The Path (Fire on the Mountain Series) (12 page)

“I can tell you this, Mary. You have found favor in the sight of the Lord, and He has shown mercy to your parents and to your loved ones on the ship,” and with that Elijah slipped into the growing darkness of the forest.

We quickly set up camp by the stream. After drinking, posting the watchmen, and building a fire, we settled into a large circle to continue the discussion we were having when the attack came. I began:

“Even though we may not have covered much physical ground, I think we probably made more progress through this wilderness today than any other day yet. I would like to gather together each morning to review how we must pursue these three things and then again in the evening to recount how we have learned or grown in them.

“As we were discussing, any truth revealed by the Lord is a great treasure. Any story about a treasure hunt is filled with danger and suspense, so it seems we are in one of these now. We are actually on the greatest adventure and the greatest treasure hunt there can be in this life. I have not known you long, but already I think I have been privileged to be on this adventure with some of the greatest adventurers I’ve ever known.”

“I’ve been in some meetings before that had a worldwide impact,” William interjected. “In light of what we’re experiencing here, those days seem petty and insignificant. I’ve never learned as many profound lessons in one day as I have this day.”

“It’s intensely wonderful and intensely scary at the same time. You were serious when you said that we should count every day as if it could be our last because it could. I thought you were being dramatic, but I’m sure I’ll be taking everything you say more seriously now,” another one said.

“Yes, but I’d rather not perish in this wilderness. I want to see the mountain. If I die, I’d rather die in battle there, so let’s learn these three lessons and get through this place,” another one countered.

“The first generation that left Egypt all perished in the wilderness. Their account is written for us so that the same does not have to happen to us. This journey is meant to be hard, and it is meant to be dangerous to prepare us for what we are called to, but we are not called to perish here. We must know the Lord, know His voice, and obey Him in all things in order to make it. We must stay so close to Him that He is never out of our sight. We must learn to abide in the manifest presence of the Lord. If we ever lose that, we must stop and find Him. His presence is even more vital to us than this water,” another added.

“That is why He allows those lions to roam here. They are for our sake—they drive us to the Lord,” the older Mary said. “I have never felt Him like I have here, even like I do right now.”

“I think we can learn in one day here what may have taken years to learn on that ship,” William added.

“The whole world depends on Him for life,” another one added. ‘
In Him we live and move and have our being
,’ and here that is made real to us. We can’t make it a single day without Him. We are here to learn this. The whole world is about to learn this, and we will be sent to the world with that message. This is the gospel of the kingdom that must be preached throughout the world. This message will not go forth in just words, but in power, the power of those who live it.”

All I could think about was how much I loved my job.

CHAPTER EIGHT

THE CHALLENGE

A
fter we all drank from the stream, we sat in a large semicircle to pray and for a short teaching in order to review all that we had been taught that day. There was much to process, but after the exhilaration of the day, we were emotionally exhausted. Even so, the living water quickened us so that the prayers were passionate, as was the discussion after the short teaching. I finished with a review of our three main purposes for each day:

• Knowing the voice of the Lord

• Obeying Him

• Dwelling in His presence

The next morning we drank and again sat to pray together and review our purpose for the day. We reviewed our three main purposes and challenged the group how we might make the most of our day, even if we had no lion attack, no visit from Elijah, or no other drama. The Lord’s presence was very real. It was hard not to just want to sit there all day, but we began walking down the path.

We had not gone far when I found myself in a small group composed of both Marys, William, Mark, and a couple of others. William began the discussion:

“The knowledge of His ways is more valuable than any earthly treasure. We all agree on that. If that had not been clear before, yesterday fully established that. We have only been on this journey a few days but a pattern is developing. We discuss a principle or truth and then experience it’s application. Can we expect this every day now?”

“If we abide in the Lord, this is one of the ways He teaches us,” I answered. “He is the Way, the Truth, and the Life. For a truth to become life, it must be applied to our life. The Word says that the ways of the righteous are ordered by the Lord. He does order our steps to help turn what He is teaching us into life.

“We are promised in His Word that all who seek, find, and all who ask, receive. A more accurate translation would be that all who keep seeking find, and all who keep asking receive. The quest for these treasures of the knowledge of His ways is one of the greatest adventures you can know in this life, to a large degree because He adds to it the experience of the truth.”

“If He wants all to be saved and come to the knowledge of the truth, and for all of us to know Him, why does He make it so hard?” the younger Mary asked.

“Only those who care enough to continue the pursuit of these treasures will find them. Those who care that much for them will likely be careful enough to handle them rightly. It is like any earthly fortune. Those who do not have the experience of building a fortune will not have the wisdom to keep it. Those who do not have the experience of searching out His treasures of wisdom and knowledge will not care enough to keep them or live them. Even so, the greatest treasure of all will be the fellowship we have with Him when He becomes our Teacher.”

“When you were spending those years of research and study you spoke of, did you only read or listen to messages that you felt He had put in your hand?” the older Mary asked.

“No. I read and studied many things. I put the highest priority on any book or material I felt that He had specifically put in my hands, but only a small percentage of what I studied would I put in the category of knowing that it had been given to me directly by the Lord. They would often get me going on a trail, but I followed the trail with my own pursuit and research,” I answered.

“Again, He is called ‘the Helper’ who was sent to be our Guide, not ‘the Doer.’ Once I got on a trail I would feel His guidance if I started to drift from it, and He would correct me and help me get back on the right track. I also learned that as Jesus said of Himself, He is gentle and humble of heart. He is gentle in the way He guides us. For this reason, we must stay sensitive to recognize His guidance and even His correction. He may use dramatic ways to get our attention as we learned yesterday with the lion, but that tends to be the exception, not the rule.

“I was taught when I was a new believer that He gave us the desires of our hearts. The things we desired in our innermost being were the things He was calling us to do. When I did not have a specific leading to study something or a book or message that I felt He had given to me, I followed my heart in my studies. It seemed to always pay off.”

“Were there others like this that you had fellowship with?” one of those I did not know well asked.

“What is your name?” I inquired of the elderly lady.

“My name is Judy.”

“Judy, that is a good question. There were a few that I had fellowship with around these things. They were rare but they were rich in substance. I thought some of our conversations were as revelatory as many books I had read. Sometimes I would ask the Lord a number of questions before meeting with these friends, and in our meeting, my questions would get answered, sometimes even in sequence. They may not even know the Lord was using them this way, but that made it even better. As close as we were drawn to one another, we were being drawn even closer to the Lord. I knew that He was my Teacher.

“However, just to meet someone with the same zeal for understanding was like finding an even greater treasure. The fellowship we had around these things was my first real taste of
koinonia
.”

“Can you tell us a little more about yourself?” Judy asked.

“I think you deserve to know more about me since you have me here for at least a while,” I began. “I had been an agnostic before coming to know that God was real. From the time I learned to read, I had a hunger to read everything I could get my hands on. I developed a love for knowledge. I wanted to know about everything, and had many interests, but I began to think that the greatest discovery anyone could ever make would be to know God. At the time, like most people, I was confused by religion, but I thought that if I could ever learn who the real God was I would spend the rest of my life getting to know Him. What could possibly be more important than that?

“Then I had a supernatural conversion experience that left me with no doubt that God is real and that Jesus is the Son of God and everything He said He was in the Scriptures. This was the greatest day of my life. I knew I had found the greatest treasure of knowledge anyone could ever find. I have been in constant awe and fascination with Him ever since. I cannot imagine life being more wonderful than getting to know Him and serving Him.

“It is written that
‘
God is Love
,’ and I learned that you could not learn anything about Him without loving Him more. That compels you to learn more about Him so that you get caught up in an ever tightening and ascending life spiral that gets stronger and stronger. I call this ‘the great addiction’ that every other addiction is a counterfeit of. There is nothing that will ever satisfy the human soul like knowing God. Once you start to know Him, you just cannot get to know Him enough.”

“To this I will attest,” said Elijah who had joined our company without being noticed. “I have seen the glories of earth and heaven. The glories of heaven overshadow the greatest glories of earth more than can be conveyed, but the glory of God overshadows the glory of heaven even more so.

“I have sat in the great councils of heaven. The greatest of all marvels is how the Lord shares His glory with men, and how He intends to dwell on the earth among men. His love for man is more than anyone has yet comprehended. To know this is the greatest knowledge of all; this is the greatest treasure of all. The highest pursuit of all is to know Him.”

We were all still pondering what Elijah had said. There was a long silence, but it was not awkward—it was holy. The presence of the Lord was so great that we just wanted to enjoy Him. After a long time, Mark spoke:

“The Lord built His first dwelling place among men in the wilderness with the children of Israel. It is here that He is building His dwelling place among us.”

“Why did He just come upon us so strongly like that, here and now?” someone asked.

“Because we were talking about His love,” the older Mary answered. “The real revelation was not in the words, but in what we felt—His love for us. He is with us. He loves us.”

“He is with us all the time, we know, but it is so different when He comes upon us like this,” someone else chimed in.

“This is His manifest presence,” someone added. “He is with us all the time, but He does not always manifest Himself like this. Being with Him in His presence is like nothing else. This is what we were made for—to dwell with Him, to know His special fellowship.”

We had to stop. It just was not possible to keep walking. The rest of the group gathered around, and we prayed and worshipped for a long time. No one wanted to leave. Many tears flowed. Then there was laughter. No jokes, just joy. We all seemed to know at the same time that we needed to start walking again. We all just got up and started.

“Do you feel rejuvenated?” William asked. “That was even better than the living water. I don’t know if I have ever felt this good.”

“‘
He is a quickening Spirit who will quicken our mortal bodies
’,” someone quoted.

“That was what King David called ‘the sweet fellowship’ they experienced in the house of the Lord,” another chimed in. “There is nothing else like it. That is why David had to have the Ark with him in Jerusalem.”