|
Snapshots from the Frontier of Faith
The frontier is not about quitting your job and going to the mission fields of Africa.
It is the frontier of the soul and it begins where the familiar ends.
It can be but a step – or a decision – away.
In her book, “The Kingdom of Love,” Hannah Hurnard writes of the enemies of God’s Kingdom of Love in her own life that undermined her ability to overcome certain sin patterns. She had read extensively of the giants of faith and their miraculous breakthroughs in this area, yet none of it worked for her. When, finally, she did break through, she realized the individuality of each threshold into supernatural living. For her, it was realizing that four of her persistent failures were interrelated and must be dealt with as one. This was the key that likely brought “Much Afraid” in Hind’s Feet on High Places to the altar in the high mountains and replaced her human love with divine love:
“…for me the key to my individual failure was discovered, and I could either hand it over to the Lord, or decide not to make the sacrifice, and so go on in bondage. I saw even then, and later came to experience, that the four things went together. This was the “fast” which the Lord asked of me personally. I was to fast completely from criticizing other people, and from talking about my own victories, and from reading fiction, and from daydreaming. If I kept this 4-fold fast, all the gates [to the Kingdom of Love] would be safely locked. If I broke one of them, I would again find myself powerless…
“When that surrender was made, and that four fold fast entered upon, for the first time in my life I immediately found myself delivered from the habit of daydreaming, able to refrain from criticizing others, and from the very desire to do so…moreover, I found that my critical, impatient thoughts were now completely changed and my whole attitude toward people transformed…. For I was really and truly set down in the universe of love, and in my thought realm I was transformed by the renewing of my mind. The things I had prayed for so long actually happened, not gradually, but immediately. I knew that the kingdom of love had come within, because the gates were shut and locked against love’s enemies.”
The Journey - July 2001
|