THREE STEPS TO PARADISE by Adam Harbinson
I was thinking the other day about the hundreds of conferences, seminars, church services and the like I've been to in my time. How many words that turned out to be just more words, how many life-changing revelations that changed little, how many books bought and read in vain hope, how many prayers that appear to have gone unheeded. If all of that stuff could be reduced down to a couple of lines on a page, or a couple of pages in a book, or even a couple of books in a library, how profound that would be.
Someone once asked Derek Prince if he could summarise his life's teaching and learning, what would be say. 'Three words,' said the great man. 'God is faithful'. Karl Barth, one of the most brilliant intellectuals of the twentieth century, and perhaps the most far-sighted theologian in the last thousand years was asked him a similar question, and he answered, 'Jesus loves me, this I know, for the Bible tells me so.' But I can think of only a couple of occasions when something someone said stopped me in my tracks, sometimes with a throwaway comment that changed my outlook on life forever. My father knew an old man who lived on the Shankill Road in Belfast. Each morning he would wash and shave, have breakfast and then, neatly dressed with a big black Bible under his arm he would say, 'Right Lord. Where are we off to today?' To live in that degree of immediacy must be invigorating and exciting. Brennan Manning, (Brennan's website) a former Franciscan priest and author of The Ragamuffin Gospel had slipped into alcoholism. He tells of an occasion when he was on a twelve-day binge, unshaven, matted hair, filthy clothes, rancid with BO. 'I didn't deserve to be with decent people,' he said, and he emerged from his alcoholic fog just long enough to notice a young couple as they averted their eyes and slipped past him maintaining their safe distance. It was the loneliest and most shameful moment of his entire life, and yet years later as he prayed and fasted in a mountain cave in the Zaragoza desert, he realised; 'God loved me as much then in my state of disgrace as he does now in my state of grace.' And yet powerful, and life changing, as these examples might be, for me, the single sentence that sums up the core and substance of the Christian life you'll find in Jack Frost's book, 'Experiencing Father's Embrace'. Jack, now suffering from lung cancer, reduces all that is important to him, to three simple steps to total Christian fulfilment. (Jack's website). I remember going to a church in which the preacher delivered what he thought was a life changing, one-hour-long sermon every Sunday morning. We'd sit frantically making notes, for we had to work all of this wisdom, and all of these challenges into our lives to become better people so God would love us more. And we'd labour and strive all week, only having made a start on the mammoth task, when it was Sunday again, and we'd have another one-hour-long, life changing sermon dumped on us from a great height. How much more thrilling, and fulfilling for us, and how much more effective we might have been as a Christian community if this man had taken those three simple steps, unpacked them, and encouraged us to weave them into the fabric of our lives. A bit late in the day for me perhaps, but I'm working on Jack Frost's three simple steps. Maybe you should have a go. Here they are:
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