Carol Arnott | Anita Mathias: Dreaming Beneath the Spires

The Mental Habit That’s Worth a Trillion Dollars

I heard Carol Arnott say that her book Grace and Forgiveness is worth a trillion dollars.

Hyperbole, of course, but (Jesus, forgive this crassness!!) if I were to monetize it, learning and practising forgiveness would easily be worth well over £100,000, perhaps £500,000 in a lifetime. No, more!

Speculative, of course, but that’s possibly the monetary value of the immense productivity which would result from keeping one’s mind free of emotional turmoil and the petty resentments and grievances which so distract and drain one.

And imagine the creativity which would result from stepping into the eternal sources of ideas, the energy which would result from not judging other people, not revolving in your mind the sad old tedious tale of sins they have committed against you, but instead focusing on your own life, goals and purposes.

And of course, one would be SO much healthier physically and mentally if one could forgive, and refuse to judge. Some estimate that 60 to 90 percent of illness is psychosomatic, caused by our negative thoughts. Colds, flu, digestive ailments, allergies flaring up, insomnia, exhaustion—most of us have experienced these after emotional upsets; perhaps prolonged emotional strain could lead to more serious conditions.

* * *

Last week, I got so angry with a member of my family that I took to bed at 9 p.m. so that I would not sin with my words, not crush through a strongly worded expression of anger.

But I tossed and turned as I tried to pray in tongues, and pray the Jesus prayer to mitigate my anger and not judge. Some success, much failure!

Well, anger and judgement are not the best way to get to sleep. I was awake much of the night, my muscles stiff and tense, and slept in till 9 a.m. I would normally have slept for 8 hours.

Wow, how much could I have written in the extra 4 hours?

* * *

Forgiveness as a life-style. Letting injuries go as soon as they surface. I simply must learn it.

For anger is spending your energy in negativity. Judgement is spending our passion in negativity.

If we learned to forgive, we could instead invest that energy and passion in our own lives.

* * *

How do we forgive? The absolute best way is the way Jesus commanded.

We bless the person we are angry with. We pray for them. We ask God to give us a love for them (Luke 6:28) for our sake as well as for theirs, for love is a warmer, lovelier, more energizing thing to have in your heart than prickly, cold hatred.

And “Then your reward will be great, and you will be children of the Most High, because he is kind to the ungrateful and wicked.” (Luke 6:35).

As a child, we will have access to the goodness of God’s household: financial provision, unleashed creativity, protection from our enemies, answered prayer.

We will pray with power for the greatest block to answered prayer will be removed. We will have fulfilled Jesus’ condition for the cleansing of the heart even before we pray, “And when you stand praying, if you hold anything against anyone, forgive them.” (Mark 11:25)

* * *

As Malcolm Gladwell famously noted in Outliers: The Story of Success, it takes 10,000 hours to be a world class expert—in anything.

Prayer takes practice. I pray most effectively (seeing changes in myself, and my life and circumstances) after reading books on prayer and making lists and praying through them. In this respect, the most life-changing books on prayer I’ve read are The Circle Maker and I Will Lift Up Mine Eyes.

Forgiveness too is a learned art. While ultimately, it is a miracle like falling in love, it is also a mental and emotional discipline, which goes through stages, and which we can partly learn from others.

The best books on forgiveness I’ve read are—John and Carol Arnott’s Grace and Forgiveness, and R. T. Kendall’s Total Forgiveness.

* * *

Some things in the spiritual life have disproportionate power; they are the atomic bombs of the spiritual life! Prayer, so quiet, so invisible, makes things happen, in our spirits and in the external world around us. Forgiveness too has disproportionate power.

I have heard Heidi Baker talk about forgiving her daughter’s rapist (an drug addict she had sheltered) and how this forgiveness freed her daughter from nightmares and post-traumatic stress syndrome. If Heidi had not brought herself to do so, she might have continued in ministry, but it would have been a mediocre one, not characterized by miracles and joy as hers is.

For myself, I love it when I come to the point of forgiveness. I love the spiritual power, and the sense of joy and love. And freedom. And best of all, there is a new unleashing of creative power, ideas, stories and blogs!

Anita’s Christmas Letter

By Anita Mathias

Azure window, Dwerja, Gozo, Malta.

Merry Christmas, friends!!

And here’s a peek at my year!

Feb—Cancer (false) scare, ultrasound, biopsy, and I re-learn the great lesson, “Do not be afraid.” A restful half-term break on Barton by the Sea, by the New Forest .

In March: enjoyed a day at Tearfund’s Headquarters, listening to the CEO Matthew Frost, tell us about the real hunger games.

April—Istanbul. I am impressed by the persistence of beauty, despite all the devastation of the past; wonder if heaven will look a little bit like the Hagia Sophia; and muse on the dangers of theocracies. My favourites: The Blue Mosque, The Hagia Sophia of course, The Topkapi Palace, and the amazing Bosphorus Cruise, in the narrow strait between Europe and Asia.

Later that month, Patricia Bootsma, leader of Catch the Fire, Toronto, birthplace of the Toronto Blessing, prophesies out of the blue about my daughter Zoe, who was not there, and of whose existence she did not know. It changes Zoe’s outlook on life, and infuses much hope into our hearts.

Zoe later does brilliantly in her A-S exams, all A’s and 100% in Religion. She plans to read Theology at University, and has had several excellent university offers so far.

June finds us on the road again. A rhythm of six sedentary weeks of reading and thinking, followed by an active week or two of adventure and travel suits us best. (We are making the most of being self-employed!) We visit the amazing Giant’s Causeway in Northern Ireland, and wild, remote County Donegal in the Republic of Ireland.

July – A visit from Roy’s brother Jeph, sister-in-law Kaaren and their bevy of charming children. And a course in the Christian History of Oxford at Wycliffe College, the local Anglican theological college. I was surprised by the immense impact that theology had on this city. I learn about John Wesley’s call to stand apart from a generation of triflers; agree that Calvinism is clever, but wonder what Jesus would have made of it; and conclude that if our theology makes us cry, our theology is too small.

August—We buy a motor home, and set off on an epic trip to Denmark, through England, France, Belgium, Holland and Germany. We visited Haderslev, Hans Christian Andersen’s birthplace Odense, and Copenhagen, where I loved the Scandinavian prehistory section in the National Museum of Denmark.

I enjoyed listening to Heidi Baker at River Camp, and, especially, Mark Stibbe’s brilliant talk on writing. And then, the spiritual smorgasbord at the Revival Alliance conference (Heidi Baker, John Arnott, Bill Johnson), in which dozens of eyewitnesses, including my children, and a friend of ours, an Oxford-educated Physics teacher, claimed they saw diamonds materialize, as witness claim they do at Bill Johnson’s church, Bethel, in Redding, California. My take-away (literally) was the ten-minute praise timer recommended by Carol Arnott which beeps every ten minutes, reminding you to praise and worship God. I love using it.

October—I enjoyed a retreat at His Place, a Christian retreat centre at Saarland, Germany, and love Luxembourg.

December—We visit Malta. Highlights—the bay where St. Paul was shipwrecked; Malta’s Neolithic temples; Ramla Bay, and the magical Azure Window in Gozo.

Other highlights—Listening to the Bible in a Year, discovering Audible and listening to numerous books on tape as I walk, and beginning to use AntiSocial, an app which locks me out of the web when I write. I am slowly getting back into the groove of “real” writing, after taking 4 years out to work on the family business, and my blog has been a source of joy, pleasure and personal growth.

Henry Nouwen wrote, “To celebrate life together, to be together in community, to simply enjoy the beauty of creation, the love of people, and the goodness of God—these seem faraway ideals. There seem to be a mountain of obstacles preventing people from being where their hearts want to be.” We wish you a Merry Christmas and a happy New Year of being where your heart wants to be. And “Amor, salud y pesetas y el tempo para gustarlos …” Love, health and pesos and the time to enjoy them!!

Off to “His Place,” a Christian Retreat Centre in Saarland, Germany. “He Restores my Soul”

By Anita Mathias

We are on our way to Germany to stay at His Place, a guesthouse, owned by a Christian community, Community Without Walls, where Rolland Baker was healed from dementia, and Carol Arnott was healed and taught the ten minute worship revolution which has helped me a lot on the days I remember to use it.

We are hoping to explore a bit of Germany, and Luxembourg and France, for Saarland is nestled between them, but also rest, and pray and walk.

I have had an amazing half-term. (For non-Brits, English schools have three 12 week terms, with a precious half-term week off between each 6 week half term, and 3 weeks off for Christmas and Easter, and 7 weeks in the summer. It’s a less gruelling model than the American system).

The British school system suits my own rhythms. I like to read and write for six weeks with increasing focus and intensity, and then have a week of mainly travel and exploration, or pure rest at a retreat centre, and catching up on sleep. And then return, as good as new.

After a wonderful talk on writing, and prayer for the anointing of writing by Mark Stibbe, I wrote at full heat for several weeks. I am now tired. I guess in any spirit-empowered thing one needs to keep one’s eyes on Jesus, or you can sink like Peter, once you stop relying on God’s power, and instead start doing things on auto-pilot.

I am often astonished by the extent I run on adrenalin—you know, got-to-write, got-to-blog, got-to-run, got-to-pray. As we leave on holiday, in our motorhome, I lie down on a bed, and am fast asleep until we reach Dover. Wow, had I really been that tired, just running on green tea, excitement and enthusiasm? As it drains out, I realize how tired I actually was.

I’ve read that when one goes to an unscheduled retreat, the first thing one wants to do is to sleep for long hours. We work—or play!!—for unnatural hours, long into darkness; we wake with an alarm, before we have slept out all our sleep. We live with a constant sleep lag, mild sleep deprivation in some cases. Oooh, why do we do this to ourselves?

According to His Place’s literature Natural silence, majestic views, natural forest gardens and fields, valleys and canyons, rocks and rippling steams can all be found here. Hiking is always fun – at least in Saarland! Germany’s best hiking trails can be found here. Saarland, nestled in between France and Luxembourg, was tailor-made for hikers. It offers both excellent cuisine and a diverse landscape.

The premium hiking trails are circular routes that have been carefully chosen to include the most beautiful landscapes in Saarland.

And yeah, I am looking forward to exploring them!

Here is the link to His Place–http://www.hisplace.eu/hisplace_en.html