In Which I celebrate Church History and Great Christians | Anita Mathias: Dreaming Beneath the Spires

Shining Faith in Action: Dirk Willems on the Ice

Each time, I hear or recount the story of Dirk Willems, a Dutch Anabaptist hero of the Reformation, I find myself moved to tears. And so I wrote down his inspiring story in a little book, The Story of Dirk Willems. The opening pages are here. And here is the climactic scene:

When Dirk Willems was arrested in Holland in 1569, he refused to recant the radical reading of Scripture which had set his life ablaze with purpose and joy. The Crown confiscated all his property for its own uses, and he was sentenced to be “executed with fire, until death ensues.” Willems was imprisoned at the Palace in Asperen, until May, when he was to be publicly burnt at the stake.

Autumn passed, and it was winter. Looking out of the prison window one December night, Dirk Willems noticed that the moat around the castle had frozen solid.

His heart beat faster. Had the Lord provided a means of escape? Might the Lord Jesus enable him too to walk on water?

Willems ripped his bedsheet, knotted the rags together, tied one end to the window and slowly climbed down, the cloth supporting his body, grown skeletal on meagre rations in the long months of imprisonment.

He tiptoed onto the ice. And it bore his weight.

The stars shone bright in the frosty night. He skidded across the pond, remembering the nights of his youth, skating with his friends who loved the Lord Jesus on the frozen ponds of Rotterdam. He felt as if he were flying.

The Lord Jesus was rescuing him from his enemies.

* * *

“Stop! I command you in the name of the Duke of Alva: Stop!” he heard the palace guard shout, but using his last reserves of strength, Dirk slid across the ice of the moat, the Hondegat.

Behind him, the guard, “the thief-catcher,” raced across the ice, handcuffs in hand, closing in, closing in.

“Lord Jesus, I ask in your name! Help me. Please,” Dirk prayed as he slid across the ice.

And now he scrambled onto solid ground. He kissed the icy earth.

Delivered by Jesus.

* * *

“Willems, help me! Help me, please.”

Dirk turned round. The ice across which he, grown emaciated in captivity, had slid, lithe as a cat, had cracked beneath the weight of the burly thief-catcher. He could no longer see the guard’s body, just his thrashing hands, one of them gripping handcuffs. As the man grabbed at the ice, it shattered into a myriad pieces.

The guard was drowning.

As Dirk paused beneath the starry skies, the words of the Lord Jesus, which he had recited to himself, again and again, through hungry days and sleepless nights returned like distant music.

Love your enemies, do good to those who hate you; bless those who curse you; pray for those who persecute you.

Do not resist evil.

And Paul’s words: Do not be overcome by evil, but overcome evil with good.

“Dirk Willems, help me. Help!” the guard gasped, clutching the ice which splintered as he grabbed it, only his head now visible, and his hand, his hand with the shackles.

Under the silent stars, Dirk halted. Prayed. And then, “I will do it for the love of the Lord Jesus,” he decided in a rush of resolution.

For the love of the Lord Jesus whom he had resolved to obey in all things; for whose sake he had chosen imprisonment rather than pretend to accept Catholic doctrines he did not believe; for the love of Jesus whom he had decided to follow, whether it led to happiness or death, Dirk Willems turned around.

He glided on the ice as far as he dared, and extended his hand to his enemy, the guard. And pulled him to safety.

They stood on solid ice. His voice quavering with cold and emotion, the guard said, “Thank you, Dirk Willems.”

* * *

But the Burgomaster, who stood watching outside the Palace walls, called out across the moat, “Remember the oaths you swore to the Duke of Alva, thief-catcher. You swore to catch criminals and deliver them to justice. I command you in the name of the Duke of Alva, seize the heretic.”

The thief-catcher hesitated. Then muttering, “Forgive me,” he grabbed Willems’s wrist, clapped the handcuffs on him, and dragged him across the drawbridge, back to the castle.

* * *

Willems was now confined to a small, barred room at the top of a tall church tower, his feet cramped in wooden leg stocks. He was tortured. He did not renounce his faith.

On 16 May 1569, he was led out to be burned to death outside Asperen.

* * *

It was a blustery day. A strong east wind blew the flames away from his chest, after they burnt the flesh on his lower body. His suffering was long and lingering. Willem’s loud cries were heard in the town of Leerdam, towards which the wind blew.

“O my Lord, my God,” he called out, over seventy times.

Finally, unable to watch his torment, the supervising judge wheeled his horse around and commanded the executioner, “Dispatch the man with a quick death.”

* * *

Sometimes we walk through a dark forest by the light of a star which had died ten thousand years ago.

Dirk Willems, fool for Christ, you are one of the “children of God without fault who shine like stars in the sky.” Your light still blazes five hundred years later.

We, who are amazed at your goodness, salute you.

We are astonished by your love for Scripture: you did not compromise your understanding of it, even though that meant imprisonment and the loss of your property, your freedom, your health, and your life. We are stunned by your integrity.

But, most of all, we are moved by how you helped your enemy, though it meant your certain death.

We are inspired by how you kept your eyes on the Lord Jesus through the long agony of that barbaric burning.

We believe that, as you died, heaven opened, and you saw Christ standing at the right hand of the Father, ready to welcome you.

And we know you are with him, shining, in the great golden cloud of witnesses, the communion of saints which sweetens the earth.

Dirk Willems, this world was not worthy of you. You did not get to write your story, but you lived a beautiful one.

Thank you.

* * *

If you know someone who might like a copy, it’s available on

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The Story of Dirk Willems: The Man who Died to Save His Enemy

By Anita Mathias

I am inspired and moved by the story of Dirk Willems, one of the heroes of the Reformation, each time I hear it, and have written a little book on him. I hope you like it.

Here is the opening section

The Story of Dirk Willems:

The Man who Died to Save His Enemy

The banging shook the old timber-framed house in Asperen, Holland.

“Open in the name of the Duke of Alva,” rough voices yelled. The horses clopped on the cobbled street, their breath rising in impatient clouds.

A slight young man ran down and unbolted the door.

“Are you the Anabaptist Dirk Willems?” the Burgomaster demanded. The mail-clad soldiers surrounding him glared.

“I am.”

“Do you admit that in 1521 at the age of twenty, contrary to the doctrines of the One Holy Catholic and Apostolic Church, you were re-baptised in Rotterdam, at the house of one Pieter Willems?”

“I was indeed baptised as an adult after I made a public profession of my faith in the Lord Jesus. For according to the example of the Lord, that is the right and proper time to be baptised.”

“Never mind that. Have you taught that Christians should not bear arms, nor take oaths of loyalty to The Most Noble Duke of Alva?”

“I have indeed taught that. For, in the Sermon on the Mount, the Lord commanded us not to resist evil, nor to take oaths. Mindful of the invisible presence of Christ, our word, spoken to another human being, should suffice.”

“Never mind all that. Have you unlawfully permitted people to be baptised in your house?”

“I have.”

“Will you renounce all your heretical beliefs, teachings, and actions?”

“I will not, for I have resolved to obey the commands of the Lord Jesus as closely as I can. For…”

“Never mind all that. Thief-catcher, in the name of the Duke of Alva, arrest this man,” the Burgomaster commanded.

* * *

During the Reformation, Christianity stretched, and shook herself awake, rubbing sleep from her eyes. It was a Renaissance of the Spirit. Ordinary men and women rediscovered Scripture, reading it for the first time—not in Latin but in their mother tongues—reading hungrily, as if it were news, breaking news, good news.

Martin Luther, then an Augustinian monk, desperately sought spiritual perfection by means of spiritual disciplines, including fasts, which permanently ruined his digestion. If ever a monk got to heaven by his monkery, it was I. If I had kept on any longer, I should have killed myself with vigils, prayers, and readings, he wrote.

Hoping to distract him from his scrupulosity and tormenting guilt, his Superior, Dr. Johann von Staupitz, promoted him to Professor of Biblical Studies at the University of Wittenberg. Luther immersed himself in the Bible while lecturing through it, and was dazzled by its language. He truly believed that he was dealing with the very words of God. God is in every syllable. No iota is in vain, he wrote.

As he understood the Book of Romans for the first time—that God accepts us as his beloved children, not because of our good deeds, but because of our faith in Jesus—Luther declared, “Thereupon I felt myself to be reborn and to have gone through open doors into paradise.”

When Martin Luther visited Rome as a pilgrim in 1510, he was appalled by the worldliness, extravagance and cynicism, particularly in the aggressive selling of “indulgences” spearheaded by Johann Tetzel. Buying indulgences promised reduction of time spent in Purgatory; the money was used to fund the building of St. Peter’s Basilica, as well as the exquisite art of Michelangelo, Bramante, Bernini, and Raphael.

Luther was appalled at Tetzel’s saying, “As soon as a coin in the coffer rings, a soul from purgatory springs.” Who knows if it is really true? he wondered about this papally-sanctioned doctrine. And with that question, he began, one by one, to question every Catholic doctrine that lacked any Biblical foundation, or was expressly forbidden by Scripture.

In 1517, Luther pinned Ninety-five Theses on a church door in Wittenberg, challenging Catholic practices—the sale of Indulgences, Confession, Purgatory—that he considered unscriptural.

The Ninety-five Theses were wild fire. Within two weeks, they created an uproar throughout Germany; within two months, thanks to Gutenberg’s printing press, they were read and discussed all over Europe.

In Switzerland, the influential reformer Huldrych Zwingli went further than Luther, only accepting those doctrines and practices that had a firm Biblical foundation, and ignoring every Catholic doctrine without it–such as a celibate priesthood, the veneration of saints, the Pope’s power to excommunicate, the damnation of the unbaptised, hellfire and, especially, tithing.

* * *

At the same time, however, there were wilder, dreamier men and women, dubbed the “Radical Reformation.” They dreamed not only of a private, internal reformation, but of communities in which each member obeyed the voice of the Spirit within them, obeyed the indwelling Christ, and obeyed scripture.

They publicly confessed their faith in Christ, repented of their sin, and amended their lives. And then they were baptised. Again. And so, they were scornfully called “Anabaptists,” or “re-baptisers”—a label they rejected since they believed that infant baptism, not being a conscious choice, was no baptism at all. However, the mocking monicker stuck.

The Anabaptists believed that the Holy Spirit still spoke directly, and that God still gave some men and women the gift of prophecy. They were egalitarian, treating both men and women, rich and poor, as equals in their close-knit communities, modelled on those in the Book of Acts. They practised simplicity—in their food, dress and speech. They were honest, gentle and peaceable; even their harshest critics said so.

Their faith set them ablaze. They resolved to obey the Sermon on the Mount, their “Bible within the Bible,” as precisely as possible. To experience the blessings promised in the Beatitudes to those who choose the way of meekness, mercy, and peace-making. To refuse to quarrel and contend. To love their enemies and pray for their persecutors.

They believed in pacifism, oh yes!—in turning the other cheek, and letting the aggressor seize both coat and cloak. They believed Christians should never bear arms, despite the threat to Reformed communities from the Turks in Austria and Germany, and the Catholic armies in Reformed Northern Europe.

Their Schleithem Confession read: “Therefore there will also unquestionably fall from us the unchristian, devilish weapons of force—such as sword and armour, and all their use either for friends or against enemies—by virtue of the Word of Christ: Resist not him that is evil.”

* * *

They were persecuted–of course, they were. By Catholics; by Lutherans; by Zwinglians, all of whom were offended by the Anabaptists’ desire to re-baptise the baptised. The Anabaptist attempt to create communities of “true Christians” within Christian cities like Zurich provoked outrage. Also, since refusing to bear arms or to take oaths to rulers or magistrates meant self-exclusion from civil or military service, the Anabaptists threatened the established order!

Anabaptism was made a crime, punishable by death, in European country after country. Some Anabaptists were flayed and had their tongues torn out. Others were drowned with deliberate and ironic cruelty, after the Holy Roman Emperor Ferdinand I sardonically called drowning “the third baptism, and the best antidote to Anabaptism.” Many Anabaptists were beheaded, tortured to death, or drawn and quartered. Still more were burned at the stake.

* * *

Read on on:

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The True Fairy Tale of the Life of Justin Welby, Archbishop of Canterbury

By Anita Mathias

He had been “the shyest, most unhappy-looking boy you could imagine,” –so journalist Charles Moore recollects Justin Welby, Archbishop of Canterbury, a fellow-student at Eton, and Trinity College, Cambridge.

The alcoholic father, who had custody of him was, The Telegraph had revealed, a conman, a trickster, and (to Welby’s surprise) German-Jewish, not upper-class English. His childhood was “utterly insecure”. Except when at school at Eton, he never spent more than a week at a place; there were “moonlight flits” to evade rent and creditors. His father did not pay the fees for Welby’s last two years at Eton, a feat in itself!!

And then, at Cambridge, something happened. The Spirit blew; there was a revival of sorts; Nicky Gumbel of Alpha, and Nicky Lee of HTB, both at Trinity, as well as three other Nickys (four of them Etonians!) became Christians. I asked Jesus to be the Lord of my life. The sense that something had changed was instantaneous, Welby said. It felt like the world changing, like someone I’d never known coming into the room and being there. He was “overwhelmed by a sense of God’s love for him,” as Andrew Atherstone writes in his unofficial biography of Welby.

The child of alcoholic parents, whose childhood was deeply insecure, becomes the spiritual leader of 85 million Anglicans.

An unlikely and wonderful true fairy tale.

* * *

And that is why we love fairy tales. Because, not infrequently, not infrequently, our lives and the lives of those we love resemble them. Because a kind author is crafting the story of our lives, “shaping our ends for good, rough hew them how we will.” Because Christianity is a true fairy tale, as Tolkein famously told C. S. Lewis, contributing to his conversion.

For the dark areas of one’s life to turn to the gold of fairy tales is an entirely reasonable expectation when we invite Jesus Christ to control these stuttering areas, ask for his instructions, and then do whatever he tells us.

A challenging marriage, a stalled career, a faltering business, ravaged health, impossible dreams–in the midst of all of these, it is completely rational to have great hope because of the power of God. Each of these can completely turn around once we invite Jesus to be the Lord of that area, and of our lives. He will suggest revisions to the current chapter, and inspire drafts of the next ones. The business, health and career may well turn around and ascend under the new divine management. Or they may crash… and a golden, unexpected next chapter may arise phoenix-like from the ashes.

* * *

Justin Welby changed so utterly that Moore meeting him 40 years later was amazed. Of course, The Telegraph recently revealed that Welby’s biological father was Anthony Montague Browne, Churchill’s private secretary, who later worked for the Queen, and from whom he evidently received a genetic inheritance of solidity, good judgement and sound nerves. Inherited brain chemistry makes a psychopath or sociopath behave like one; but it can also be a beneficent inheritance, as it was for Welby.

But other factors contributed to the change in Welby that so astonished Moore…the Gospel, the Holy Spirit, dynamic teaching, his own disciplined follow-through, and, crucially, a circle of friends: Nicky Gumbel and the Eton-Oxbridge-Holy Trinity Brompton nexus that has a huge, hidden influence on the Church of England today. (Many influential figures such as Nicky Gumbel, John Stott, David Watson, Michael Green and Welby were converted or discipled by a man called E. J. H. Nash or Bash).

Serendipity or the grace of god… That is how Scott Peck in The Road Less Travelled explains people who have fruitful and creative lives despite distressing childhoods. In Welby’s case, it was both.

* * *

If anyone is in Christ, he is a new creation.

Our inheritance from our family–of intelligence, money, education and upbringing–may not be exactly what we would have chosen.

But once we accept Jesus as our Lord in medieval feudal language, we become part of Christ as he becomes part of us, and now have access to a new inheritance.

This differs from person to person. For some it’s an inheritance of this world, the sort that’s visible, valued and coveted–and for some it’s an inheritance “out of this world.”

Here are some blessings that are part of the inheritance of every children of God:

A friend, Jesus our brother, always walking beside us.

Access to Christ himself, “in whom are hid all the treasures of wisdom and knowledge.”

Guidance from Christ. Access to his wisdom when it comes to solving the problems of our life….whether mundane–how to get the money we need for the fullest, richest, most creative life–or spiritual (stuff which is the essence of life!)

The joy of the Holy Spirit, which resembles being drunk.

The power of the Holy Spirit to help us do difficult things.

Inspiration, though the infilling of the Holy Spirit.

Answered prayer.

The knowledge of the presence of God beside us, and the Holy Spirit within us.

Peace.

Protection from evil.

The promise of wisdom.

Happiness.

Serendipity; a connection-making God.

The forgiveness of our sins: wow!!

Eternal life.

* * *

Bid my brother divide the inheritance with me. The anguished cry of the man in the crowd echoes through the centuries. Inheritances, conniving to get them, families divided by the unfair division of them are a major theme of fiction, Victorian fiction, in particular—and of real life too!!

An inheritance is always a blessing in the Old Testament– “houses filled with all kinds of good things you did not provide, wells you did not dig, and vineyards and olive groves you did not plant.” The mark of a good man was that he would leave an inheritance for his children’s children.

But the spiritual inheritance of the children of God far trumps any worldly inheritance. Read the list again! Who would jeopardise such blessings? And this inheritance that is available to all who would claim it.

“I find who I am in Jesus Christ, not in genetics,” Justin Welby said, reflecting on his “story of redemption and hope from a place of tumultuous difficulty and near despair in several lives…a testimony to the grace and power of Christ to liberate and redeem us, grace and power which is offered to every human being.”

And that is our truest inheritance as Christians, the invitation to live in a true fairy tale of a deep change in our hearts and characters; answered prayer; the surprising, the exciting, the miraculous. A fairy tale with roles in it for anyone who would come play.

When I almost missed the Uffizi Gallery, Florence

By Anita Mathias

The Doni Tondo, a rare canvas painting by Michealangelo. Scroll down for more images.

I spent the first Sunday of January 2106 at the Uffizi Gallery in Florence. It was free, and advice online, as well as unsolicited advice on Facebook warned me that the lines were horrendous.

But visiting Florence and not spending a few hours at the Uffizi seemed like something I would always think of with sadness. Though I have visited the Uffizi before in the 1986 and 1997, I am a different person now, know more about art, and appreciate it more deeply.

In fact, when everyone cautions me against something, I often wonder if God is saying the opposite. If what “everyone says,” and the beautiful mind which created the Universe were in sync, what a beautiful world it would be!

(Digression. I thought of the time when I wanted to decline chemo after Stage III Bowel Cancer, and attempt a science project on my own body to find natural ways of preventing a recurrence, which would bless my body in the process, not curse it. I was staggered by the volume of unsolicited mocking and even hostile advice I got from people I had never met, people I barely knew, (and well as, of course, well-meaning people who, quite understandably believed I was being stupid). If not for two trusted friends, both women of vision and prayer, who corroborated what I heard God whisper to me, I might have been bullied into a year that would have been a nightmare of illness induced by toxic medication, rather than a peaceful idyll of recovering health. And chemo is not hugely effective for colon cancer. 30% of people who go through it die anyway; it only improves absolute survival by 10%. Digression done.)

When I heard the co-author of Grace and Forgiveness introduce her book on the power of forgiveness as worth a trillion dollars, I laughed but, yes, absolutely. She’s right!! In Grace and Forgiveness the Arnotts quote Mark Virkler: The Holy Spirit is always positive, and Satan is always negative. There is some truth to this. Negative advice from negative people cuts off hope and possibility thinking.

R. T. Kendall in The Anointing, tells of a British couple who sailed from Bombay to Southampton in 1904 to experience the Welsh Revival. When they walked off the docks at Southampton, they bumped into an acquaintance who said, “The Revival? Oh, it’s just Welsh emotionalism.”

Crushed, the couple bought a ticket on the next steamer, and returned to India.

But, as it happened, that foolish nay-sayer was wrong. In Wales, in 1904, people were experiencing God’s “love, vast as the ocean, loving kindness like a flood”. They were surrendering their lives to God, repenting of their sins, forgiving everyone who had sinned against them. They were experiencing spiritual joy, the spiritual life. All of which the couple missed because they listened to the negative words of a negative person!!

A long way to say: I am glad I went. The lines looked horrendous, but my family told me to sit down, and so I did, and brushed up on art history, totally absorbed, and all of a sudden, we were in, and I got to see as much as I had the energy for.

Botticelli, Michaelangelo, Leonardo, Raphael…

I am so grateful to the Medici for collecting these treasures, and to the last of the Medici for gifting them to Florence.

And here are a few of my favourites.

Botticelli, Madonna of Pomegranate

Botticelli’s Nativity

And note the snooty Florentines amid the adoring throngs

Botticelli’s famous La Primavera

Notice the Virgin’s cool infinity scarf

Sandro Botticelli, Madonna of the Pomegranate–beautiful angels, very fashionable virgin with a cool scarf!
Sandro Botticelli, Venus coyly rising from the foam

Botticelli, Man with a coin. Note the self-confidence of his gaze.Botticelli, Pallas (and the Centaur)

Raphael (below). The Pre-Raphaelites, Oxford undergraduates when they banded together, somewhat unfairly decided that true art ended with Raphael!

Raphael’s portrait of Pope Julius II, the tormentor who chivvied, frustrated, angered and drove Michealangelo into genius–the inhuman effort of painting the ceiling of the Sistine Chapel, and, of course, crafting Julius’s own tomb.
Leonardo da Vinci’s Annunciation

Angels from Leonardo’s Baptism of Christ

Fra Lippo Lippi–This painting is one of my favourites!
I love the polychromatic angel’s wings in Lorenzo de Credi’s painting

On Planting Secret Seeds for the Kingdom and for the Love of Jesus. And on a Role Model of Christian Leadership

By Anita Mathias

I am fascinated by the Moravians founded by the reformer Jan Huss, remarkable for their 24/7 prayer which led to a worldwide burst of missionary activity, remarkable for sacrificial exploits like selling themselves into slavery to be able to credibly preach the Gospel to slaves.

Comenius, a Moravian Bishop (selected by Life magazine as one of 100 most influential people of the last millennium) turned down an invitation to participate in Swedish educational reform, to plant a “hidden seed” of the Moravian simple love of Christ, so that the kingdom of Jesus would grow in future generations. The “hidden seeds” he had to plant in the face of bitter persecution came to life when Count Zinzendorf invited the persecuted Moravians to his now-famous estate, Herrnhut.

* * *

The talk among Christian writers and bloggers often drifts to agents, advances, Amazon sales ranks, platform, Twitter followers, Facebook likes, comparison and subtle showing off. I hear the preoccupation with building mini-kingdoms, building platforms, fame and glory and wealth, and it sometimes seems as if the simple love of the Lord Jesus that made us want to be Christ-followers in the first place gets squeezed out (and sometimes the simple love of writing gets squeezed out too) in the pursuit of success, fame and money.

So when I hear of someone unfocused on fame, platform, recognition and money who quietly sows secret seeds for the kingdom, I am deeply and inexplicably moved, to the point of tears.

* * *

When I was an undergraduate at Oxford University, the Rector of the largest Anglican Church in town, St Aldate’s, was a man called Michael Green (who now, incidentally, attends the church I attend, St. Andrew’s, Oxford.)

I wasn’t a Christian as an undergraduate. I was on a six year break from following Christ, which was most foolish of me, because, you see, I knew Jesus as a teenager, really knew him.

And so the Christian Union at my college, Somerville, used to pray for me, and students from my college and from other colleges used to invite me to St. Aldate’s with them, and I would go when I felt distressed and overwhelmed, and listen to Michael Green intently, and with pleasure.

But of course, being a Christian is all about surrender, moving into the invisible kingdom so that you are no longer belong to yourself but to Him, and without that surrender, it’s just nice ideas–and that surrender I did not make then.

* * *

My daughter Zoe is now an undergraduate reading Theology at Oxford University, and is leading her college’s Christian Union. The Christian Union has a retreat before term, and Rev. Canon Dr Michael Green, now 85 years old, spoke at each of the two retreats—this distinguished writer, apologist and pastor humbly spending a few days with 25 young students.

Zoe was as impressed with the character of the man as with what he said. The subsidized retreat was £22 per head for the weekend, and Michael lined up and insisted on paying his £22, though he was the speaker everyone had come to hear. He signed up for his slots of washing up and spiffying up. If he came too late to get an armchair, he, aged 85, sat on the floor with the students: “No, you came first. You keep the sofa.” He took meticulous notes as the young speakers spoke!!

We were impressed to hear this. Roy said, “Perhaps he is teaching these young leaders what it is to be a Christian leader.” Non-entitled. Willing to serve. Humble. Not self-seeking.

* * *

It was a splendid retreat, my daughter said, and Michael preached it not for money, not for fame, not for his career, or enhancing his platform, but for the love of Jesus. He may not see the fruit of his teaching in these young people’s lives, but he is planting seeds, secret seeds, for love of God, for the Kingdom.

I am a gardener, and I have had a life-threatening illness, and the thought of sowing without knowing if I will ever see the harvest…it’s tough. So I was particularly inspired by how Michael Green sowed seeds whose fruits he might never see for the love of Jesus, sowed spiritual seeds of the love of Jesus, sowing into the foundations of the great and invisible Kingdom which grows and grows, and which shall never pass away.

I heard the awe and respect in Zoe’s voice at observing Michael Green’s humble, exemplary behaviour, an example that will linger long after she has forgotten everything he said. Following Jesus is something that is caught not taught, it is often said. Words are forgotten, but meeting someone whom Jesus has transformed, that one does not easily forget.

I thought of Michael Green pouring everything into teaching 25 young students, and I prayed, “Oh Lord Jesus, do I love you enough? I do not yet. Lord Jesus, increase my love for you.”

* * *

During this summer, I heard Rolland Baker who has taken in thousands of orphans in Mozambique talk with simple intensity about the love of Jesus. I jotted down notes as spoke:

“Following Jesus is putting all your eggs in one basket, one person. There’s only one person you trust, only one you go to.

The point of following Jesus is not that he will make your life work a little bit better, accelerate your path to wealth, health, success, fame… Jesus is the point.

He is not the one who gives you what you want; he is what you want. Jesus himself is the treasure, not the means to treasure.

Jesus is how God gives us the desires of our heart. Everything you need is in Jesus.

Miracles, signs and wonders and the things we tend to seek Jesus for go with the territory. We don’t chase miracles, we chase Jesus and miracles chase us. When we follow Jesus, he follows us. He finds us.

Never chase joy, wealth, fame, health by itself–you will never get it. Chase Him. The rest comes with the territory.

If you base your joy on anything but Jesus, your laughter will turn to grief.

Jesus’ emphasis was himself. He is the treasure in the field.
When you are in love with God, everything that happens is enjoyable because He gives us joy.”

* * *

I listened, and wondered if I loved Jesus enough.

What is the point of being a Christian if we do not love the Lord Jesus? And, oddly enough, we cannot quite create love for Jesus within ourselves.

We increase it within ourselves in only way I know to do difficult things. We put in the work (in this case, reading the Gospels and meditating on them). And we pray to–love Jesus more.

We reach out our hands and hearts, and ask Jesus to fill them with love for Him so that we might be totally turned into fire.

Tweetables

On a striking example of Christian leadership NEW from @anitamathias1

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Making a Difference Through Prayer and Writing: In Praise of Julian of Norwich

By Anita Mathias

I read the papers and stress rises. So much injustice! 21 million people enslaved (14 million of them in India), land-grabbing, starvation, destruction of ecosystems, precious species going extinct, the restavek system in Haiti, slavery in Qatar, and the plight of the Palestinians.

My heart sinks.

I am just one girl of limited energy. I could push against one or two of these things, but it would take all my life, and I might barely dent it.

I do have a handful of causes, which I tweet about and financially support. That’s like returning just one starfish to the sea, but it makes a difference to that starfish as Loren Eiseley wrote.

* * *

The path of an activist, of a world-changer, is admirable, but it is a calling. If you embark on it without being called to it by God, and being continuously renewed by him, you risk burning out and becoming embittered. I know I would.

Fortunately there are other ways of making a difference in the world, which are also callings.

“If you want to change the world, pick up your pen and write,” ―Martin Luther.

Can so pleasant a thing be a calling?

I see my calling as “a contemplative in the world” and a writer. When I compare it to real heroes like Simon Guillebaud, this seems like a bit of cop-out call, but it is, none the less, the call to which God has mercifully called me.

* * *

I am today thinking of a real contemplative, Julian of Norwich, who was an anchorite. Anchorites were, on request, formally bricked into their cells by the ecclesiastical authorities. Once walled in, they were no longer permitted to leave.

Julian of Norwich lived bricked into a cell attached to Norwich Cathedral. One window looked onto the Tabernacle of the Cathedral; another window faced the outside world. Through this, servants brought food and removed waste, and people from every level of society, including her fellow mystic Margery Kempe came seeking advice.

And that was Julian of Norwich’s way of making a difference in the world. Read, pray, contemplate, write.

It was arduous. My head would feel ready to explode if all I did was read, think and write, if I could not go on longish walks, putter around my house and garden, see friends, go to a small group, go to church. I love contemplation and writing—but in the context of community and of physical movement.

* * *

There were remarkable medieval Christian women, saints, who played their part in the moving and shifting of Empires, Joan of Arc and Catherine of Siena among them.

But Mother Julian, all she did was think and pray and write, think and pray and write.

What could this woman who lived for decades in a single room possibly have to say to the world?

God gave her things to say.

On the 8^th May 1373, Julian of Norwich experienced a series of fifteen visions from four in the morning, till noon, with a further one that night.

They were “so compelling and so rich in meaning that Julian understood them to come directly from God and to be messages not just to herself but to all Christians.” She spent the rest of her life writing them, and “conveying her sense of their significance as it was revealed over many years of meditation” (A.C. Spearing).

Her book Revelations of Divine Love resonates 600 years later.

* * *

Here are some of her best-known thoughts, rays of light from a distant past, ancient music which still vibrates.

All shall be well, and all shall be well and all manner of thing shall be well.

And this:

“He showed me a hazel nut, lying in the palm of my hand. I thought, ‘What may this be?’

And it was answered thus, ‘It is all that is made. It lasts and ever shall, for God loves it.”

I saw three properties that God made it, that God loves it, that God keeps it. The Creator, the Keeper, the Lover. For until I am substantially “oned” to him, I may never have full rest nor true bliss. That is to say, until I be so fastened to him that there is nothing that is made between my God and me.”

* * *

Here are other insights of this woman bricked into her cell who did nothing but think and pray and write.

“The greatest honor we can give Almighty God is to live gladly because of the knowledge of his love.”

“If there is anywhere on earth a lover of God who is always kept safe, I know nothing of it, for it was not shown to me. But this was shown: that in falling and rising again we are always kept in that same precious love.”

“Our Savior is our true Mother in whom we are endlessly born and out of whom we shall never come.”

“See that I am God. See that I am in everything. See that I do everything. See that I have never stopped ordering my works, nor ever shall, eternally. See that I lead everything on to the conclusion I ordained for it before time began, by the same power, wisdom and love with which I made it. How can anything be amiss?”

“And I saw that truly nothing happens by accident or luck, but everything by God’s wise providence. If it seems to be accident or luck from our point of view, our blindness is the cause; for matters that have been in God’s foreseeing wisdom since before time began befall us suddenly, all unawares; and so in our blindness and ignorance we say that this is accident or luck, but to our Lord God it is not so.”

Interestingly, the dry, crusty, cerebral T. S. Eliot was Dame Julian of Norwich’s most famous reader. He quotes her in his mysterious Four Quartets

Whatever we inherit from the fortunate
We have taken from the defeated
And all shall be well and
All manner of things shall be well
By the purification of the motive
In the ground of our beseeching.

~~~

TWEETABLES

On making a difference through prayer and writing. In praise of Julian of Norwich. From @anitamathias1

What could solitary Julian of Norwich have to say to the world? God gave her things to say From @anitamathias1

And all shall be well, all shall be well, all manner of things shall be well. From @anitamathias1 via Julian of Norwich

When the Lack of Joy Constitutes an Emergency: Martin Luther on Prayer

By Anita Mathias

Martin Luther’s barber, Peter, asked him how to pray.

Luther “ without doubt, at the time, one of the busiest and most hard-pressed men in the Electorate of Saxony, if not in the whole of Europe,” goes home immediately, and replies to this humble, unimportant parishioner.

Such, such are men and women whom God blesses!

And I love what Luther wrote. When he loses his joy, he treats it very seriously indeed. He treats it like an emergency!!

“First, when I feel that I have become cool and joyless in prayer because of other tasks or thoughts (for the flesh and the devil always impede and obstruct prayer), I take my little psalter, hurry to my room, or, if it be the day and hour for it, to the church where a congregation is assembled and, as time permits, I say quietly to myself and word-for-word the Ten Commandments, the Creed, and, if I have time, some words of Christ or of Paul, or some psalms, just as a child might do.

It is a good thing to let prayer be the first business of the morning and the last at night. Guard yourself carefully against those false, deluding ideas which tell you, “Wait a little while. I will pray in an hour; first I must attend to this or that.” Such thoughts get you away from prayer into other affairs which so hold your attention and involve you that nothing comes of prayer for that day.

It may well be that you may have some tasks which are as good or better than prayer, especially in an emergency. There is a saying ascribed to St. Jerome that everything a believer does is prayer and a proverb, “He who works faithfully prays twice.”

Yet we must be careful not to break the habit of true prayer and imagine other works to be necessary which, after all, are nothing of the kind. Thus at the end we become lax and lazy, cool and listless toward prayer.

The devil who besets us is not lazy or careless, and our flesh is too ready and eager to sin and is disinclined to the spirit of prayer.”

* * *

As I grow older, I am finding it more of a necessity for my soul to be happy, joyful and peaceful in Christ. I don’t like to go through my day feeling unhappy. I would rather stop, drop, repent, forgive, whatever is necessary for my soul to be happy is Jesus.

Abiding in Christ is becoming a necessity for me to be able to write, to enjoy the company of my family and friends, to enjoy my day, to be happy!

And over the years, I have been training myself to stop when I find myself stressed, or unhappy or empty, and reorient myself to Christ; repent, if necessary; pray, and read Scripture, so that I can go through my day with a soul full of the Holy Spirit and of joy instead of being restless, stressed—or just plain empty!!

10 Reflections after Listening to Heidi Baker

By Anita Mathias

Heidi Baker (credit)

Heidi Baker is, I believe, the closest to the heart of Jesus of any living Christian. Christianity Today wrote a rapturous cover story on her.

I heard her in Birmingham, and here are my notes, reflections and resolutions.

1) “Always, always, always, say YES.”

Heidi: “I got so yielded that I didn’t have much more to say than “Yes, yes, yes.

“The world has yet to see what God will do with a man fully consecrated to him.’ Dwight Moody famously said.

How do we get fully surrendered? We just start, one tiny step at a time. And because it is just one step at a time, one minute at a time, it is an easy yoke. The hardest part is setting your feet in the right direction!

2) After reading about “the multiplication anointing” in Mark Batterson’s “Circle Maker,” I have been praying for it on my writing, business, and other endeavours.

Well, Heidi is in the business of multiplication anointings, and has to be, since she’s committed to feed 12,000 orphans.

She explains it: You surrender your lunch, your everything to God, and he uses it feed a great crowd “as much as they wanted.”

In the surrender, in living in the river, comes the power to have your resources of time, talent, energy, and money multiplied.

Heidi says she’s become cleverer. “God took my mind and enlarged it. I can do things now which I could never have imagined. I have the mind of Christ.” SQ, our spiritual intelligence quotient, she said, unlike IQ, grows with time.

3) “It all depends on how you look at things,” a phrase she repeated like a jazz motif. She had many tales of shipwrecks, and beatings and stonings, of when things went disastrously, dangerously, heart-breakingly wrong, but once she decided to praise God, and look at the bright side of things, they worked out. Not as she wanted them to, or prayed they would, but worked out.

She has had numerous opportunities to become a grouchy old missionary, but decided to choose joy, decided to choose to be happy.

4) “It doesn’t matter if people don’t like you, if God likes you!”

I find the thought so liberating. Not everyone will like me, and I am not to bother about that, as long as God likes me!

“Stick to your message. Four years down the line those people who opposed you will hug you!”

Another theme she riffed on, “Do nothing out of selfish ambition.” However, as you behave like children of God without fault,” you will “shine among them like stars in the sky” (Phil 2:8).

5) “When God shows up, people start showing up.”

Heidi: “When God shows up, everything shifts, expands and grows.”

As a blogger, it is my goal to grow my blog primarily by going deeper into Christ, and so it is good to know that “when God shows up, people start showing up.”

6) Growth Happens Outside the Comfort Zone

Heidi: “I don’t mind being stretched. I believe stretching is good.”

(I too am learning to force myself out of the comfort zone, into the growth zone.)

7) Love Looks like Something

Heidi spoke of Helena whose grandmother asked her brothers to stone her to death after her leg was amputated after a house fire; she was now useless. Helena escaped, and selling her body to keep alive, starting at the age of ten.

After Heidi took her in, and kept saying “love looks like something,” Helena decided to go back and tell them about the love of Jesus. Heidi said, “Never! That is the most dysfunctional family I know of.”

Helena said, “But you said, “Love looks like something.”

What a beautifully simple guide to relationships with our family and friends: “Love looks like something.” It is practical; you can see it.

8) Physical Fitness The work she does in Mozambique would be physically impossible if she were not supremely physically fit. She spoke of running; swimming; snorkeling; lifting weights in her bedroom.

I decided to privilege my physical life (strength and fitness) below my spiritual life, but above my intellectual life. I will try to fit in some walking and stretching, even if I write less. But ironically, of course, I will not write less if I make time to exercise; I will write more. As Jonathan Fields says, “if we make the time to exercise, it makes us so much more productive and leads to such improved creativity, cognitive function, and mood that the time we need for doing it will open up and then some–making us so much happier and better at the art of creation, to boot.”

9) She is learning to appreciate the diversity of all the streams in the body of Christ, both the super-campy and the chosen-frozen dying on their feet.

The body of Christ will have the same diversity as creation, and we should learn to enjoy each of its streams.

10) “We can have as much of God as we want to have if we continually say, “Yes, yes, yes”

anita.mathias