make the future a substitute for the present?  And what guarantee have we that the future will be any better if we neglect the present?  Can one solve world problems when one is unable to solve one’s own?  ...

     We are now ready for a true appreciation of the value of the here and the now and the individual. The here, the now, and the individual, have always been the special concern of the saint, the artist, the poet, and—from time immemorial—the woman.  In the small circle of the home she has never quite forgotten the particular uniqueness of each member of the family; the spontaneity of now; the vividness of here.  This is the basic substance of life. ... When we start at the center of ourselves, we discover something worthwhile extending toward the periphery of the circle.  We find again some of the joy in the now, some of the peace in the here, some of the love in me and thee which go to make up the kingdom of heaven on earth.

     The waves echo behind me.  Patience—Faith—Openness, is what the sea has to teach.  Simplicity—Solitude—Intermittency... But there are other beaches to explore.  There are more shells to find.  This is only a beginning. (123-8)

                              ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

 

Margaret Prescott Montague (1878-1955; U.S.):

 

It was an ordinary cloudy March day. ... I am glad to remember that there was nothing extraordinary about the weather, nor any unusualness of setting—no flash of spring or beauty of scenery—to induce what I saw.  It was, on the contrary, almost a dingy day. ... Yet here, in this everyday setting, and entirely unexpectedly (for I had never dreamed of such a thing), my eyes were opened, and for the first time in all my life I caught a glimpse of the ecstatic beauty of reality.  I cannot now recall whether the revelation came suddenly or gradually; I only remember finding myself in the very midst of those wonderful moments, beholding life for the first time in all its young intoxication of loveliness, in its unspeakable joy, beauty, and importance.  I cannot say exactly what the mysterious change was.  I saw no new thing, but I saw all the usual things in a miraculous new light—in what I believe is their true light.  I saw for the first time how wildly beautiful and joyous, beyond any words of mine to describe, is the whole of life.  Every human being moving across that porch, every sparrow that flew, every branch tossing in the wind, was caught in and was a part of the whole mad ecstasy of loveliness, of joy, of importance, of intoxication of life.  It was not that for a few keyed-up moments I imagined all existence as beautiful, but that my inner vision was cleared to the truth so that I saw the actual loveliness which is always there, but which we so rarely perceive; and I knew that every man, woman, bird, and tree, every living thing before me, was extravagantly beautiful, and extravagantly important.  And, as I beheld, my heart melted out of me in a rapture of love and delight. ... Once out of all the gray days of my life I have looked into the heart of reality; I have witnessed the truth; I have seen life as it really is—ravishingly, ecstatically, madly beautiful, and filled to overflowing with a wild joy, and a value unspeakable.  For those glorified moments I was in love with every living thing before me—the trees in the wind, the little birds flying, ... the people who came and went.  There was nothing that was alive that was not a miracle.  Just to be alive was in itself a miracle.  My very soul flowed out of me in a great joy. [45]

 

                              ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

 

Katharine Trevelyan (1909-?; Anglican; England):

 

     [After a disappointing human love,] I took my pain and foolishness in both hands and quite simply offered them to God, whom I recognized through this last anguish to be the backcloth of my life and my eternal love. 

     What followed was beyond me to understand. ... It felt as though an infinitely complex machine had in all its parts, between one moment and the next, clicked silently into gear and started to work with inexorable power. 

     I saw face to face at last. 

     Light streamed down from the sky such as I have never beheld.  The sun shone with a new light, as though translucent gold were at its heart.  I saw not only the physical sun but the spiritual sun also, which poured down on me as I walked in the garden at Coombe. 

     The wonder was beyond anything I have ever read or imagined or heard men speak about. ...

     Every flower spoke to me, every spider wove a miracle of intricacy for my eyes, every bird understood that here was Heaven come to earth.  Turner must have been seeing the skies as I saw them then—living cloud shapes crossing and recrossing each other as though conversing in form or singing in color. 

     But there was something more wonderful than the Light within the light—more wonderful than the standstill of time.  It was that God walked with me in the garden as He did before the Fall.  Whether I sat, whether I walked, He was there—radiant, burningly pure, holy beyond holy. 

     When I breathed, I breathed Him; when I asked a question He both asked and answered it. 

     My heart was unshuttered to Him and He came and went at will; my head had no limit of boundary of skull, but the Spirit of God played on me as though my mind were a harp which reached the zenith.      

     Every prayer was fulfilled, every possible desire for the whole world consummated; for His Kingdom had come and I had beheld it with my very eyes.  Never again the need to meditate for He was here, to be STOOD in, SAT in, as a child might play on the edges of a great sunny river.  And, indeed, I found myself only a child, playing in Him, laughing with Him at the way He was visiting His world.  When I stood within Him, He gave and was everything.  The years to come, which He showed me as easily as a father shows his child a curious shell beside the great river, held in them no surprise; only wonder and joy. [46]

 

                              ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

 

Anonymous Female Episcopalian Author (early 20th century):

 

     One day I returned from a walk, and hardly had I entered my room when I commenced thinking with great nearness and intimacy of Jesus; and suddenly, with the most intense vividness, He presented Himself before my consciousness so that I inwardly perceived Him, and at once I was overcome by a great agony of remorse for my unworthiness... but now indeed at least I knew beyond a doubt that I had a soul!  My wonderful Lord had come to pay me a visit, and I was not fit to receive Him—hence my agony.  I would try with all my strength to improve myself for Him. ...

     [For,] by this Presentment of Himself before my soul... I suddenly, and with terrible clearness, saw the whole insufferable offensiveness of myself.

     Two years went by, and on Easter morning, at the close of the service as I knelt in prayer in the church, He suddenly presented Himself again before my soul, and again I saw myself, and again I went down and down into those terrible abysses of spiritual pain; and I suffered more than I suffered the first time... After this my soul knew Jesus as Christ the Son of God, and my heart and mind accepted this without any further wonder or question, and entirely without knowing how this knowledge had been given, for it came as a gift. 

     A great repose now commenced to fill me, and the world and all its interests and ways seemed softly and gently blown out of my heart by the winds of a great new love, my love for the Risen Christ. ...

     It was summer-time... I went up on to the wild lonely hill where I so often walked, and there I contended with God for His help [her husband was fighting in France during World War II].  For the first time in my life there was nothing between God and myself—this had continually happened with Jesus Christ, but not with God the Father, Who remained totally inaccessible to me.  Now, like a man standing in a very dark place and seeing nothing but knowing himself immediately near to another—so I knew myself in very great nearness to God.  I had no need for eyes to see outwardly, because of the immense magnetism of this inward Awareness. ... It felt as though the Spirit of God stood over against my spirit, and my spirit wrestled with God’s Spirit for more than an hour ... praying Him, beseeching Him for His help... But He gave me no answer, no sign, no help.  He gave me nothing but that awful silence which seems to hang for ever between God and Man.  And I became exhausted, and turned away in despair from God, and from supplication, and from striving, and from contending, and, very quiet and profoundly sad, I stood looking out across the hills to the distant view—how gentle and lovely this peace of the evening sky, whilst on earth all the nations of the world were fighting together in blood and fury and pain! 

     I had stood there for perhaps ten minutes, mutely and sadly wondering at the meaning of it all, and was commencing to walk away when suddenly I was surrounded by a great whiteness which blotted out from me all my surroundings.  It was like a great light of white cloud which hid all my surroundings from me, though I stood there with my eyes wide open: and the cloud pricked, so that I said to myself, “It is an electric cloud,” and it pricked me from my head down to my elbows, but no further.  I felt no fear whatever, but a very great wonder, and stood there all quite simple and placid, feeling very quiet.  Then there began to be poured into me and indescribably great vitality, so that I said to myself, “I am being filled with some marvelous Elixir.”  And it filled me from the feet up, gently and slowly, so that I could notice every advance of it.  As it rose higher in me, so I grew to feel freed:  that is to say, I had within me the astounding sensation of having the capacity to pass where or how I would—which is to say I felt freed of the law of gravity.  I was like a free spirit—I felt and knew within myself this glorious freedom!  I tasted for some moments a new form of living.  Words are unable to convey the splendour of it, the boundless joy, the liberty, the glory of it.

     And the incomprehensible Power rose and rose in me until it reached the very crown of my head, and immediately it had quite filled me a marvelous thing happened—the Wall, the dreadful Barrier between God and me, came down entirely, and immediately I loved Him.  I was so filled with love that I had to cry aloud my love, so great was the force and the wonder and the delight and the might of it.

     And now, slowly, the vivid whiteness melted away so that I saw everything around me once more just as before; but for a little while I continued to stand there very still and thoughtful, because I was filled with wonder and great peace.

 

     One night I compose myself as usual for sleep, but I do not sleep, neither can I say that I am quite awake.  It is neither sleep, nor is my wakefulness the usual wakefulness.  I do not dream, I cannot move.  My consciousness is alights with a new fiery energy of life; it feels to extend to an infinite distance beyond my body, and yet remains connected with my body.  I live in a manner totally new and totally incomprehensible, a life in which none of my senses are used and which is yet a thousand, and more than a thousand, times as vivid.  It is living at white heat—without forms, without sound, without sight, without anything which I have ever been aware of in this world, and at a terrible speed.  What is the meaning of all this?  I do not know... but I am not afraid.  God is teaching me something in His own way.  For six weeks every night I enter this condition, and the duration and power of intensity of it increase by degrees.  It feels that my soul is projected or travels for incalculable distances beyond my body—(long afterwards I understand through experience that this is not the mode of it, but that the soul remaining in the body is by some de-insulation exposed to the knowledge of spirit-life as and when free of the flesh)—and I learn to comprehend and to know a new manner of living, as a swimmer learns a new mode of progression by means of his swimming...

     By the end of three weeks I can remain nightly for many hours in this condition, which is always accompanied by an intense and vivid consciousness of God.

     As this consciousness of God becomes more and more vivid so my body suffers more and more.  By day I can only eat the smallest morsels of food, which almost choke me, but I drink a great quantity of water.  I am perfectly healthy, though I have hardly any sleep and very little, indeed almost no, food—the suffering is only at night with the breathing and the heart when in this strange condition.  But I have no anxiety whatever; I am glad that He shall do as He pleases with me.  Nothing but love can give us this supreme confidence. 

     During the whole of these experiences I live in a state of very considerable abstraction ... of the extremity of poverty.  I now become divested of all interests outside and inside, divested of the greater part of my intelligence, divested of my will.  I am of no value whatever, less than the dust on the road. 

     In this awful nothingness I am still I.  My consciousness continues and is not confounded with or lost in any other consciousness, but is reduced to stark nakedness and worth nothing: and this worthless nothing is hung up and, as it were, suspended nowhere in particular as far from earth as from heaven, totally unknown and unwanted by both God and Man.  I am naked patience—waiting.  I have a few thoughts, but very few: I think one thought where in normal times I should think ten thousand.  I feel and know that I am nothing, and I feel that this has been done to me; just as before, all that I had was also done to me and was a gift.  So I acknowledge that I once had and was perhaps something and that now I possess and certainly am nothing—I acknowledge it, I accept it, without hesitation, without protest. ... I have not a sufficiency of will, intelligence, of thought with which to sin!  I am too completely nothing to be able to sin. ...

     I have just sufficient capacity left me to automatically, mechanically, go through with the necessities of life.  I have not become idiotic.  I live in a tremendous and profound solitude, such a solitude as would frighten many people greatly.  But ... I have no fears now of any kind; but I wonder.  Perhaps I am just four things—wonder, patience, resignation, and nothing.

 

     This period of intense abstraction, this strange valley of humiliation, poverty, solitude, seemed a necessary prelude to the great, the supreme, experience of my life.  As I came slowly out of this poverty and solitude, the joyousness of my spiritual experience increased: the nights were no longer at all a time of sleep of repose, but of rapturous living.

     The sixth week came, and I commenced to fear the nights and this tremendous living, because the happiness and the light and the poignancy and the rapture of it were becoming more than I could bear.  I began to wonder secretly if God intended to draw my soul so near to Him that I should die of the splendor of this living.  My raptures were not only caused by the sense of the immediate Presence of God—this is a distinctive rapture running through and above all raptures, but there are lesser ecstasies caused by the meeting of the soul with Thoughts or Ideas, with melodies which bear the soul in almost unendurable delight upon a thousand summits of perfection; and with an all-pervading rapturous Beauty in a great light.  There is this peculiarity about the manner of these thoughts and melodies and beauties—they are not spoken, heard, or seen, but lived. ...

     There came a night when I passed beyond Ideas, beyond melody, beyond beauty, into vast lost spaces, depths of untellable bliss, into a Light. And the Light is an ecstasy of delight, and the Light is an ocean of bliss, and the Light is Life and Love, and the Light is the too deep contact with God, and the Light is unbearable Joy; and in unendurable bliss my soul beseeches God that He will cover her from this most terrible rapture, this felicity which exceeds all measure.  And she is not converted from it.  And she beseeches Him again; and she is not covered; and being in the last extremity from this most terrible joy, she beseeches Him again: and immediately is covered from it.

 

     Wonderful, beautiful weeks went by, filled with divine, indescribable peace.  The Presence of God was with me day and night, and the world was not the world as I had once known it—a place where men and women fought and sinned and toiled and anguished and wondered horribly [over] the meaning of this mystery of pain and joy, of life and death.  The world was become Paradise, and in my heart I cried to all my fellow-souls, “Why fret and toil, why sweat and anguish for the things of earth when our own God has in His hand such peace and bliss and happiness to give to Every man?  O come and receive it, Every man his share.” 

     And the glamour of life in Unity with God became past all comprehension and all words.

     One evening as I knelt to say my prayers, which were never long, because since the Visitation on the hill my natural habit—whether walking, sitting, working, traveling, or on my bed—had come to be a continual sending up from my heart and mind the tenderest and most adoring, the most worshipping and thanking little stream of thoughts to God ...

     And because this mode of prayer is so smooth and joyous, so easy, so unutterably sweet ... it was only for short and set times that I worshipped Him as the creature in prayers upon its knees; but those few moments of prayer would always be intense, the heart and the mind with great power bent wholly and singly upon God.

     So now, this evening as I knelt and dwelt in great singleness on God, He drew me so powerfully, He encompassed me so with His glamour, that this singleness and concentration of thought continued much longer than usual on account of the greatness of the love that I felt for Him, and the concentration became an intensity of penetration because of this magnetism, He turned on to me, and my mind became faint, and died, and I could no longer think of God, for I was one with Him.  And I was still I; though I was become Ineffable Joy.

     When it was over I rose from my knees, and I said to myself, for five wonderful moments I have been in contact with God in an unutterable bliss and repose: and He gave me the bliss tenderly and not as on that Night of Terror; but when I looked at my watch I saw that it had been for between two and three hours.

     Then I wondered that I was not stiff, that I was not cold, for the night was chilly and I had nothing about me but a little velvet dressing-wrapper; and my neck was not stiff, though my head had been thrown back, as is a necessity in Communion with God; and I thought to myself, it is as if my body also had shared in the blessing.

     And this most blessed happening happened to me every day for a short while, usually only for a few moments.  In this way God Himself caused and enabled me to contemplate and know Him; and I saw that it was in some ways at one with my beautiful pastime, but with this tremendous difference in it—that whereas my mind had formerly concentrated itself upon the Beautiful, and remaining Mind had soared away above all forms into its nebulous essence in a strange seductive anguish, it now was drawn and magnetized beyond the Beautiful directly to the Maker of it: and the soaring was like a death or swooning of the mind, and immediately I was living with that which is above the mind: in this living there was no note of pain, but a marvelous joy.

     Slowly I learnt to differentiate degrees of Contemplation, but to my own finding there are two principal forms—Passive and Active (of High) Contemplation.

     In meditation is little or no activity, but a sweet quiet thinking and talking with Jesus Christ.  In Passive Contemplation is the beginning of real activity; mind and soul without effort (though in a secret state of great love-activity) raise themselves, focusing themselves upon the all-unseen Godhead: now is no longer any possible picture in the mind, nor anyone nor anything, not even of the gracious figure of or the ways of Christ: here, because of love, must begin the sheer straight drive of will and heart, mind and soul, to the Godhead, and here we may be said first to commence to breathe the air of heaven.

     There is no prayer, no beseeching, and no asking—there are no words and no thoughts save those that intrude and flash unwanted over the mind, but a great undivided attention and waiting upon God: God near, yet never touching.  This state is no ecstasy, but smooth, silent, high living in which we learn heavenly manners.  This is Passive of Quiet Contemplation.

     High Contemplation ends in Contact with God, in ecstasy and rapture. In it the activity of the soul (though entirely without effort on her part) is immensely increased.  It is not to be sought for, and we cannot reach it for ourselves; but it is to be enjoyed when God calls, when He assists the soul, when He energizes her. 

     And then our cry is no more, Oh, that I had wings! but, Oh, that I might fold my wings and stay! [47]

 

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Agnes Sanford (1897?-1983; Episcopalian; China-U.S.): 

 

The danger of not going deep enough is the old danger of Christianity: pride, inflation, the feeling that one has now attained and is now made perfect; and there is nowhere to go from here.  There is no greater danger than this in the whole of the Christian life. (S 226) [48]

 

One time [in her childhood] I had climbed to the highest valley [near her missionary family’s residence in China]... I entered into a state of indescribable dreamy bliss wherein I was one with the tall crisp grass, and with the tiny creatures that lived within it, and with the high blue sky whence sunlight drenched my body with pure joy.  There was no more time.  It was yesterday and today and forever.  And there was no more me as a separate being.  I was part of the tall grass, and the tiny sounds when it crinkled in the sun sounded within myself also, as truly as did the beating of my heart.  The wee grasshoppers were part of me, and the ripples of warm breeze that flowed through my being, and the far sky ... Surely at that moment (of eternity) His Spirit communed with mine. ... One other time I felt this indescribable presence of God the Creator.  Again I was alone, but this time active, exploring a rocky slope ... While leaping and scrambling over the rocks, I entered  into a state of high ecstasy that was not entirely of this world. ... It was ... the uncreated essence of the Creator, His eve-living creativity, flowing into me from bamboo and from rock, from ferns and moss and tiny orchids hiding in the grass.  I did not know this at the time, for I had no idea that sentient life of any kind could be in things inanimate.  But it can be—it is.  The life of the Creator is in every created thing, for it is made of the very essence of His being, and His word from whence it came still speaks through grass and grasshoppers to those attuned to Him.  Primitive people, sensing this, have worshiped nature as their God. (S 29-30)

 

[A few years later, while reclining in a lifeboat while on a ship crossing the Pacific Ocean:]  How long I lay there I have no idea, for I slipped beyond the swing of time of place.  I was one with the stars—I was one with the universe.  I felt in me the life of the strange creatures within the sea and beneath the waves and flying above the waves.  I was not myself, I was life.  And yet I was myself, and life was me. (S 36)

 

[Later in life, after her marriage, while on a vacation in New England, lying in the sunlight next to a lake:]  I prayed that God’s life would enter into me through the sunlight.  Full upon me it shone ... [Then,] it happened.  In a time that was not time, for I was beyond time—in a time that might have been a split second or might have been eternity, for indeed I entered into eternity—I was filled with such unbearable bliss that I thought, “If this doesn’t stop, I’ll die.  But I don’t want it to stop, I don’t want it to stop!”  It did.  But I have known the joy of heaven... For many years I told this to no one.  The after-effects of it were puzzling to me and a bit frightening.  There was an intense burning within the head, as though a hot coal of fire abode therein.  And around the head was a tightness like a tight band.  [This experience, of course, sounds very much like the kind of classic “anointing of the Holy Spirit” spoken of in Christianity, of “śaktipāta” as known within the Hindu tradition.] (S 135)

 

[Some years after this, when her healing ministry had already been launched, while Agnes and two other women were in spiritual retreat in Tucson, Arizona, praying for each other:]  And the power of the Spirit fell upon us immediately.  First of all, we felt a deep and intense burning in the middle of the head and with it a drawing feeling [in the head region] ... as though one had on a hat that was too tight. ... We were healed immediately, every one of us, of all the small weaknesses that had troubled us. ... I felt ... the radiation of a spiritual power all over me, from the top of the head to the soles of the feet.  In addition to these all-pervading currents of the power of the Holy Spirit, we were at that time given the three specific gifts that Jesus Himself promised.  First of all, the gift of joy; we were swept with a joy transcending any that we had ever known before.  This heavenly rapture came, not from the mind, but from the heart—from within, like a well of water springing up unto everlasting life.... We next became aware of having been given a new gift of the understanding of truth.  It swept over us all night long, for we slept but little, being so filled with light and so illumined by the Spirit that sleep was unnecessary.  As I lay there, unsolved problems and perplexing mysteries came up into the conscious mind one after another, and with each came the solution, so that I cried, “Oh, I see!” ... And finally another change took place in me immediately, though it was not perceived until later.  This change was wrought by the gift of peace.  Everything that I did, either with the mind or with the body, could now be done with about half the energy that it once required, and in about half the time.  I could write and not be weary, and I could cook and not faint.  I could now serve a dinner in half an hour instead of in an hour and a half.  How perfectly amazing and how completely delightful!  Apparently the Holy Spirit does not require us to float around continually on a rosy cloud praising the Lord, but to praise the Lord in our everyday lives by doing our ordinary work with precision and speed.  Apparently the Holy Spirit at this time invaded and pervaded both the conscious mind and the heart or subconscious, soul, spirit, or whatever one may call the inner intelligence of mind and body. Thus everything in mind and body was “quickened,” made more alert and more efficient. (S 218-9)

 

The Holy Spirit that spoke through the prophets speaks both through us and to us today, in the kindliest possible manner, and we need only still ourselves to feel His presence. (HL 67)

 

Christian people must know that Jesus lives and heals today—they must! (S 142)

 

The time will come when the whole church will awake to the fact that Jesus heals today—both soul and body.  Or if the church will not awaken to the truth, then the church will perish of dry rot and the Lord of heaven and earth who is Jesus Christ will Himself find those outside the church who will come to Him by thousands, by thousands, and He will be their Lord and they will be His people. (S 200)

 

Some churches are now awakening into this glory of the Lord, this coming of His Holy Spirit, this actual mutation of human beings into the sons of God.  Other churches are still casting long shadows.  But even if they shut out the rising sunlight of the Lord ... the light of the new day cannot be held back. ... Jesus is coming again!  And if the wise and prudent will not see Him, being enamored of their own humanity, then He will reveal His divinity unto babes. (S 227)

 

Speaking in tongues [the idea of which Agnes resisted for many years, but finally experienced in mid-life] is simply the Spirit reaching and touching something in the deep unconscious, or as the Bible would say, the heart, so that out of the heart the tongue speaks a language that the conscious mind does not understand but that the heart knows. (S 221)

 

I have believed from the beginning [i.e., the start of her healing ministry in the 1940s after herself being healed of chronic depression by a minister named Hollis Colwell] that all healing comes from God and that anyone who is willing to be a channel and tries to fulfill the conditions, hungering and thirsting for righteousness even though not always attaining it, can pray the prayer of faith and see miracles of healing. (S 117-8)

 

The Lord has the most extraordinary ways of doing what He wants to do through individuals ... if only someone will pray to Him with faith. (S 231)

 

As our prayers, our mental training and our acts of forgiveness fuse into a high consciousness of God’s indwelling, we become more and more aware of an inner source of power that can be tapped at will. (HL 66)

 

We learn faith by trying to understand that we are children of light and then correcting every thought that denies our glorious heritage of life and love.  This daily practice will gradually fill the subconscious with the new thought-habit of faith, so that one day it will overflow into our lives.  When that day comes we will not need to correct our thoughts any more, for faith and peace and joy will be our instinctive and natural reaction to every situation.  Surely this is worth a little mental training!  If we desire to become musicians, we do not resent the daily drill.  If we want to learn typewriting, we do not refuse to practice every day.  Surely it is as important to learn to think with power as it is to learn to play the piano or type! (HL 33)

 

Blind humanity insists upon doubting the pure current of His love instead of doubting the pureness of its own channels.  When the greatest Conductor of God’s love appeared among men, He found these channels almost completely blocked by many things that were not love. ... By His outpouring of love He ...reconnected man with God, who is love.  The men who were first reconnected with God and felt the inrushing of His power did the very works that Jesus did.  They caused the lame to walk and the blind to see, the deaf to hear and even the dead to live.  They were so radiantly and absurdly happy that men said, “What is the matter with these people?  They can’t be drunk!  It’s too early in the morning!”  ... He [told his disciples] ... that He would return to cooperate with them in His great redeeming project of sending forth love... He did return, in His Holy Spirit, at Pentecost, and so He returns to each of us today.  But the completion of that returning, when His glory will shine from one end of the heavens to the other, the world has yet to see.  He has accomplished His redemption.  It is our turn next.  We are His channels for the sending out of His redemptive love into the world.  We have not done this.  Hence the break in the pipeline that carries His love to humanity.  Even the first Christians did not quite succeed in living up to His high standard of love... He told them not to be angry at all, and upon the cross He showed that it was possible to live up to this.  But even among the first apostles we find dissensions.  As the early Christians departed little by little from the high standard of Christ, the power of God faded away little by little from among them. ... As generation after generation passed, that day [of Christ’s return] seemed farther and farther away.  For still His people were waiting for Him, not realizing that He was waiting for them. ... As century after century rolled by and the power of God dimmed out from among men more and more, they placed the responsibility for this dimming-out on Him and not on themselves. There came a time when the actual working of God’s power was the exception rather than the rule, and man called it a “miracle.” ... The Christian church abandoned love as its heavenly fuel, and began to insist that the stone of cruelty should burn instead. ... They looked upon riches of the East and saw that they were great.  Therefore they organized “Holy Wars” and got upon their horses and crusaded to Palestine.  Atrocities worse than the crusades were committed “for Christ’s sweet sake”: pogroms—inquisitions—witch burnings—and worst of all, the age-long persecution of His own brethren, the Jews.  And so the church, by doing in the name of Christ the very things that Christ told them not to do, lost the power to heal.  Only the faithfulness of occasional holy men who appeared through all ages, and only the tremendous force of the love of God Himself, kept any power among men at all.  This want of conformity to the law of God, who is love, is our greatest sin.  And if we wish to receive more of the inflow of God’s love, we must learn to give more of the outflow of God’s love. (HL 40-3)

 

We become perfected in love by trying to do it.  The method is so simple that any child can learn it.  It is merely to connect in spirit with the love of God, send that love to the other person, and see him re-created in goodness and joy and peace. (HL 48)

 

What, then, is Christian love?  It is a powerful, radiant and life-giving emotion [yet elsewhere, she has stated, “God’s love ... is an energy rather than an emotion.” (S 112)], charged with healing power both to the one who learns to love and the one who is loved. ... If the reader really wants to find out whether love has such power, he can do so by the simple process of learning love and trying it for himself.  In order to do this, he must re-educate his subconsciousness.  He must form new thought habits of love and compassion and friendliness and joy, so that his instinctive and natural reaction to every situation, every person and every animal may be one of love.  This is not difficult.  It is easy, because it is working in harmony with the laws of nature.  It seems difficult to us at first.  But this is because we have not taken it as a serious assignment from God.  We have dismissed it as unnecessary, coolly setting aside what Jesus came to tell us about it.  In fact, we have formed habits of dislike toward certain people or races or rulers or sects which we have no intention of giving up. ... We are apt to feel that we do not want to like certain people because if we liked them we would be friendly to them and we don’t want to be friendly to them because we don’t like them.  In other words, the real reason why most people do not learn Christian love is quite simply that they do not want to do so.  They deny this, of course... Christian love is the love of Christ, an energy so overwhelming that it led our Lord to give His life for His friends, and to give it with a joy that carried Him through untold anguish. ... To some people, this great love comes as a free gift from God, but most of us need to learn it.  And how can one learn it?  By practice. ... Our Lord suggested that we retire into a “closet,” or private room for prayer, and close the door to all outside distractions.  This simple act demands untold courage!  When first we undertake a program of prayer, the adversary seems to cause every possible interruption to come at that very moment. ... We cannot pray successfully without the harnessing of our intelligence and our will power. (50-2)

 

The four steps of prayer [are] ... (1) relaxation, (2) meditation upon the reality of God, (3) asking for the indwelling of God’s life, and (4) giving thanks for the increase of power within. (HL 52)

 

The first step in seeking to produce results by any power is to contact that power.  The first step then in seeking help from God is to contact God.  “Be still and know that I am God.”  Let us then lay aside our worries and cares, quiet our minds and concentrate upon the reality of God.  We may not know who God is or what God is, but we know that there is something that sustains this universe, and that something is not ourselves.  So the first step is to relax and to remind ourselves that there is a source of life outside of ourselves [i.e., beyond the ego-mind].  The second step is to connect with this life by some such prayer as this:  “Heavenly Father, please increase in me at this time your life-giving power.”  The third step is to believe that this power is coming into use and to accept it by faith. No matter how much we ask for something it becomes ours only as we accept it and give thanks for it.  “Thank you,” we can say, “that your life is now coming into me and increasing life in my spirit and in my mind and in my body.”  And the fourth step is to observe the operations of that light and life.  In order to do so, we must decide on some tangible thing that we wish accomplished by that power, so that we can know without question whether our experiment succeeded or failed.  Many Christians are afraid to do this. (HL 7)

 

If we try this [tapping of the energy of the Holy Spirit in prayer] as a solemn duty, it may not work.  Prayer needs wings of joy to fly upon.  But if we do it happily and spontaneously, as a sort of game, we will often see it work right before our eyes. (HL 57)

 

I learned in talking to people to find out what was binding them [out of their past] and pray for it to be healed.  I do this in a very simple.  I ask them three questions: “Were you happy when you were a child?”  If they say yes, then I ask, “When did you begin to be unhappy?”  And finally, “Why?”  Then I ask Jesus to walk into the past—back through their memories—and heal all the wounded places and break off all chains and set them free.  And I picture Him doing so, His love flowing around and around any old wound in the memory until the feeling connected with it is completely healed, so that one can remember the very thing that used to make him unhappy, yet feel no unhappiness, but only the joy of a new freedom. ... “But everybody needs this healing of the memories!” you may be thinking.  Yes.  And every minister is in a position to pray in this manner, for this is just simply ministry.  But not all ministers know or believe that Jesus Christ really does forgive sins. (S 196-7)

 

How full of praise the Bible is!  And how continually the apostles and teachers of Christianity urged us to rejoice always, in everything to give thanks! (HL 29)

 

I learned ... not to refuse any temporary symptoms that God through nature might use in order to bring about that wholeness [i.e., bodily health].  I learned to say, “This pain (of that discomfort) is just God’s power working in me toward health and life, and as soon as it has accomplished what the body is trying to do, it will go away.”  I learned also to pass on this attitude toward pain or discomfort to other people for whom I prayed.  If someone would call me up and say, “Since you prayed for my knee it hurts more than ever!  It’s terrible!”  I would reply, “Don’t lose you nerve.  This pain is only the body calling together all its energies in order to heal.  Bless it and give thanks for it, and it will pass.”  And so it would. (S 116)

 

We find after a while that we desire God more for His own sake than for ours. (HL 60)

 

God is not a far-away sovereign, but is actually the medium in which we live—the very breath of life. ... Thinking about His holiness connects us with Him. (HL 26)

 

We have a spiritual eye that sees farther than the physical eyes. (S 162)

 

The most powerful healing method of all ... [is] the method of healing by the faith of someone else who acts as a receiving and transmitting center for the life of God.  This is the oldest of all methods of healing, and it is the simplest.  It is the method that Jesus used, and that He taught his disciples to use.  He interposed His whole being between God and the patient, so that He might be used as a channel for the life of the Father. ... Many people of today are unwilling to recognize the operation of a spiritual power through the being (body) of man because they feel that it is unscientific.  No one would have believed a few years ago that an orchestra playing in Boston could be heard and seen in Florida.  They would have said that such a thing was unscientific.  yet it was not contrary to the laws of nature.  It was only a bit in advance of man’s understanding of the laws of nature.  So it is with that power of God that works through the being of one person for the healing of another.  it is not really “unscientific,” at all.  It is only the channeling of a flow of energy from God’s being through man’s being.  It is the entering in of the Holy Spirit of God through the spirit of a man, via the conscious and subconscious mind of that man, via the nerves of his body, via the center and thence to his mind and his spirit.  This message is sent, not from the level of the healer’s mind nor even from the level of his spirit, but from the Spirit of God Himself who moves in a mysterious way through the spirit, the mind and the body of the one who prays into the body, the mind and the spirit of the patient.  Thus he makes of his whole being, spirit, mind and body, a receiving and transmitting center for the power of God.  He offers and presents to God Himself, his soul and body, as a holy and living sacrifice, which is his reasonable service.  Although people do not understand this method of healing ... they nevertheless use it continually because it is the instinctive method of love.  Almost everyone who calls on a sick friend lays his hands on him in love—pats him or strokes his head or holds his hand with a vague feeling of imparting comfort, friendliness of peace!  We need only to combine this homely human touch with the prayer of faith in order to work what the world calls a miracle.  Time and again, even without understanding, this combination has been made by sheer blind faith and a miracle has resulted. (HL 82-3)

 

Now I know that some people say that there should be no effort concerning this matter—that one simply lets go and lets God.  People are different, and if you can do that, my friend, and see the signs following—miracles taking place—then thank the Lord.  But with me it is not so.  If I do not make the tremendous effort of synchronizing all I have in spirit, mind, and body and hurling it into the work, nothing happens either in the pulpit or out of it.  The time for me to let go and let God is when the work is finished... (S 172)

 

What would happen if all mothers knew how to pray?  The answer is obvious: we would no longer have wars.  And the time must come when that is so. (S 177)

 

[Jesus said:] “Whosoever is angry with his brother is in danger...”  St. Matthew’s account of this course of instruction reads, “Whosoever is angry with his brother without a cause.”  But Jesus could not have said “Without a cause” for in this very chapter He says again and again that one must forgive no matter what the cause.  Was someone, copying the original manuscript, angry with his brother at the time? ... The flow of energy that we call the law of love is the rhythm for which our beings were created, the thought-vibration in which we live and move and have our being.  Every thought of anger ... throws a contrary and destructive counter-vibration into the body, and places us in danger. ... The anger that solidifies into hate, resentment of hurt feelings deposits a continual sediment of poison in nerves, arteries, bones and mind, and prepares the body for death. ... As long as the thinking of the conscious mind is in harmony with God, the subconscious mind directs the functioning of the body in a marvelous way. But as soon as we turn the dial of our thoughts to hate, bitterness, hurt feelings, resentment and irritations we send a contrary order down to the engine room of the subconscious which responds with the general order, “Hurt!  Destroy!”  The protective and life-giving forces of the body are weakened so that one falls prey to germs and infections, to pain and weakness, to nervousness and ill temper. ... Christians have tried so hard to avoid this unavoidable law!  Their excuses for anger range from the “righteous indignation” that slew the unbeliever to the “righteous indignation” that thunders against modernist or fundamentalist or Catholic or Jew.  But there is no way of sidestepping the law of God, because it is written in our own subconscious minds. ... The poison of hate is dangerous, no matter what the cause of the hate may be.  Jesus suggested a very sensible method for avoiding the danger.  “Agree with thine adversary quickly.” ... We would be wise to direct our lives a much as possible toward paths of peace. ... [Jesus] showed a way that very few have learned. He instructed those who would follow Him into that happy and powerful life, the kingdom of Heaven, to practice forgiveness rather than revenge.  They were not only to love those who deserved to be loved—their friends.  That was easy.  Even the heathen did that.  They were also to practice love toward their enemies. (HL 44-7)

 

I once met a prayer group that had become obsessed with seeing the devil in people... The result was that they themselves were attacked by the enemy. ...[Beware] the dreadful mistake of “seeing the devil” in people here and there, and rushing upon them to cast it out.  I see that in ninety-nine out of a hundred cases it is not the devil that makes a person angry or terrified, but something in himself that needs resolving and healing through the love of Christ.  It is “the Christ in him,” of the buried impulse toward good in him, that brings the anger or fear up to utterance, so that someone looking upon him with the love of Christ can heal him by Christ’s love and forgiveness.  However, when the trouble really is possession—when the person tells me himself that he is possessed ... then I have learned that I have God’s power and His permission to cast it out. ... The power does potentially belong to all Christians, but its understanding and its use still have to be learned.  For most Christians, this would include seeing the highest potential good in every person, and feeling for him enough compassion to release that good and set him free to be a child of God. ... There are, in fact, many who are tormented, disturbed, oppressed by an evil being or evil power.  So great is the danger of this that I will not have anywhere around me an object, idol, or fetish that even remotely suggests a power not of God. ... The person giving the [exorcism] command must be completely filled with the power and the love of Christ, able to see beyond the possessing evil to the potential good in the person, and able to call forth that goodness. (S 155-6)

 

[Beware spiritualism and relying on lower entities:]  This confusion between the power of the Holy Spirit and the danger of spiritualism is the greatest menace to the Christian church today.  It is our duty to combat it however we can. (S 154)

 

Ministers become more and more preoccupied with trying to change society without changing the individual—whereas Jesus sought to change individuals, knowing that only through transformed and born-again people can society be changed. (S 171)

 

The world is so ordered that every person in it is inextricably bound up with the welfare of every other person.  For we are all one in Christ Jesus. 

      Our thought-vibrations are not limited by time or space.  The sorrow of a nation is the sorrow of the world, for it creates in the air a thought-vibration of sorrow.  The agony of a race is the agony of humanity, for it generates a “static” that confuses the love-vibrations of the whole world.  It is a silent and inexorable force that follows us through history, and we must either turn and make friends with it or be destroyed by it.  ...

     We must learn then to pray not only for the healing of the sick people here and there, not only for the protection of our men [e.g., in our wars], but also for the healing of a sick world. ...

     How then shall we extend our healing prayers to the healing of a sick world?  My own answer to this is to simply my prayer-objectives; to choose only a few objects for prayer at a time and to make them plain, concise, and concrete. ...

     It is true that all the world needs prayer.  But if I undertake to pray in detail for every nation in the world, and for capital and labor and trade and commerce and finance, I spread my prayers so thinly that I feel no force in any of them. ...

     Our first step in world prayer, then, is to bring down our objective to something concrete enough and simple enough...

     My own [prayer-]groups choose one nation at a time for a particular prayer-objective. ... First we make in our minds a picture of the nation as we would have her be, so that she may best further the establishment of peace.  We see an aggressor nation, for example, shrinking back in her borders and sending out into the world little golden arrows of trade and commerce and financial cooperation.  We do this in the same way that we see a sick body well, making the picture clear, concrete, vivid and simple.  It is a childlike method, this method of happy visioning.  But it works...

     We see this picture in our minds, hold it up into the light of God’s love and bless it in the name of Jesus Christ.  Then we state with serene faith that it will be so.  And we remind ourselves that it must be so, for Jesus Christ directed us to pray for it... 

     We then narrow down our prayers and point them into the minds of those men most powerful in bringing into being the picture we have seen.  One by one we bless these leaders of nations, hold them up into the light of God’s love and send the love of Christ into their minds. ... And we pray that the Holy Spirit of God will accomplish this both directly, by overshadowing and entering their minds, and indirectly by sending them good and wise advisers.  And we give thanks that this is being done.  ...

     Since we have learned it [this method] and practiced it even in our small way, the newspapers have pointed out to us the answers to our prayers.  Any prayer group that is sufficiently adept, sufficiently earnest and sufficiently self-sacrificial may try this, watch the newspapers, and find out is results for themselves.  

     If this is so, the reader may ask, why does the world not change more rapidly? ... First, because the “static” of the contrary kind of thinking is so overwhelming.  Second, because the above ways of praying are easy to say but very difficult to do, as the one who tries them will soon find out.  Not only does all the world’s hate and greed and selfishness and cruelty set up in the air a contrary thought-vibration, but also the negative thoughts and words of the well-meaning but ignorant add to this negative power.  Every idle word about “the next war” tends to bring toward us the very thing that we do not want. ...

     We will see that we are praying against the obstacle of closed minds. ... The leaders of nations for whom we pray do not at the moment want to be unselfish, loving and world-minded.  Their minds are therefore closed to the operation of the Holy Spirit.  The Bible calls this closing of the mind sin.  And the Bible suggests only one remedy for the sins of the people—a repentance done by the one who prays for the one who sins.  So the priests of the Old Testament offered sacrifices as a token of their repentance for the sins of the people.  So Jesus Christ offered the sacrifice of Himself for the sins of all who accept His self-offering. ...

     When enough of us have offered sacrifices [such as spending time in prayer for the sins of the world] like the priests of old, in the name of the people for the world’s sins, the pent-up current of the redemption of Jesus Christ will rush upon the minds of men and heal the soul-sickness that breaks out in a rash of war. (HL 160-71)

 

As we climb this path we tune in to the whole prayer-power of the blessed company of believers, those in flesh and those out of the flesh.  More and more we become aware, as we walk as children of light, of the tremendous force of this heavenly cooperation.  And more and more we become aware of one great helper, one most loving friend, Jesus. (HL 173)

 

We are continually amazed and delighted that God will talk to us, that He loves us, that the guiding Intelligence of the universe really cares for our small concerns. (HL 68)

 

The Spirit began to show me that intercession for individuals and for ourselves is not enough, but that we must also pray for the healing of this little earth that we live upon.  What is the use of praying for healing of those ill with lung infections if they cannot breathe our polluted air? What is the use of praying for the healing of cancer if the very water that we drink and the very food grown upon the earth tends to poison the body? ... [This was] my first inkling of an interest in what is now called ecology...

[After learning how to fairly successfully pray for the blowing of hurricanes out to sea, our prayer group] tried praying for the ending of a five-year drought ... and found this more difficult.  One can understand the reason.  Few people are sensitive to the needs of the earth for moderate rains in due season, and at almost any time some people are praying for a sunny day so that they can have a pleasant trip. (S 233-4)

 

As His radiance fills our lives, we see the world lit once more with the beauty and the wonder of the first creation of God.  We feel again the lightsomeness and joy that came unbidden to our childlike hearts.  Once more the air is filled with dancing specks of light.  Once more the flowers glow with the radiance of eternity and their beauties unfold before us, hue on hue, until we can hardly bear the ache of loving them.  But most beautiful in all the world to our newly comprehending eyes is man, whom God made in His image and likeness and into whom He breathed the breath of Life.  Man.  Not only the spiritual reality within him but man himself, with all of his tender and enduring human love, all of his pitiable human frailty, all of his warm, endearing lust for life.  Man, poised between two worlds, bearing in his frail body the glory of eternity.  Man, forever failing yet forever destined to succeed.  Man, defeated time and again, yet forever destined to triumph through Jesus Christ.  Man, dying from generation to generation, yet forever destined to live! (HL 173-4)

 

                              ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

 

Kathryn Kuhlman (1907-76; Baptist; U.S.):

 

If Jesus the very Son of the living God needed the Holy Spirit, surely you and I need Him also. (24) [49]

 

The hour has now come for every minister to come fact-to-face with the Holy Spirit. ... If the institutional church will not accept the Holy Ghost, will not accept the manifestations of the Spirit, then, my friends, the Holy Spirit will continue His work in spite of the institutional church. He will carry out God’s plan outside of the institutional church. (25)

 

I don’t know why it is that the average minister is so afraid of the supernatural power of God, supernatural manifestations, supernatural gifts.  The early church was founded on the supernatural, and we need to get it back again—or die.  Wherever we find the presence of the Holy Spirit, we will always find the supernatural. ... But if we ignore the gifts of the Holy Spirit, we despise the heritage which is granted to us in Christ. ... Every Christian should be enjoying the supernatural. (51-2)

 

The very reason for miracles ... [is] to glorify God and to draw men and women to Christ. (40)

 

The selfsame Spirit divides to every man severally as He wills.  It is the prerogative of the Spirit to give us what gifts He sees most suitable for the individual [such as healing, wisdom, discernment of spirits, tongues, interpretation of tongues, joy, peace, etc.] ... What is the [most] ... excellent way?  It is to seek the love of God first, and to desire the gifts of the Spirit in order that we may serve God better. ... There are far more gifts than those that [St.] Paul named ... Don’t limit the Holy Spirit, whatever you do.  Don’t limit Him to just nine gifts.  There are more.  Many more. ... If God were to give certain people a gift, they would misuse that gift within the first twenty-four hours.  God knows exactly what He is doing.  And that is the reason, you see, I do not brag and say I possess any spiritual gift. ... Because I know that along with every special gift is also a great responsibility.  And that responsibility calls for us to give all the glory to God, and not even talk about the gift—but always the Giver.  It is He whom we praise, not the gift. (53)

 

With the advancement of technology, we have far more tendency to believe in ourselves as the source of all strength, rather than in a God of miracles. ...You cannot force a human being to believe something he does not want to believe.  If you do not want to believe in the absolute power of almighty God, if you do not want to believe that God has the power to heal, if you refuse to believe that divine healing is for today, then even if one were to be raised from the dead before your very eyes you would still not believe.  People are looking for some excuse not to believe.  For to believe in miracles means we have to believe in God.  And if He is a God of miracles, then we have to obey Him.  And we’d rather obey our own sinful instincts than the God who created heaven and earth. (7)

 

Do you want to be filled with the Holy Spirit?  He’ll fill all that you yield to Him.  Do you want to be given a gift of the Spirit?  Search your own heart.  See whether you’re being faithful and true to Him with that which He has entrusted to you now.  And above all, remember the gifts of the Holy Spirit are given for one reason alone—to glorify the Son of God. (55)

 

[Regarding her great conversion experience at age 14 in her mother’s Methodist church in Concordia, Missouri:] 

That Sunday morning was my first introduction to the Holy Spirit. ... He came with great conviction upon me.  And standing there, holding that Methodist hymnal in my hands, I began to shake with great conviction.  I was only fourteen years old... I ... went to the front pew, sat down in the corner, and wept.  Not out of sorrow, but because of the great feeling that came upon me.  Something had happened to me.  ... I knew, in that exact moment, that I had been born again. ... I knew something had happened to me.  I knew that my sins had been forgiven.  ... Jesus Christ became very real to my heart.  My call to the ministry was just as definite as my conversion.  You can say anything you want about me, as a woman, having no right to stand in the pulpit and preach the gospel.  Yet... my call to the ministry was just as definite as my conversion.  And it’s just like that.  I preached my very first sermon in Idaho.  I preached to those farmers. Name any little town in Idaho, and you’ll discover that one time, years ago, Kathryn Kuhlman came through trying to evangelize it.  I would find a little country church that was closed because they couldn’t afford a preacher.  I would go to the deacons, of the board, of the members, and ask to preach. ... Why He called me, I do not know.  I haven’t the slightest idea why I was chosen to preach the gospel.  There are millions who could do a better job, I am sure.  Millions better equipped than I.  The only reason I can give you is the fact that I knew I had nothing, and I never forgot from whence I came.  When you have nothing, and you admit you have nothing, then it’s so easy to look up and say, “Lord Jesus, if you can take nothing, use it.  Take my hands, take my voice, take my mind, take my body, take my love—it’s all I have.  If you can use it, I give it to you.”  And He has taken my nothing and used it to His glory.  It isn’t golden vessels He asks for.  It isn’t silver vessels.  It’s yielded vessels.  The secret is yieldedness to the Lord. (10-13)

 

All I know is that I have yielded my body to Jesus to be filled with the Holy Spirit.  I have surrendered myself to Him.  My life is no longer my own.  He possesses me: body, soul, and spirit.  Anything the Holy Spirit has given me, anything, anything that He does through me, any results ... is not Kathryn Kuhlman, it’s the Holy Spirit.  If He has given me something very special, it is still not Kathryn Kuhlman; it is only the working of the Holy Spirit through a yielded vessel. ... The one thing I am so afraid of is grieving the Holy Spirit by trying to share the glory.  When the Holy Spirit is lifted from me, I am the most ordinary person who ever lived. ... For that reason I cannot boast of something special.  All I can do is tell you what the Holy Spirit does—and vow to be very careful to give God all the praise and all the glory for everything. (20-1)

 

Jesus didn’t give a part of himself on the cross.  He gave it all.  He didn’t spare a thing.  And if you want to be a successful Christian, if you want to be all that God wants you to be, then, beloved, it means you’re going to have to give yourself completely and entirely to Him. (86)

 

I believe one of the most difficult of all lessons for any one of us to learn is how to yield one’s self to the Holy Spirit. ... I discovered a long time ago that the Holy Spirit is not a person or a power that I can use. ... He requires the vessel and that is all I or any one of us can furnish. ... There is a place [inside] where one yields himself completely to God.  When you give your entire being over to Him—your body, your mind, your lips, your voice, your consciousness—you become a completely yielded vessel and it is this that He uses to perform His mighty works. (122-3)

 

The Holy Spirit ... is so sacred to me.  I’ve given my life for Him.  Most people don’t understand, but I’ve given my whole life.  That’s all I know.  That’s all I’ve done. ... Remember this: Kathryn Kuhlman does not have one thing that God won’t give you if you’ll pay the price.  I don’t care who you are.  I don’t care how ordinary you are.  There’s not one thing that I have received but what He’ll give to you if you’ll pay the price.  It costs much, but it’s worth the price.  It’ll cost you everything, absolutely everything. (115-6)

 

The greatest hour of my life was the moment Kathryn Kuhlman died. ... That’s the reason you can talk about Kathryn Kuhlman, say anything you want to.  I can read about Kathryn Kuhlman and as sure as God’s on His throne, it’s as though I’m reading about someone else.  She died.  And when she died, her will was yielded to the will of God.  So I wait for His leading, for His will. ... If, my friends, you’ve surrendered your will and two wills have become one, and you’ve taken up your cross to follow Him and you are following and He is leading, and you’ve paid the price of [ego-]death—beloved, you can’t miss God’s perfect will.  If you ever get to the place where you do not know God’s perfect will, then don’t do anything.  Wait.  Look up and say, “I don’t know.”  Listen not to the voice of man.  Be quiet.  Some of you are never quiet enough so you could hear Him if He did speak.  He was not in the thunder, He was not in much babbling.  He was in the still small voice. ... The trouble is that ninety-nine percent of us want our will and not His will.  It’s not that most Christians don’t know the will of God.  Rather, they come face to face with the will of God and shrink from it, saying, “It’s too great a price to pay.” ... It isn’t easy to die. Every person wants to live.  And spiritual death is the hardest. (117-9)

 

I never think of myself in the terms of “preacher.” ... I’m just somebody who loves souls.  I love people.  I want to help them.  It’s just that simple.  Helping people is the most rewarding thing in the whole world. You do not have to be a Kathryn Kuhlman to help people.  The goal of every Christian, every born-again man and woman, should be helping people. (1)

 

When I walk out on the stage at the great miracle services, I realize that sitting there in the audience are men and women who have made great sacrifices to be there.  For many of them it is their last hope.  The doctors have given up.  Medical science says no hope.  But I see beyond physical healing.  I know that spiritual healing is far greater than the physical.  So even though I believe in miracles, I know that far more important is the call for a spiritual healing—for it may be their last chance.  The physical healing is so very secondary, believe me. ... There is something that’s far greater—that new birth experience.  I stand there in those last moments of a great service and give an altar call and realize there may be those who are receiving their last call from God, spiritually. 

And the destiny of that soul is at stake.  That, my friends, is the most awesome feeling.  That is when the great responsibility is really felt. And when the lights have been turned out in the great auditorium, my only concern is whether I gave every ounce of strength I had, whether I could have done a better job than what I did—not performing miracles, for I am no miracle worker, but in calling men and women to Jesus Christ. (2-3)

 

How can it be that someone just coming into a [miracle] service, just sitting there, no one touching them, is healed? ... People just sitting there are suddenly completely healed of their afflictions or diseases. Explain it?  All I can say by way of explanation is that the presence of the Holy Spirit is there to heal.  He does not need me to lay hands on you or to touch you.  I have no healing virtue in my hands of in my body.  But the same Holy Spirit who performed those miracles through the body of Jesus as Jesus walked the earth is active today.  Christ, as much man as though He were not God, knew that it was the Holy Spirit who doeth these works. Peter, understood.  He, too, acknowledged it was the Spirit of God who performeth miracles.  (127)

 

I know better than anyone else that Kathryn Kuhlman has no healing virtue. I’m not a faith healer, please understand that.  I have no healing power. I have never healed anyone.  Know that I’m absolutely dependent on the power of the Holy Spirit, on the power of God.  I have stood before sick people and cried, wishing I could give them the strength from my own body. But without the Holy Spirit I have nothing to give.  Nothing. ... When I see a daddy standing there with a little child who has cancer, or perhaps a deformity, and I see those great big tears rolling down the cheeks of that big strong man, I would gladly give my life if that child could live.  But I have no power.  Hard work won’t impart healing.  And in those moments, I know better than anyone else how dependent I am on the power of God. (4-5)

 

Whether one is healed or not is in the hands of God. ... No one really knows how I hurt inside when a service is over, and I see those who have come in wheelchairs leaving in the same wheelchairs in which they came. ... One of these days, when I get home to glory, I’m going to ask Him to give me the answer from His own lips, as to why everyone is not healed. Something happened while I was in Kansas City.  The Kansas City Star sent a reporter to the services.  I became acquainted with her, a lovely young woman... She attended all the services, and the last night, following the meeting, she came back to my dressing room.  One of my helpers let her in, and she found me crying.  She was embarrassed, but I went ahead and just sort of bared my soul to her, forgetting she was a reporter.  I said, “You know, people would think that after a miracle service like this, when scores and scores have been healed, that I would be the happiest person in the whole world.  I am grateful to have seen the manifestation of God’s power.  But no one knows the hurt and grief I feel for those who were not healed.  I wonder if perhaps I had known better how to cooperate with the Holy Spirit, more might have been accomplished for God.”  I could not hold back the flood of tears, and the reported finally slipped out.  About three weeks later, I received a letter from this reporter.  She said, “I am not writing as a reporter ... but as someone who had a friend in that last service.  He was an attorney.  He was dying of cancer.  They brought him in on a stretcher.  About a week after you left Kansas City, I went to his home and was greeted at the front door by his wife.  She told me Tom had died. ... Her face was radiant.  She said, “That service in the auditorium was the greatest thing that happened to Tom.  Obviously he was not healed. ... But it was during that service that Tom prepared for death. ... My husband accepted Christ and received forgiveness for his sins.  Before then, he was struggling.  Afterwards, he was peaceful.  Death was easy—victorious...” The reporter finished her letter: “Kathryn Kuhlman, don’t weep after a service any more.  When you think there should have been greater results than the healing of sick bodies, always remember my friend Tom.  The greatest miracle that could have happened to him was the salvation of his soul.” No, I don’t understand why everyone is not healed physically.  But all can be healed spiritually.  That’s the greatest miracle any human can know. (35-7)

 

[Once two Pittsburgh Presbyterian ministers brought a well-known theologian from a seminary on the East coast to visit her at her office on the sixth floor of the Carlton House Hotel; the theologian said:]

     “Miss Kuhlman, even though I teach theology, there is still a great deal I don’t know about the ministry of the Holy Spirit.  In particular, there is one facet of your ministry which leaves me completely baffled...It’s about all this fainting.  I understand from my friends that in your meetings you often pray for people and they ... sort of ... well, faint.”

     “Oh, no,” I laughed.  “They don’t faint.  They simply fall under the power of God.”  I gave him a brief explanation.  He smiled politely but was still obviously puzzled.  It was time for them to go.  We were standing in the doorway ... He looked at me and said, “I may never see you again.  Would you say a word of prayer for me?” 

     You know, I still think God has a sense of humor, for as I took a step toward him and extended my hand to place on his shoulder to pray for him, his legs suddenly buckled under him and he fell backwards to the floor.  I didn’t even have a chance to begin my prayer with “Dear Jesus” when suddenly he was on his back on the carpet in my office.  And it was as though the whole room were filled with the glory of God. 

     I shook my head and looked down as both Presbyterian ministers dropped to their knees beside him.  The secretaries at their typewriters had stopped typing, and I glanced up and saw their faces bathed in tears. There was a heavenly light filling the entire office suite. The ministers helped the professor to his feet.  He was wobbly, and staggered back a couple of steps. One said, “Are you all right?”

     He stuttered for words, and all he could say was “Wheew!” and down he went again, flat on his back on the carpet.

     His friends helped him to his feet and he started out the door, still shaking his head with a glow on his face that must have been like the glow that was on the face of Moses when he returned from Mt. Sinai.  “Wheew!” he kept saying over and over again.

     He was staggering, as if drunk, and he missed the door and walked into the side of the wall.  The ministers grabbed him by the arms and pointed him toward the door as he wobbled out, his face still bathed in that heavenly light.

     I contend these physical bodies are not wired for so much power.  One of these days, mortal will put on immortality, but here in the flesh we can take only so much of God’s dynamite—and we short-circuit. ... These fleshly bodies literally cannot stand in the presence of almighty God.

     The only thing I can tell you is the power of the Holy Spirit is so great that our minds and bodies cannot fathom the bigness of God.

     Most people are simply playing religion.  They talk about God much like they talk about George Washington.  They know he is (or was), but they never expect to see him and if he should appear it would literally scare them speechless.  So it is with God.  We talk about God.  We talk about the Holy Spirit.  But we seldom have an encounter with Him because it’s all talk. ...

     God is alive.  He’s real.  He is the very essence of power. ... He is all power.  Man often tries to conjure up God in his own image, shape, size, and power.  But God is more—far more.  When we see Him or feel Him as He really is, we simply can’t stand it.

     The only way I can tell you about “going under the power” is to say that when the Holy Spirit literally comes upon a person, he cannot stand in His presence.  His legs buckle.  His body goes limp.  Oftentimes his very soul is filled to overflowing with the Spirit himself.  It’s not fainting. A person seldom loses his faculties.  Usually those who go under the power are right back on their feet and testify that it was like being caught up in a giant charge of painless electricity—that momentarily leaves one out of control.

     When you consider the Holy Spirit can heal a sick body without anyone touching that body—that’s power. ...

     Whenever the Holy Spirit comes in great power, things like this happen. (89-92)

 

To be under the Spirit’s anointing is the truly normal state.  All else is abnormal. (29)

 

If He has so willed to bestow any of His gifts upon a person, such a gift must be treated as a sacred thing.  It must be treasured, not talked about, not boasted about, for it is a holy trust.  It must be used carefully, wisely, discreetly, for along with the giving of that gift there comes an overwhelmingly great responsibility. (124)

 

When St. Augustine was asked the first of the Christian graces, he replied, “Humility.”  When asked what he considered the second greatest Christian grace, he replied, “Humility.” ... I do not believe there is a harder lesson to learn than that of humility.  It’s the rarest of all gifts, the hardest of all lessons. ... We have gotten to the place where we feel that humility is a sign of weakness.  My friend, humility is not a sign of weakness. ... It’s a show of strength and maturity.  Show me the virtue of humility, the greatest of all Christian graces in the life of a man or woman, and I will show you an individual who has great spiritual strength, and great spiritual security.  Only the one who is spiritually secure can afford to be humble.  The first test of a truly great man or a truly great woman is humility.  Humility is the solid foundation of all the other virtues. ... Nothing is worse than the person who brags about his humility, the person who is always talking about his humility. ... Only when all spiritual pride is out do you find a vessel yielded and flexible, and a vessel that God can use. ... Today, if God spoke to one as He spoke to Abraham, giving mighty promises and covenants, such a man would become so puffed up, and so proud you couldn’t get him inside of his coat jacket. The buttons would pop off, and he would go around saying, “Oh, look what God told me.  Look what God promised me. ... But not with Abraham.  He said, “I am but dust and ashes.”  ... The more an individual knows, the more he realizes how little he knows.  It’s an ignorant person who feels he knows everything.  It’s an ignorant person who never takes advice. (151-3)

 

The spiritually secure individual, one with spiritual strength, doesn’t have to go around blowing his own horn.  No.  He treads softly.  He treads quietly.  Knowing he is absolutely dependent on the power of God. (154)

 

Man was made to give himself to a higher power than himself.  In other words, man is going to be mastered by something.  If you are not mastered by God, then you are going to be mastered by things.  Or by circumstances.  That’s the reason a Christian need never go down in defeat.  Never.  A Christian knows where to go and what to do in his hour of disappointment. ...The man who is completely mastered by the will of God will never be mastered by anything else. ... But when we take our eyes off Jesus, when we refuse to submit to His lordship, His ownership, we gradually turn the control of our lives over to circumstances.  Sickness takes over.  And we are mastered by things. ... The God who sent the water from the rock [to the Israelites in the desert], the manna from heaven, is still alive.  The God who supplied the little widow with her meal and her oil is still God Almighty.  ... Don’t be mastered by things.  Be mastered by God. ... A million times I’ve wondered what people do in an hour of tragedy who do not have a simple confidence in God Almighty.  They are defeated.  They are beaten.  Many give themselves to self-pity.  But for those who are “in Christ,” there is no defeat. (57-9)

 

A healthy, wholesome mind is better than silver, better than gold, better than all the material blessings in the world.  It’s the truth.  An undivided mind—a mind void of fear, anxiety, worry, pettiness—a mind free from jealousy, selfishness, envy—is one’s greatest possession outside one’s salvation.  As a man thinketh, so is he. ... If your mind is filled with worry, fear, jealousy, pettiness, littleness—you’ll be knocked down and defeated by happenings whether they are real or imaginary.  What’s the answer?  How can you overcome this condition?  The answer lies in fastening your attention not on the thing to be feared, not in the circumstances of the situation around you, not on individuals or personalities—but on Christ.  Remember, you are His.  He will defend you.  He will protect you.  You are His and he claims you now against all adversaries.  You are His and no one else can have power over you. ... [A prayer:] Wonderful Jesus, give me a mind that is free from fear, free from worry, free from jealousy.  Give me a healthy mind... For Jesus’ sake I ask it.  Amen. (81-2)

 

What could be more thrilling than learning that we had been remembered in a legacy?  That riches beyond all our dreaming had been left at our disposal? Beloved, that is the believer’s position exactly.  Jesus, in taking His departure, called His servants and delivered unto them His goods. ... It is His name which He has left us. “And whatsoever ye shall ask in my name, that will I do, that the Father may be glorified in the Son.  If ye shall ask any thing in my name, I will do it.” (John 14:13-14).  What a bequest! You are rich.  You are His child.  Perfect in life, triumphant in death, glorious in ascended splendor... All that is given over to us. ... You talk about a family tree!  Think of the spiritual family tree that is ours.  The mighty God of the universe is our heavenly Father.  Jesus Christ is joint heir with us.  We are joint heirs with Him.  We are rich.  We are no longer poor.  There’s more He left us in His legacy.  “Peace I leave with you, my peace I give unto you...”  Think of it.  His peace is ours.  That peace is as real as the air you breathe. ... It’s the peace that Paul spoke of which passes all understanding.  It’s ours.  Beloved, have you accepted this bequest?  Are you living in the calm of its conscious possession?  Is His peace your peace?  If you have that peace, if you are enjoying that peace, you are rich.  You are not poor.  You may have a title deed to this whole world, and yet without that peace, you are poor.  You may not have a copper cent, but with that peace of mind, you are rich.  If you can lie down at night with that peace of mind, you are rich.  Then, He’s left us His joy. [See John 15:11]. ... The secret of the unfailing source of His joy in our hearts is His abiding presence in our lives.  In His presence we enjoy this sweet sense of His love ... and rejoice in the consciousness of His presence. ... Are you maintaining the relationship with Jesus, where in spite of persecutions, in spite of circumstances, in spite of trials, His joy is filling your cup to the fullest?  Is it part of your inheritance?  If you have that kind of joy, you are rich.  Without that joy, you are poor. (140-2)

 

The Christian life is not easy. ... It’s not a bed of roses.  It costs you something.  It has cost me everything.  But I want you to know it has been worth the price. ... In the Christian life you’ll never get God’s best, you’ll never know the deep truths of His Word until you start digging down underneath the surface.  There’s where you’re going to find the deep treasures.  There’s where you’ll find the deep oil of the Holy Spirit.  The deeper you dig, the more you’ll find.  But you’ve got to dig to find it. (94-6)

 

You’ll never grow spiritually if you are off-again-on-again with your consecration and your Christian living.  Never.  God can’t use you.  You’ll never be a power.  You’ll never be the receiver of great blessings from the Lord. ... I’ve seen so many of God’s precious children afflicted with this spirit of laziness.  They wish God would do something for them.  They wish God would heal their bodies.  They wish God would meet their needs.  They wish they could have, spiritually, what other people talk about.  But they never receive because they are slothful. ... I’d still be in Missouri, my friend, I’d still be one of those 1,200 people that make up the population of Concordia, Missouri, if I’d let laziness possess me... I would have married one of those Missouri farmers.  Can’t you just see me out milking cows? ... I would have still been in Missouri ... if as a teenaged girl I had not determined God had something for me to do.  And I did something about it.  I still believe there is [spiritually] more for me as an individual.  If only I knew how better to cooperate with the Holy Spirit. If only I knew how to connect with the power of God.  If only I had the divine wisdom.  This very moment you may feel that you are rich in the things of God.  And you are. ... But—every person has much more ability than he tries to get out of himself.  You have greater potentiality for God than you ever dreamed possible.  But you have not been willing to surrender yourself to that extent to Him, so that you might receive greater things from Him. (100-2)

 

I’ve never done anything in my life halfheartedly.  I believe that had I not been a Christian, I would have been the worst sinner in the world.  I would have tried everything. ... I want you to know, though, when I decided to live for the Lord Jesus Christ, I made up my mind I was going to be the best Christian possible.  I gave Him all there was of me.  I closed my mind to everything else. (96)

 

I enjoy this Christian life and Christian living.  I wouldn’t exchange it for anything I know about.  If I thought there were something better, I’d go after it. ... Most of all, I enjoy my relationship with my heavenly Father.  That’s what being a Christian is all about. (72)

 

There are literally thousands and thousands in the great charismatic movement who have never become acquainted with the person of the Holy Spirit, only with His gifts. (116)

 

It’s one thing to have that experience of being born again... yet there are literally thousands who have had this wonderful experience, who wipe away the tears from their cheeks, and then get up from their knees and believe that is all there is to the Christian life.  But my friend, that’s just the beginning.  You have only started.  You need to go on to improve your knowledge regarding the things of God. ... There is nothing worse than an overdose of zeal without spiritual knowledge. ... Christians need to go deep into God’s Word.  You must not be satisfied just to know your sins are forgiven.  The Bible must become, literally, a part of your flesh, a part of your life, ... a part of your breathing. (74-5)

 

One of the most common errors is to confuse faith with presumption.  We must be constantly alert to the danger of mistaking one for the other... When the pebble asserts that it is the beach, we say to it, “You are assuming too much.”  There are many [people] who mix the ingredients of their own mental attitude with a little confidence, a little pinch of trust, a generous handful of religious egotism, quote some Scripture, add some desire—then mix it all together and label it “faith.”  Not so.  Faith is more than belief.  [“Belief is mental—while faith is from God.”]  It is more than confidence.  It is more than trust.  It is more than the sum total of these things—and none of them in particular.  Above all, it is never boastful.  If it is pure, Holy Ghost faith, it will never work contrary to the will of God. ... Faith, as God himself imparts to the heart, is spiritual.  It’s warm.  It’s vital.  It lives.  It throbs.  Its power is absolutely irresistible... Let us face the issue squarely.  Let us with open, surrendered hearts ask the Holy Spirit to send forth His light and His truth and lead us... When we see the truth, we shall no longer be standing around hour after hour, rebuking, commanding, struggling.  With faith there is no struggle.  There will be ... [the Holy Spirit’s] intercession. ... Always remember, faith is a gift—given to us by the Giver. (44-9)

 

[Commenting on the emotional excesses of the Pentecostal movement:]  You know, I think sometimes the world gets the idea the only people who believe in the power of God are senile women and men who are not too intelligent.  We’ve brought this all on ourselves.  Some of our actions, beloved, are not intelligent.  All the screaming and carrying on.... I’m as Pentecostal as anybody ... But I want nothing to do with fanaticism.  I want nothing to do with the demonstrations of the flesh.  Much of our noise is a substitute for power.  Noise isn’t power.  I once had an old Model T Ford.  It was the noisiest thing on the road. ... If noise was power, that old Ford would have been the most powerful thing on the road.  Some of the greatest manifestations of the Holy Spirit that I have ever seen in my life, some of the greatest miracles I have ever seen in my life, some of the greatest baptisms of the Holy Spirit I have ever witnessed in my life were so quiet and beautiful... all you heard was the weeping of the ones witnessing that beautiful experience.  When the Holy Spirit speaks, when the Holy Spirit gives utterance, it’s sacred. ... Sometimes Christians get excited over newly discovered truth and get carried away in fanaticism. But I beg you to look beyond the noise and exuberance to the Holy God who still speaks in a quiet but all-powerful voice.  Serve Him.  Love Him.  Follow Him.  He will not let you down. (111-3)

 

The one thing that gets me [are] these people who blame the devil for everything that happens. ... Go to the nearest mirror.  Stand before that mirror.  And you will see right where you should put the blame.  Be big enough to lay the blame exactly where it belongs. I believe in Satan. I believe in the power of the evil one.  But he will never be able to defeat you any more than he was able to defeat the One whom you love—the Lord Jesus Christ.  Jesus did not yield to defeat, He did not yield to temptation.  Neither do you have to be defeated by Satan, neither do you have to yield to temptation, or defeat, or failure. (73-4)

 

When God made me, He didn’t put one ounce of pessimism in me.  The clouds may be there, but I don’t think about them.  There may be things to be discouraged about, but so help me, I look beyond the discouragements.  I was just born to be optimistic.  But remember something, beloved—there are some things you have to face.  We are a part of humanity.  There are certain laws God has that govern success, and adherence to these laws spells success.  Disobedience makes us a sham. ... Mama had a little frame hanging in the dining room.  When she died I brought it with me to Pittsburgh... It’s called “Guideposts to Success.”  It was mama’s formula for life.  This is what influenced me as a youngster.  It stated, in part: Go out of the way to please others.  Be determined to be kind and helpful to everyone.  Be truthful.  Be optimistic, no matter what comes.  Make a great effort always to give somebody a lift whenever possible.  Radiate sunshine, hope, good will.  Scatter flowers as you go along.  Enjoy each day.  Live the present to its utmost, and do not wait for tomorrow before you begin to enjoy these things.  This is what opens wide the door to happiness. (107-8)

 

I have come to the conclusion that this age knows almost everything about life—except how to live it. ... We’ve handed over our bodies to the doctors, our minds to the psychiatrists, and our souls to the ministers. (56)

 

If you want to really be happy, go out and do something nice for somebody else. ... If you do it without expecting anything in return, if you do it because you want to do it, you’ll find happiness. (108)

 

The greatest enemy a human being can take into his life is fear. ... Life ...is built for positive contribution, outgoing love.  You can never get rid of your own troubles unless you take upon yourself the troubles of others. When you find yourself oppressed by melancholy, the best way out is to find something you can do for somebody else.  When you dig a man out of trouble, the hole which is left is the grave where you bury your own sorrows. (41)

 

Throw your will on the side of outgoing love, and all the healing resources of the universe will be behind you.  Try it.  It’s the best medicine I know... (42)

 

Jesus uncovers our Father.  He also uncovers our brother.  He lifts the veil from our prejudiced eyes and lets us see the infinite worthwhileness in every man of every race, of every color, of every class. ... We need a fresh baptism of the love of God in our hearts, to turn our religion into a revelation of possibilities of people instead of into something that bolsters our prejudices and causes hatred in our hearts.  Christianity is a double revelation: of God, of man.  When Christianity does not show us man the way God sees him, it is no longer Christianity. (158)

 

                              ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

 

Corrie ten Boom (1892-1983; Evangelical; Holland-U.S.):

 

[Excerpts from letters written to her family while she was in solitary confinement for some months at the Scheveningen Nazi-run prison:]  I have miraculously adjusted to this lonely life, but I am in communion with God. I speak often with the Saviour.  I am obtaining a deeper insight into time and eternity and am being prepared for both life and death.  To depart and be with Christ is far better.  But life with Him here on earth is also attractive. ... The Savior is all the time averting all [my] worry and fear and homesickness so that the doctor said to me, “You are always cheerful.”  I sing inside nearly all day long and we do have so much to be thankful for—an airy cell through which the sea wind blows... I am grateful that I am alone, me who loves company and people so much!  I see my sins more clearly, my own SELF in capitals, and much more superficiality in me.  Once I asked to be freed but the Lord said, “My grace is sufficient for you.”  I am continuously looking at Him and trying not to be impatient.  I won’t be here one minute longer than God deems necessary.  Pray for me that I can wait for His timing. ... To some things I shall never get accustomed, but on the whole I am really happy.  Please never worry about me.  Sometimes it may be dark, but the Saviour provides His light and how wonderful that is. (PL 18-19) [50]

 

How good the Savior is to me!  He not only bears my burdens, He carries me, too! (PL 30)

 

I am not afraid.  The Savior never leaves me alone and He will not here either. (PL 32)

 

[During her internment at Vught, a Nazi concentration camp:]  We are in God’s training school and learn much. ... There is much fellowship of the saints here.  Life is very simple.  Everything is arranged for us, we never have to make a decision.  We have nothing else to do but follow and obey. We enjoy little joys intensely.  Great sadness we bear with God.  We are aware that many are praying for us. (PL 55-6)

 

[Reflecting later:]  The horrors of Ravensbruck [concentration camp], especially [my sister] Betsie’s death, caused me to wake up to reality. When I did, I was able to see that when all the securities of the world are falling away, then you realize, like never before, what it means to have your security in Jesus.  It was not until December 28, 1944, when, through a miracle, I was set free, just one week before all women my age and older were put to death.  I was free and knew then as I know now it was my chance to take to the world God’s message of the victory of Jesus Christ in the midst of the deepest evil of man. (PL 80)

 

After being released from prison, I felt the need to write one final letter... to the person who had originally revealed our family’s work [helping the Jews] to the Germans.

Dear Sir,

Today I heard that most probably you are the one who betrayed me. I went through 10 months of concentration camp.  My father died after 9 days of imprisonment.  My sister died in prison, too. The harm you planned was turned into good for me by God.  I came nearer to Him.  A severe punishment is awaiting you.  I have prayer for you, that the Lord may accept you if you will repent.  Think that the Lord Jesus on the Cross also took your sins upon Himself.  If you accept this and want to be His child, you are saved for Eternity.

       I have forgiven you everything.  God will also forgive you everything, if you ask Him.  He loves you and He Himself sent His Son to earth to reconcile your sins, which meant to suffer the punishment for you and me.  You, on your part have to give an answer to this.  If He says, “Come unto Me, give Me your heart,” then your answer must be: “Yes, Lord, I come, make me Your child.”  If it is difficult for you to pray, then ask if God will give you His Spirit, who works the faith in your heart. Never doubt the Lord Jesus’ love.  He is standing with His arms spread out to receive you. I hope that the path which you will now take may work for your eternal salvation.                            

      --Corrie ten Boom (PL 80-1)

 

We all have the same enemies—we are all preyed upon by frustration and worry.  In India, Australia, Japan, Germany—we need the same Holy Spirit. We need to remember that we are children of God, living within His constant care.  God knows and is interested both in the hardest problems we face and the tiniest details that concern us.  He knows how to put everything in place ... to make a beautiful picture. (DW 32)

 

We can’t solve problems for others.  We can introduce them to the Lord. (DW 79)

 

God always hears a prayer of faith.  Put all your needs on the table and then say thank You. (DW 86)

 

As a camel kneels before his master to have him remove his burden at the end of the day, so kneel each night and let the Master take your burden. (DW 79)

 

You might worry yourself dead, but never will you worry yourself happier.  That comes by a different method. (DW 13)

 

Every temptation to worry or fear is an opportunity for victory. (DW 33)

 

This century has been called the Age of Anxiety.  How fitting that description is!  Everywhere I go, I find people tormented by inner tensions, nervous strain, worries, and fears.  We are a generation of worriers, always taking pills to cure our anxieties and relax our nerves.  There is a great difference between worry and concern, and we must realize this.  Concern makes us do something to ease the situation.  It moves us to take constructive action.  But worry burdens our minds and bodies without helping us to find a solution to the problem. ... No doctor has a cure for worry. ... [Pills] just cover up the real problem.  There is a permanent cure for worry.  The prescription is not mine—it was given by Jesus almost two thousand years ago, in His Sermon on the Mount. [See Matthew 6:25-34] ...  Here is His prescription for anxiety... Remember the Power of God... Remember the foolishness of worry... Count your blessings... Walk with God. (DW 10-15)

 

Today is yesterday’s tomorrow you worried about, and all is well. ... Worry is the interest you pay on trouble before it comes. (DW 18)

 

Worry is a demon—fear of demons comes from demons themselves.  As children of God, we have nothing to fear. (DW 41)

 

Worrying people are like tightrope walkers going over a rope from the past to the future.  The balance between hope and fear.  In one hand they carry a sack with the undigested past, in the other hand a sack with the anticipated future.  The heart lays aside its fears amid the accumulated blessings of our heavenly Father. (DW 42)

 

It is impossible to listen to the Lord’s voice while listening to your own fear. (DW 44)

 

Fear does not take away the grief of yesterday, nor does it solve the problems of tomorrow.  All it does is rob you of the power of today. Rather than wind up on a psychiatrist’s couch or an undertaker’s slab, do what God tells you.  Seek first His Kingdom and His righteousness.  He will add everything else you need. (DW 45-6)

 

Some years ago, I had a very difficult problem and did not see the answer. I talked it over with a good friend.  We looked at each other, and on both of our faces there was an expression of defeat.  Suddenly my friend stood up.  She hit the table with her hand and said, “Do we really think that the enormous power that caused Jesus to come out of the grave is not enough for our problem?”  Then I saw the smallness of my faith.  Yes, the same Spirit that raised Christ from the dead is willing to work in you.  But if we want to be victorious over our fears through Jesus’ victory and strength, we must also be obedient. ... We are unable to live in the enjoyment of God’s love for us when sin stands in our way. ... Go to God for help, but ... [don’t] go to God with a sense of inferiority, which is the devil’s message! ... Everything that the light of God shows as a sin, we can confess and carry to the fountain of the water of life, and it is gone, both from God’s sight and from our hearts. (DW 80-2)

 

The purpose of being guilty is to bring us to Jesus.  Once we are there, then its purpose is finished.  If we continue to make ourselves guilty—to blame ourselves—then that is sin in itself. (DW 34)

 

Jesus is able to untangle all the snarls in your soul, to banish all complexes, and to transform even your fixed habit patterns.  All you must do is trust Him. (DW 87)

 

When the heart has learned to trust Him as He should be trusted, utterly without reservations, then the Lord throws wide the doors of the treasure-house of grace.  He bids us go in with boldness and receive our share of the inheritance of the saints. (DW 25)

 

Know that Christ is the Lord of all: your mind, your spirit, your body. ... Put everything in His hands. (DW 94)

 

Throw out your self-seeking spirit... Yield to the Holy Spirit.  He will burn out your self-spirit. (DW 47)

 

I learned that the safest place in the world is in the center of the will of God.  This is always true, even sometimes when it seems as if following God’s will is physically dangerous. (DW 91)

 

I know many people who trust the Lord for their eternal safety, but they have no faith for the cares of every day. ... They do not see that their daily problems are the material from which God builds His miracles. (DW 73)

 

If His will be your will, and His way be your way, then all your insufficiency and inaptitude shall be met by the sufficiency of His grace. (DW 93)

 

We will see more and more that we are chosen [for service to God and creation] not because of our ability, but because of His power that will be demonstrated in [spite of] our not being able. (DW 58)

 

My Lord knows the way through the wilderness—all I have to do is follow and to put my hand into His hand.  He holds me. (DW 92)

 

Let us let Him clasp our hands a little tighter, and trust Him a little more than ever before—that our paths may be straighter and gladder than in the past.  Let us make more time for prayer, so that we increase the pressure of that hand on ours. (DW 94)

 

Prayer is opening up our sluicegates to the mighty ocean of God. ... Prayer is the same as the breathing of air for the lungs.  Exhaling makes us get rid of our dirty air.  Inhaling gives clean air.  To exhale is to confess, to inhale is to be filled with the Holy Spirit. (DW 79)

 

I urge you to find a place where you can be alone with the Lord.  Let it be your own little private prayer chapel. ... Prayer should be informal and to the point: conversations with God, so to speak.  Nice [fancy] words do not count.  Be definite.  If you have a nervous tummy, do not ask the Lord to take it away.  Rather, confess where you got it and ask Him to shut the door on the source of your worry. ... Go to God the same way you would go to your father or mother.  Tell Him about your worries. ... Prayer opens doors to the power that relieves us from anxiety, for God’s power is demonstrated in our weakness. ... Remember, prayer ... is both asking and receiving, speaking and listening.  Yes, that takes time.  But you can learn how to converse with God secretly.  But there is more.  Not only do we find help for our anxiety by praying alone, but also when we pray with others and have others pray for us. ... The best place for group prayer is in the family.  ... Remember, though, that it is God who answers, and He always answers in a way that He knows is best for everybody. (DW 70-1)

 

Prayer changes our attention from the problem to the Power, from anxiety to the Almighty. (DW 72)

 

So often we pray and then fret anxiously, waiting for God to hurry up and do something.  All the while God is waiting for us to calm down, so He can do something through us. (DW 77)

 

Give room in your heart for the Holy Spirit. (DW 78)

 

When the devil can’t make you bad, he makes you busy [so that you’ve no time to pray]. (DW 88)

 

[Yet] it is better to burn out than to smolder out without having warmed one heart for the Lord Jesus. (DW 25)

 

The best antidote I know for self-pity is to help someone else who is worse off than you. (DW 15)

 

There is just one day in the calendar of action—today. (DW 32)

 

     I still remember the old Dutch parable about the clock that had a nervous breakdown.  Two older clocks were busy ticking away...

     “Well,” said one of the clocks to the newcomer, “so you have started out in life.  I am sorry for you.  If you’ll just think ahead and see how many ticks it takes to tick through one year, you will never make it.  It would have been better had the maker never wound you up and set your pendulum swinging.”

     “Dear me,” said the new clock.  “I never thought about how many ticks I have to tick in a year.”

     “Well, you’d better think about it,” the old clock said.

     So the new clock began to count up the ticks.  “Each second requires 2 ticks, which means 120 ticks per minute ... That’s ... 172,800 ticks per day ...which makes a total of 62,899,200 ticks per year.  Horrors!”  The clock immediately had a nervous breakdown and stopped ticking.

     The clock on the other side, who had kept silent during the conversation, now spoke up.  “You silly thing!  Who do you listen to such words?  That old grandfather clock has been unhappy for years. ...

     “But,” the new clock gasped, “he’s right.  I’ve got to tick almost sixty-three million ticks in a year.  And they told me I might have to stay on the job for more than one hundred years.  Do you know how many ticks that is?  That’s six billion, two hundred million ticks.  I’ll never make it!”

     “How many ticks do you have to tick at a time?” the wise old clock asked.

     “Why, only one, I guess,” the new clock answered.

     “There, now.  That’s not so hard, is it?  Try it along with me.  Tick, tock, tick, tock.  See how easy it is?  Just one tick at a time.”

     A light of understanding formed on the face of the clock... He began ticking again.

     “One more thing,” the wise old clock said.  “Don’t ever think about the next tick until you have your last tick ticked.”

     I understand that was seventh-five years ago, and the clock is still ticking perfectly, one tick at a time.

     No man sinks under the burden of the day.  It is only when yesterday’s guilt is added to tomorrow’s anxiety that our legs buckle and our backs break.  It is delightfully easy to live one day at a time! (DW 63-5)    

 

Happiness is not dependent on happenings, but on the relationship [with God] that persists in the happening. (DW 25)

 

One time, artists were invited to paint a picture of peace.  The pictures were many and varied, but the winner depicted a little bird sitting calmly on her nest, which was built on a slender branch overhanging Niagara Falls.  The peace of the little bird did not depend on her surroundings.  And so it is with us.  As Christians, our peace of heart and freedom from fear do not depend on our circumstances, but on our trust in God. (DW 50)

 

In the life of the true believer there are no accidents. (DW 26)

 

God has only plans, no problems, in the life of a child of God. (PL 90)

 

[People] have to go through many experiences in order to get the spiritual vision which is needed to see the divine plan.  A film is always developed in a dark room. (DW 59)

 

Faith sees the invisible, believes the unbelievable, and receives the impossible. (DW 59)

 

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