Each chapter here is a door into the Spirit. Some of the doors opened may at first seem strange to you. Taste and see that the Lord is good and it will add to your understanding and therefore increase your first love: sweet fellowship with Christ who with His life purchased your ticket to explore Heaven. That tasting comes from sharing a meal with Jesus!
The door to our heart is not only opened or shut to Jesus, we open or shut the door to our heart to everyone we meet in life. When we, by God's grace, open our hearts in charity to each other, our hearts become joined, like adjoining rooms in a hotel, each opened only from the inside, to create a double suite. These hearts, joining others linked in love, then become not just a two-room suite, but a shared mansion. Jesus said, "In my Father's house are many mansions. I go to prepare a place for you." That preparation is to work within our hearts to join them as one in His love, building a Home of Hearts rising into Mansions of Charity - for the Kingdom of God is within us.
Each chapter here is a door into the Spirit. Some of the doors opened may at first seem strange to you. Taste and see that the Lord is good and it will add to your understanding and therefore increase your first love: sweet fellowship with Christ who with His life purchased your ticket to explore Heaven. That tasting comes from sharing a meal with Jesus!
The door to our heart is not only opened or shut to Jesus, we open or shut the door to our heart to everyone we meet in life. When we, by God's grace, open our hearts in charity to each other, our hearts become joined, like adjoining rooms in a hotel, each opened only from the inside, to create a double suite. These hearts, joining others linked in love, then become not just a two-room suite, but a shared mansion. Jesus said, "In my Father's house are many mansions. I go to prepare a place for you." That preparation is to work within our hearts to join them as one in His love, building a Home of Hearts rising into Mansions of Charity - for the Kingdom of God is within us.
Something woke me so I rolled over and sat up to see what it was.
As I did, I noticed that my body was still lying asleep on the bed. I accepted this observation without emotion; I didn’t feel anyway about it, I only noticed it.
Sitting in the rocking chair in front of the window was a featureless form like some coal-pitch snowman made of thick inky-black smoke. I knew it had called me and that was why I was sitting up out of my body. I asked, with the same absence of emotion, “Well, who are you, and what do you want?”
In wordless answer, it began to pour itself out, filling up the room with its jet dark opaqueness. Understanding somehow that it was going to show me rather than tell me its answer, I lay back down in my body to watch. (I didn’t think about it at the time, but as I think back, I believe that it was tiring to be out of my body in this state, like it required the expenditure of some energy – it was somehow less taxing to watch lying back down within my still sleeping body.)
When the room was filled, the cloud of impenetrable blackness begin to press up to, then into my body, which it passed through as easily as I had when I sat up. To give it room to do what it needed in order to show me why it had come, I contracted myself to a smaller size, getting out of its way with the indifference of moving one’s feet for someone sweeping.
This continued until I reached some limit beyond which I could not recede and was now a small dot in an ocean of lightless murk. “This is as far as I can go, what is it you have to show me?”, I asked.
To answer, it opened a kind of portal into itself and invited me to come and see. Wary of entering completely, I only partly crossed the threshold. When I did, in a moment of time I lived through what seemed like lifetimes of experiences and encounters while sharing my consciousness with this being. As we traveled, this thing gave me wisdom and understanding, a kind of power in each situation we encountered so that no one we met could ever successfully challenge us – we always won the war of ideas and opinions and outcomes.
During this experience, it was as if I had an extra dimensional intelligence that no one else could assail. We would encounter one person and say such-and-such as the situation seemed to require, then encounter a second and say so-and-so as that situation seemed to require and then a third who would point out the flaws in the inconsistencies of what we had said to the first two. But with this thing as a sort of extra-dimensional extension of my mind, I would simply reach, invisibly, into a dimension beyond human intellect and while there, tie the contradictory thoughts together in a way that defied the mental boundaries of this world and then pull the answer back and present my challenger words that could not be withstood. The power seemed limitless - we always won.
When the moment was up, it said to me, “This is what you’ve always wanted…take it.” I stopped and looked back over the path we had taken and it was dark and crooked, turning this way and that. There was no way to follow it or teach it to someone else, it was an untraceable journey. So I said, “No, it’s not good.”
It was significant that I chose this rather than saying outright that it was bad or wrong, for making such a direct accusation, I sensed, would have been great jeopardy.
Reflecting on what I had said, I thought, “Then what is good? If this dark, crooked path of a life is not good, then good must be a perfectly straight life path, like a beam of light, from beginning to end, a straight line that can plainly be seen and followed.” As I envisioned this image of a life, lived without turning either this way or that, I thought, “But who could live such a perfect life?”
The answer flooded into my mind from past, present and future like a memory revived, a revelation received and a sudden inescapable realization all at once: “Jesus!!! That’s what He did! He laid down His life as a perfect path that could be seen and followed by all, a way through the darkness, the bridge home to God!!”
As I said this, I was now struggling to be disengaged from this dark adversary, which at this point was openly trying to engulf me. As I struggled against it a beam of pure light shone down from somewhere above, piercing the darkness, and struck me, freeing me from inside the doorway I had half entered. 1
I was angry now, filled with the first emotion I felt since this began, furious that this thing had tried to trick me. As a result of the beam of light I was now freed but was still only a tiny dot. I wanted to expand back to my normal size and destroy this thing that had attempted to inflict unutterable harm on me. As I tried to push back, it pressed in on me trying to extinguish me with a crush-depth force.
I exerted against it with all my strength and did not know if I was going to succeed. Finally, it gave back a bit and I grew ever so slightly in size. I knew I would make it now and vowed to continue until I was back to myself. But at my next push it suddenly withdrew in all directions at once and I zoomed back to my full size, straining to reach out and catch this thing so I could destroy it, but it was gone, vanished.
I woke up then, body and all this time, amazed by what I had just experienced.
Only one thing was certain: I had to find a way to the light that had shone down on me, I had to find out if I could ever get there…I had to find out if I would ever personally know Heaven’s answer.
(1) The people that walked in darkness have seen a great light: they that dwell in the land of the shadow of death, upon them hath the light shined. Isaiah 9:2 KJV
At first, this book feels somewhat random. But as I continued reading, I realized this was a really good thing - it kept me on my toes because it kept me engaged. It also sparked new connections I might not have made on my own. I ended up really appreciating the 'journal' style of this book because it made matters of faith accessible, especially as someone for whom faith has not come easy. This being a journal also enabled the author to get very real, which is difficult to do well, which was not only relatable but brought the relief of knowing you're not alone. Even if the reader hasn't gone through exactly what the author writes about (like addiction/smoking), reading about the author's wrestle with addiction evokes an analogous struggle in the reader's life.
I also really appreciated how the author did not shy away from out-of-the-ordinary experiences and dreams. Books about theology/faith/God can, because of the subject matter, seem like they have to be formal, but the bold telling it like it is in this book is refreshing as it is challenges.
The journal structure of the book also opens up several doorways to getting to know the triune God more intimately, which is a creative and unique way to give people from all backgrounds doors into the relentless love and singular holiness of the lord of the universe.
The end of the journal is powerfully exhortation that the earlier parts of the journal leads up to: when the reader has come to the end of the journey the author has journaled about, the author invites the reader to embark on their own walk of faith, having shown the reader that God never leaves nor forsakes no matter the circumstance, failure or shortcoming and that God will stop at nothing to bring His beloved (us) back home to Himself.