Little Lights Everywhere

When you've grown up as I have, surrounded by a christian community, beginning to question your faith feels scary. It also feel dangerous. 

Who dares question God? 

It would have been more comfortable to accept everything.

It would have been more comfortable to just believe what I'd been taught and not rock the carefully constructed, safe boat of beliefs which sailed in that ocean of my world.

It would have been more comfortable to overlook the inconsistencies, the hypocrisy, the bending and manipulating of the Bible. The bending and manipulating of the Church and the people.

But safety does not always go hand in hand with truth, and I would rather have truth. Everytime. Even if it's painful and hard and even if it meant facing God's wrath. I had to know. I had to find out who I believed in and I wanted answers. Was God the God of my parents? Was God the God of my church? Was God the God of the books I read or the christian radio station I listened to, or the contemporary music I loved. Was God the God of the hymns? Was God the God of the end time preacher or the guest speaker from a far away nation? Was God the God of Bill Gothard? All these voices. All these opinions. All these interpretations? What was truth?

How do I shut out the voices - all those messages - and how do I find the God of the Truth?

Not my truth. Not their truth. Not even 'truth'. But 'The God of The Truth?"

It takes courage to find it. Some have the search forced on them. Others seek it out. The majority prefer the safety of their carefully constructed boats and never think of leaving the shore. But truth has a funny way of making its presence known - creeping up on the complacent, knocking at the doors of passivity. Who chooses to listen? Who wants to listen? For if you do, it will overwhelm your soul and there will be no turning back and nothing will ever be the same again.

I found Jesus when I was five years old, at the same time as both my parents who had been raised in traditional churches such as the Anglican and Methodist church. My father was not a church goer in his early adult years, but through my mother, they heard about this new movement in town and were curious to find out more. They eventually immersed themselves into the pentecostal church community, which in a few short ten years influenced my life so dramatically, that by fifteen years of age I was living away from my hometown in the big city and my father was about to start pastoring a small community church. We took short term missions trips to places like Thailand, Malaysia and Burma (Myanmar) and travelling to Australia with Barry Smith, the end times preacher and a close personal friend of my father and mother.

The last ten years had been full-on, evangelical, pentecostal immersion. The church we attended in my childhood hometown was no slouch in the scene of New Zealand pentecostal churches either. It was a hub of dynamic preachers, guest speakers and church launching. Looking back through my childhood autograph book, (a popular trend in the 1970s and 1980s), I have the signatures of some of the christian world's best-known teachers in there from the 1980s. People like David Wang from communist China and the famous evangelist Ray Comfort.  My parents moved me from the local public school and into the newly established christian school. I thrived. It was a wonderful time - a wonderful community. It was total immersion into the pentecostal world and the church was at the centre of it and my family in the middle of it. Hook, line and sinker.

When I went off to YWAM in 1990 to Australia on a big adventure, I was barely 18 years old. Looking back this is one of the best times of my life. YWAM was perfect for me. I made lifelong, beautiful friends and it really cemented the call in my heart to give my life to God's service - regardless of denomination. Regardless of culture. Regardless of church politics and christian politics. I was, as we used to say then, 'sold out for God.' I really meant it.

Two important things happened to me when I was with YWAM. The first experience was a night on the Goulburn base when I told God I would go anywhere and do anything for Him and I meant it.  I gave God permission to take over my life. I then expected He would send me off to the countries I feared the most like North Korea or Iraq because it always seemed that missionaries told tales of going to places they never wanted to go to and that God laughed at them and sent them there. The second was in Sydney, Australia after we returned from Indonesia. I had gone to the bathroom with my friends early in the morning and while I was at the basin, a woman I had never seen before approached me and told me that God wanted me to know He had a job for me to do in the years ahead. 

This was the first of what I now call the little lights. Little glimpses into the true character of God. Little moments of light that I would remember years later, when I needed to.

I listened to her and took on board what she was saying, but at the same time I was self-effacing. There were others more fervent and more gifted than me. I even wondered if she'd mixed me up with my friend. I also had come from the background of hyper-spiritualism and had a hesitancy and natural questioning towards anything smattering of the supernatural. My parents, while believing in the spiritual world and 'spiritual warfare' (a christian term for battles of God against Satan), were cautious about all the fringe activity that went with this. They never totally bought into the 'demons behind every lamp-post' craze that swept through the Pentecostal Church in the 1980s.

You know how when you look back on your life you see forks in the road. Decisions made that controlled destiny.

I made one of those in 1991. I was in Hawaii at the YWAM university and a ministry opportunity came across my path. To go and work as an assistant to the widow of Keith Green in Texas. But I let it go. I turned away from it and came home to New Zealand. A year later I met Bill Gothard, and all my life changed.

I don't want to dwell on that time because my experiences are well documented in other places. 

But I was 20 years old when I met Bill and my family had became involved in IBLP (Institute in Basic Life Principles) while I was away with YWAM. So I went to work for him as his secretary in his beautiful, plush office in Chicago. This was - as I would discover years later - the 'job' I had to do for God. This was my Iraq and my North Korea. 

In many ways, this was my martyrdom, because it did suck the life out of me.

But the heresy of Bill Gothard only layered upon the constructed images of God and faith and christianity that were already there. Later, when I began to question, one of the big questions I asked was;

 Why was my family vulnerable to the deep deception of Bill Gothard's teachings? 

In Part 2 I'll talk about what questions led me to deconstruct everything I thought I knew about God and the little flashes of light in the answers that helped lead me back to God.

Disclaimer: I use Wikipedia to give basic information about some of the people and organisations I mention. Wikipedia is not always a reliable source - but I do not choose to link to some of the websites as I now disagree with their theology and don't want them getting an increase in visitor traffic.

Faith

I want to write a series of posts about my faith. I hesitate to use the word 'journey' because it is a word that is used so much for so many things. Faith is a journey, but it's more than just that one sweeping statement. It's a lifestyle. It's a set of beliefs and values. It brings meaning and purpose to life. 

I'm a deep thinker. My internal wrestling with the world takes me to some dark places but my natural inclination is to figure a way out. I have a pessimist brain with an optimist heart and a sunny approach to life.  It can lead to some interesting discussions and dialogue. It led me to question everything I've been taught. It led me to freedom. It led me to study sociology - the perfect academic subject for such a confusing personality. 

My faith began when I was 5 years old so I can say that I have been a woman of faith for 45 years now and what that looks like now is actually very similar to what it looked like at 5 years old. It's like a full circle, but it's changed and altered and grown and shrunk, nearly discarded - but now it looks more like it did at 5 years old than it did at 25 years old. But the difference is the knowledge of God that I have gathered along the way and yet, to many and to myself once, it is the knowledge of God that is often the stumbling block. 

I met someone this week who had been a christian missionary to a remote, little-known Asian village - the exact same place that I was at nearly 30 years ago. It was a joyous chance encounter to talk to someone who knew this place as I did. We exchanged jungle stories and I heard how the area has grown and is thriving. As I was thinking about it afterwards and remembering those days I thought about the saying we used to have when I was in YWAM (Youth with a Mission) which is the organisation I was with when I travelled to this remote village.

"To know God and to make Him known."

A village in the far north jungle of Sulawesi. Copyright Rachel Lees

Walking through the jungle into the village
Copyright Rachel Lees                          

I thought I knew God. 

I never imagined, when I was with YWAM and in the youth and fervency of my faith going to remote, isolated jungle villages that one day I would nearly walk away from it all. That I would be led into a deception so deep and dark and hollow that it would crush my faith and everything I thought I knew about God.

I stripped back everything I thought I knew about God and started over, not because I wanted to but because I had to. For my faith to survive - if it was going to survive, the culling was vital. I questioned a lot. I questioned how my foundation of cultural christianity had led to me being deceived. I questioned why God would take me into spiritually dangerous places.- and I'm not talking about remote Indonesian villages here, but rather the gilded, plush offices of a well-known christian organisation.  I questioned the image of God I had been taught and the one I had constructed in my mind. I questioned everything. 

I don't claim to have the answers, but I do want to record what has been for me, an extraordinary, revolutionary, sometimes rebellious experience and why now I feel a confidence in my faith and my beliefs that I've never known before. I was explaining to someone recently why I don't go to church anymore. I will cover this later, but in a short summary, the main original reason is that I did not want man's idea of God and man's interpretation of God to influence my life and my life decisions anymore. as it had done once, so catastrophically.  I decided to set out to know God and to know Him so well, that when a counterfeit was introduced to me, I would be able to see it. I would not be deceived again. But what I found is - the key here is that if you want to know God - really know God - you can't do it on knowledge alone. You have to have faith. It's vital, and often - paradoxically - the key ingredient that is overlooked.

So here's what my series is going to look like:

1. Creating an Idol out of God - a study into cultural christianity

2. Faith can never be anything but faith - it's not knowledge, it's faith

3. Counterfeit Faith - endemic lies in mainstream christianity

4. Jesus is the centre of everything - like it or not, and many - even christians - don't.

5. Simple Faith - like a child

1.11.71

I am writing this on All Hallows Eve. Tomorrow is All Saints Day. My birthday.

Outside my bedroom window is a rose called Many Happy Returns.

It's about to burst into flower on my 50th birthday.

When I was a child, my dear grandmother would always sign my birthday cards with "Many Happy Returns," which means I hope you have many more happy birthdays. 

Well, Grandma, I'm now at my 50th happy return.

There are times in a life where words are not adequate. I have thought over for many weeks what I wanted to write for this occasion in my life and it fails me. How do you fit 50 years into a single blog post? You can't.

As William Wordsworth, the poet said, "Thoughts that do often lie too deep for tears," my heart is one of gratitude for all that has passed, for God who has strengthened me, who gave me guidance and gave me purpose.  

Wordsworth says it best for me when words fail me. 

A childhood friend once described me as 'gentle.' My sister once said I was 'without guile.' I like to think I still retain some of that old me. I like to think it was those attributes that helped me fight a great evil over the past ten years.  That was a job I had to do - but was it my calling in life? No, I don't believe it was my only calling and purpose in life. I hope not. I hope that even though I'm fifty I can still hold dreams and ambitions.

What is happening for me in my life right now, in this year of 2021.

I have two adult children and two children still at school. They all still need me, though the needs are different to when they were small. I'm about to celebrate my 24th wedding anniversary. A marriage which has been tested by trouble and strengthened by faith.

I am about to go into my second year of studying towards a Bachelor of Social Science at Waikato University. My interests are leaning towards Maori studies and Forensic Psychology (studying the criminal mind), but I had a slight diversion into climate change science which surprised me in how much I enjoyed it. I also love research. I am doing well in my grades, which always surprises me,  considering how I did at school when I was younger. I enjoy the discipline of academic writing-so different from creative writing.

I work as a Receptionist in a local medical centre, and after years and years of not working outside the home, I am loving the relationships, work dynamics and learning I am doing there in a place which supports a healthy work/life balance and furthering my education, and is a superb environment for learning human behaviour.

I have discovered the joys of nature journalling and watercolour.

I have a small house with a beautiful garden which brings me joy every day.

My little children's book is still a popular kiwi book.

I want to learn more about the Hebrew natural calendar and live more by the cycles of nature, rather than our Gregorian calendar. This includes learning about the moon, the sun, the solstices, the constellations, the seasons. It's a fascinating subject and one I've been researching for awhile now, peaked by my son's love of astronomy and the Maori meanings behind Matariki. 

Some years ago, I found the poem Love After Love, by Derek Walcott, which is my favourite poem. I post it here as a kind of beacon for me going forward. 

My symphony for the future is simple. 

To live content with small means; to seek elegance rather than luxury, and refinement rather than fashion; to be worthy, not respectable, and wealthy, not rich; to listen to stars and birds, babes and sages, with open heart; to study hard; to think quietly, act frankly, talk gently, await occasions, hurry never; in a word, to let the spiritual, unbidden and unconscious, grow up through the common — this is my symphony. (William Channing).

Finally, I finish with a hymn that has been on my mind for the last month or so leading up to my birthday. 

The words mean a lot to me because my relationship with God has changed so much and I have learned so much of His character. This is my favourite version of this hymn. I've been playing it loudly over the speaker first thing in the morning when I get to work.  I hope you enjoy it too.

Amazing Grace.