Quite sometime ago, I grew deeper in the little bit of hope that I had, because, having been inspired by Jesus’ criticism of the established religious hierarchy, I was convinced that my amateurish and individual attempts to be taken seriously by whoever or whatever it was that ruled the heavens were endorsed by Jesus and therefore worthwhile. So, little old me, having been emboldened to approach faith from a place of vulnerable and reasoned investigation, then journeyed further down a road of recollected childhood glories and tragedies; blazing personal successes; asking questions and gathering evidence; and endless conversations with family, friends and fellow university students—and whoever it was ‘up there.’
Eventually my curiosity was vindicated, the jury came in, and the initial intuitive and hesitant surrenders of a young boy to a mysterious god were given courage to go further, to the point of surrendering my entire adult being to Jesus the Messiah. Since that time and even from the time of the more tentative and intuitive years, I know that I can look back on almost entire fields and forests full of confessions and forgivenesses; hundreds of faces of friends and a few enemies—some approached by me and others who (having lived with the grief that is me) approached me.
Then there are—like dark billowing waves and gigantic waving flowers—hundreds of prayers and poems and songs: given and received. And scattered throughout all of those, a few blinking amber lights of nothing less than miraculous deliverances from naked evil and, in a different shade, some astounding miracles (in every sense of the word)—so wonderful that you feel embarrassed.
For me now—after a period of thirty years—I sometimes stop to look back and am inevitably overwhelmed with gratitude for the astonishing changes that have taken place in me. That little bit of hope has now become a compelling flood of hope because I have been changed by the power of the Holy Spirit, not in a sudden rush, but in a long and slow colouring of a mosaic.
