Anita Mathias: Dreaming Beneath the Spires

Anita Mathias's Blog on Faith and Art

The Transforming Mystical Experience of Frank Laubach

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One of my favourite Christians is Frank Laubach, whose literacy program “Each One Teach One” taught 60 million people to read. I cannot speak too highly of his little book, “Prayer, the Mightiest Force in the World.”

Here is his account of his transforming mystical experience–and its aftermath. Note how God blesses him all at once with the gift of words.

Note too how simple this experience is–how replicatable by anyone who seeks God.

From Letters by a Modern Mystic.

May 24th, 1930   This has been a week of wonders. God is at work everywhere preparing the way for his work in Lanao. I shall tell you some of the wonders presently.

But just at this moment you must hear more of this sacred evening. The day had been rich but strenuous, so I climbed “Signal Hill” back of my house talking and listening to God all the way up, all the way back, all the lovely half hour on the top.

And God talked back! I let my tongue go loose and from it there flowed poetry far more beautiful than any I ever composed. It flowed without pausing and without ever a failing syllable for a half hour. I listened astonished and full of joy and gratitude. I wanted a Dictaphone for I knew that I should not be able to remember it–and now I cannot.

“Why,” someone may ask, “did God waste his poetry on you alone, when you could not carry it home.” You will have to ask God that question. I only know He did and I am happy in the memory.

Below me lay the rice fields and as I looked across them I heard my tongue saying aloud, “Child, just as the rice needs the sunshine every day, and could not grow if it had sun only once a week or one hour a day, so you need me all day of every day. People over all the world are withering because they are open toward God only rarely. Every waking minute is not too much.”

A few months ago I was trying to write a chapter on the “discovering of God.” Now that I have discovered Him I find that it is a continuous discovery. Every day is rich with new aspects of Him and His working. As one makes new discoveries about his friends by being with them, so one discovers the “individuality” of God if one entertains him continuously.

One thing I have seen this week is that God loves beauty. Everything he makes is lovely. The clouds, the tumbling river, the waving lake, the soaring eagle, the slender blade of grass, the whispering of the wind, the fluttering butterfly, this graceful transparent nameless child of the lake which clings to my window for an hour and vanishes for ever. Beautiful craft of God!

And I know that He makes my thought–life beautiful when I am open all the day to Him. If I throw these mind–windows apart and say to God, “what shall we think of now?” he answers always in some graceful, tender dream.

And I know that God is love hungry, for he is constantly pointing me to some dull, dead soul which he has never reached and wistfully urges me to help Him reach that stolid, tight shut mind. Oh God, how I long to help you with these Moros. And with these Americans! And with these Filipinos! All day I see souls dead to God look sadly Out of hungry eyes. I want them to know my discovery! That any minute can be paradise, that any place can be heaven! That any man can have God! That every man does have God the moment he speaks to God, or listens for him!

As I analyse myself I find several things happening to me as a result of these two months of strenuous effort to keep God in mind every minute. This concentration upon God is strenuous, but everything else has ceased to be so.

I think more clearly, I forget less frequently. Things which I did with a strain before, I now do easily and with no effort whatever. I worry about nothing, and lose no sleep. I walk on air a good part of the time. Even the mirror reveals a new light in my eyes and face. I no longer feel in a hurry about anything. Everything goes right. Each minute I meet calmly as though it were not important. Nothing can go wrong excepting one thing. That is that God may slip from my mind if I do not keep on my guard. If He is there, the universe is with me. My task is simple and clear. 

And I witness to the way in which the world reacts. Take Lanao and the Moros for illustration. Their responsiveness is to me a continuous source of amazement. I do nothing that I can see excepting to pray for them, and to walk among them thinking of God. They know I am a Protestant. Yet two of the leading Moslem priests have gone around the province telling everybody that I would help the people to know God.

Let Nothing Disturb Thee: St. Teresa of Avila’s beautiful poem

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I first read this when I was 18, wrote it into the flyleaf of my Bible, memorised it, and often say it to myself when I am stressed.

   Teresa of Avila           (1515-1582)
 Lines Written in Her Breviary
Let nothing disturb thee,
Nothing affright thee
All things are passing;
God never changeth;
Patient endurance
Attaineth to all things;
Who God possesseth
In nothing is wanting;
God alone sufficeth.
                    —H. W. Longfellow (translator).

“All may; none must; some should:” The Anglican Mantra

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As I was reading about the life of Cranmer, celebrated in the Martyr’s Memorial in Oxford, I came across this splendid Anglican aphorism for the practice of Confession. “All may; none must; some should”.

Despite its sad and bloody beginnings, Anglicanism has, in fact, distinguished itself by its peaceful spirit of compromise. There is something very English and pacific about it.

I never thought I could be reconciled to Anglicanism because of its origins (partly a political exercise to sanction Henry’s divorce and remarriage) and its cruel destruction of noble monasteries, but I think I am growing rather fond of it.

Dick Woodward’s Four Spiritual Secrets

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Our last day in Norway was blessed, and on a spiritual high. All of us listened to Dick Woodward’s God-story, “The Four Spiritual Secrets” kindly given me by his daughter Virginia. Highly recommended and totally gripping. Dick has an engaging speaking style, just perfect for an audiobook.

Dick is now a quadriplegic, paralyzed from the neck down, but the author of the phenomenally successful (and massive) audio Bible survey, The Mini-Bible College, which has blessed my husband Roy’s commutes for many years. I have met him twice at his home, and have been struck by his good humour and calm confidence and wisdom.
The four spiritual secrets are
I can’t, but He can, and I am in Him, and He is in me.
I am not, but he is, and I am in Him, and He is in me
I don’t want to, but He wants to, and I am in him, and He is in me
I didn’t, but He did, because I am in Him, and He is in me.
How do you learn them? By reaching a point of helplessness.

I first heard Dick’s teaching in 1990, I think, but I didn’t know how to rely on God, or what relying on God meant in my areas of competence.

Through various circumstances, and some adversity, I have happily (I think) reached the point at which I don’t know how I would function in those very same areas without the grace and help of God.

It is a strangely freeing and happy stage. I know I need God to write, to run my house, to parent, to run a business, whatever, and increasingly am doing things by prayer.

Here’s Dick Woodward’s website, www.4SPIRITUALSECRETS.COM. It also has a link to an online Bible study, his Mini-Bible College.  I also recommend his audiobook, The Four Spiritual Secrets.

Hudson Taylor’s Spiritual Secret

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Hudson’s Taylor private dictum: To move man, through God, by prayer alone.

He expresses his spiritual secret which turned his life to joy in a long letter to his sister, which I’ve reproduced below.

CHIN-KIANG, September 6, 1869.
MY DEAR SISTER-We had a very happy day here yesterday.
I was so happy ! A letter from Mr. McCarthy on this subject has been blessed to several of us. He and Miss Faulding also seem so happy! He says : ” I feel as though the first glimmer of the dawn of a glorious day had risen upon me. I hail it with trembling, yet with trust.”
The part specially helpful to me is : ” How then to have our faith increased ? Only by thinking of all that Jesus is, and all He is for us :  His life, His death, His work,-He Himself as revealed to us in the Word, to be the subject of our constant thoughts. Not a striving to have faith, or to increase our faith, but a looking off to the Faithful One seems all we need.”
Here, I feel, is the secret : not asking how I am to get sap out of the vine into myself, but remembering that Jesus is the Vine-the root, stem, branches, twigs, leaves, flowers, fruit, all indeed. Aye, and far  more too! He is the soil and sunshine, air and rain-more than we can  ask, think, or desire. Let us not then want to get anything out of Him, but rejoice in being ourselves in Him-one with Him, and, consequently, with all His fulness. Not seeking for faith to bring holiness, but rejoicing in the fact of perfect holiness in Christ, let us realise that–inseparably one with Him–this holiness is ours, and accepting the fact, find it so indeed. But I must stop.
Returning to Yang-chow to see his patient, Mr. Taylor became the bearer of his own glad tidings.
” When I went to welcome him,” recalled Mr. Judd, ” he was so full of joy that he scarcely knew how to speak to me. He did not even say, `How do you do ? ‘ but walking up and down the room with his hands behind him, exclaimed
” ‘ Oh, Mr. Judd, God has made me a new man! God has made me a new man! ‘ “
That midnight conversation and the change that had come over his beloved leader greatly impressed the younger missionary. He too had seen these things theoretically, as so many do, without really apprehending them.
” I have not got to make myself a branch,” he could never forget Mr. Taylor saying. ” The Lord Jesus tells me I am a branch. I am part of Him, and have just to believe it and act upon it. If I go to the bank in Shanghai, having an account, and ask for fifty dollars, the clerk cannot refuse it to my outstretched hand and say that it belongs to Mr. Taylor. What belongs to Mr. Taylor my hand may take. It is a member of my body. And I am a member of Christ, and may take all I need of His fulness. I have seen it long enough in the Bible, but I believe it now as a living reality.”
Simple as it was, the new point of view changed everything.
” He was a joyous man now,” added Mr. Judd, ” a bright, happy Christian. He had been a toiling, burdened one before, with latterly not much rest of soul. It was resting in Jesus now, and letting Him do the work which makes all the difference! Whenever he spoke in meetings, after that, a new power seemed to flow from him, and in the practical things of life a new peace possessed him. Troubles did not worry him as before. He cast everything on God in a new way, and gave more time to prayer. Instead of working late at night, he began to go to bed earlier, rising at five in the morning to give two hours before the work of the day began to Bible study and prayer. Thus his own soul was fed, and from him flowed the living water to others.”

Six weeks after these experiences, when Mr. Taylor wrote to his sister, Mrs. Broomhall :
October 17, 1869: So many thanks for your long, dear letter…: I do not think you have written me such a letter since we have been in China.
 I know it is with you as with me -you cannot, not you will not. Mind and body will not bear more than a certain amount of strain, or do more than a certain amount of work. As to work, mine was never so plentiful, so responsible, or so difficult; but the weight and strain are all gone. The last month or more has been perhaps, the-happiest of my life ; and I long to tell you a little of what the Lord has done for my soul. I do not know how far I may be able to make myself intelligible about it, for there is nothing new or strange or wonderful–and yet, all is new! In a word, ” Whereas once I was blind, now I see.”
Perhaps I shall make myself more clear if I go back a little. Well, dearie, my mind has been greatly exercised for six or eight months past, feeling the need personally, and for our Mission, of more holiness, life, power in our souls. But personal need stood first and was the greatest. I felt the ingratitude, the danger, the sin of not living nearer to God. I prayed, agonised, fasted, strove, made resolutions, read the Word more diligently, sought more time for retirement and meditation–but all was without effect. Every day, almost every hour, the consciousness of sin oppressed me. I knew that if I could only abide in Christ all would be well, but I could not.
 I began the day with prayer, determined not to take my eye from Him for a moment ; but pressure of duties, sometimes very trying, constant interruptions apt to be so wearing, often caused me to forget Him. Then one’s nerves get so fretted in this climate that temptations to irritability, hard thoughts, and sometimes unkind words are all the more difficult to control. Each day brought its register of sin and failure, of lack of power. To will was indeed present with me, but how to perform I found not.
Then came the question, ” Is there no rescue ? Must it be thus to the  end–constant conflict and, instead of victory, too often defeat ?
How, too, could I preach with sincerity that to those who receive Jesus, ” to them gave He power to become the sons of God ” (i.e. God-like) when it was not so in my own experience ? Instead of growing stronger, I seemed to be getting weaker and to have less power against sin ; and no wonder, for faith and even hope were getting very low. I hated myself ; I hated my sin ; and yet I gained no strength against it. I felt I was a child of God. His Spirit in my heart would cry, in spite of all, ” Abba, Father ” but to rise to my privileges as a child, I was utterly powerless. I thought that holiness, practical holiness, was to be gradually attained ‘by a diligent, use of the means of grace.’ I felt that there was nothing I so much desired in this world, nothing I so much needed. But so far from in any measure attaining it, the more I pursued and strove after it, the more it eluded my grasp until hope itself almost died out, and I began to think that, perhaps to make heaven the sweeter, God would not give it down here. I do not think I was striving to attain it in my own strength. I knew I was powerless. I told the Lord so, and asked Him to give me help and strength ;and sometimes I almost believed He would keep and uphold me. But on looking back in the evening, alas ! there was but sin and failure to confess and mourn before God.
I would not give you the impression that this was the daily experience of all those long, weary months. It was a too frequent state of soul ; that toward which I was tending, and which almost ended in despair. And yet never did Christ seem more precious-a Saviour who could and would save such a sinner! And sometimes there were seasons not only of peace but of joy in the Lord. But they were transitory, and at best there was a sad lack of power. Oh, how good the Lord was in bringing this conflict to an end!
All the time I felt assured that there was in Christ all I needed, but the practical question was how to get it out. He was rich, truly, but I was poor ; He strong, but I weak. I knew full well that there was in the root, the stem, abundant fatness ; but how to get it into my puny  little branch was the question. As gradually the light was dawning on me, I saw that faith was the only pre-requisite, was the hand to lay hold on His fulness and make it my own. But I had not this faith. I strove for it, but it would not come ; tried to exercise it, but in vain. Seeing more and more the wondrous supply of grace laid up in  Jesus, the fulness of our precious Saviour-my helplessness and guilt  seemed to increase. Sins committed appeared but as trifles compared with the sin of unbelief which was their cause, which could not or would not take God at His word, but rather made Him a liar! Unbelief was, I felt, the damning sin of the world yet I indulged in it. I prayed for faith, but it came not. What was I to do ?
When my agony of soul was at its height, a sentence in a letter from  dear McCarthy was used to remove the scales from my eyes, and the Spirit of God revealed the truth of our oneness with Jesus as I had never known it before. McCarthy, who had been much exercised by the same sense of failure, but saw the light before I did, wrote (I quote from memory)
” But how to get faith strengthened ? Not by striving after faith, but by resting on the Faithful One.”
As I read I saw it all! ” If we believe not, He abideth faithful.” I looked to Jesus and saw (and when I saw, oh, how joy flowed!) that He had said,” I will never leave you.” ” Ah, there is rest ! ” I thought. I have striven in vain to rest in Him. I’ll strive no more. For has He not promised to abide with me-never to leave me, never to fail me ? ” And, dearie, He never will !
But this was not all He showed me, nor one half. As I thought of the Vine and the branches, what light the blessed Spirit poured direct into my soul! How great seemed my mistake in having wished to get the sap, the fulness out of Him. I saw not only that Jesus would never leave me, but that I was a member of His body, of His flesh and of His bones. The vine now I see, is not the root merely, but all–root, stem, branches, twigs, leaves, flowers, fruit : and Jesus is not only that : He is soil and sunshine, air and showers, and ten thousand times more than we have ever dreamed, wished for, or needed. Oh, the joy of seeing this truth! I do pray that the eyes of your understanding may be enlightened, that you may know and enjoy the riches freely given us in Christ.
Oh, my dear sister, it is a wonderful thing to be really one with a risen and exalted Saviour ; to be a member of Christ ! Think what it involves. Can Christ be rich and I poor ? Can your right hand be rich and the left poor ? or your head be well fed while your body starves ? Again, think of its bearing on prayer. Could a bank clerk say to a customer, ” It was only your hand wrote that cheque, not you,” or, ” I cannot pay this sum to your hand, but only to yourself ” ? No more can your prayers, or mine, be discredited if offered in the Name of Jesus (i.e. not in our own name, or for the sake of Jesus merely, but on the ground that we are His, His members) so long as we keep within the extent of Christ’s credit-a tolerably wide limit! If we ask anything unscriptural or not in accordance with the will of God, Christ Himself could not do that ; but, ” If we ask anything according to His will, He heareth us, and . . . we know that we have the petitions that we desire of Him.”
The sweetest part, if one may speak of one part being sweeter than another, is the rest which full identification with Christ brings. I am no longer anxious about anything, as I realise this ; for He, I know, is able to carry out His will, and His will is mine. It makes no matter where He places me, or how. That is rather for Him to consider than for me ; for in the easiest positions He must give me His grace, and in the most difficult His grace is sufficient. It little matters to my servant whether I send him to buy a few cash worth of things, or the most expensive articles. In either case he looks to me for the money, and brings me his purchases.
So, if God place me in great perplexity, must He not give me much guidance ; in positions of great difficulty, much grace ; in circumstances of great pressure and trial, much strength ? No fear that His resources will be unequal to the emergency! And His resources are mine, for He is mine, and is with me and dwells in me. All this springs from the believer’s oneness with Christ. And since Christ has thus dwelt in my heart by faith, how happy I have been! I wish I could tell you, instead of writing about it.
I am no better than before (may I not say, in a sense, I do not wish to be, nor am I striving to be) ; but I am dead and buried with Christ–aye, and risen too and ascended ; and now Christ lives in me, and ” the life that I now live in the flesh, I live by the faith of the Son of God, Who loved me, and gave Himself for me.” I now believe I am dead to sin. God reckons me so, and tells me to reckon myself so. He knows best. All my past experience may have shown that it was not so ; but I dare not say it is not now, when He says it is. I feel and know that old things have passed away. I am as capable of sinning as ever, but Christ is realised as present as never before. He cannot sin ; and He can keep me from sinning. I cannot say (I am sorry to have to confess it) that since I have seen this light I have not sinned ; but I do feel there was no need to have done so. And further–walking more in the light, my conscience has been more tender ; sin has been instantly seen, confessed, pardoned ; and peace and joy (with humility) instantly restored : with one exception, when for several hours peace and joy did not return-from want, as I had to learn, of full confession, and from some attempt to justify self.’
Faith, I now see, is ” the substance of things hoped for,” and not mere shadow. It is not less than sight, but more. Sight only shows the outward forms of things ; faith gives the substance. You can rest on substance, feed on substance. Christ dwelling in the heart by faith (i.e. His Word of Promise credited) is power indeed, is life indeed. And Christ and sin will not dwell together ; nor can we have His presence with love of the world, or carefulness about ” many things.”
And now I must close. I have not said half I would, nor as I would had I more time. May God give you to lay hold on these blessed truths. Do not let us continue to say, in effect, ” Who shall ascend into heaven, that is to bring Christ down from above.” In other words, do not let us consider Him as afar off, when God has made us one with Him, members of His very body. Nor should we look upon this experience, these truths, as for the few. They are the birthright of every child of God, and no one can dispense with them without dishonour to our Lord. The only power for deliverance from sin or for true service is CHRIST.”

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