Out-of-print Manuscripts

Manuscripts

1. The Way of the Sevenfold Secret
2. Focussed
3. The Bird Book

FOCUSSED:  A STORY AND A SONG

It was in a little wood in early morning.  The sun was climbing behind a steep cliff in the east, and its light was flooding nearer and nearer and then making pools among the trees. Suddenly, from a dark corner of purple brown stems and tawny moss, there shone out a great golden star.  It was just a dandelion, and half withered – but it was full face to the sun, and had caught into its heart all the glory it could hold, and was shining so radiantly that the dew that lay on it still made a perfect aureole round its head.  And it seemed to talk, standing there – to talk about the possibility of making the very best of these lives of ours.

For if the Sun of Righteousness has risen upon our hearts, there is an ocean of grace and love and power lying all around us, an ocean to which all earthly light is but a drop, and it is ready to transfigure us, as the sunshine transfigured the dandelion, and on the same condition – that we stand full face to God.

Gathered up, focussed lives, intent on one aim – Christ – these are the lives on which God can concentrate blessedness.  It is “all for all” by a law as unvarying as any law that governs the material universe.

We see the principle shadowed in the trend of science; the telephone and the wireless in the realm of sound, the use of radium and the ultra violet rays in the realm of light. All these work by gathering into focus currents and waves that, dispersed, cannot serve us.  In every branch of learning and workmanship the tendency of these days is to specialize – to take up one point and follow it to the uttermost.

And Satan knows well the power of concentration, if a soul is likely to get under the sway of the inspiration,”this one thing I do,” he will turn all his energies to bring in side-interests that will shatter the gathering intensity.

And they lie all around, these interests. Never has it been so easy to live in half a dozen good harmless worlds at once – art, music, social science, games, motoring, the following of some profession, and so on.  And between them we run the risk of drifting about, the “good” hiding the “best” even more effectually than it could be hidden by downright frivolity with its smothered heart-ache at its own emptiness.

It is easy to find out whether our lives are focused, and if so, where the focus lies.  Where do our thoughts settle when consciousness comes back in the morning?  Where do they swing back when the pressure is off during the day?  Does this test not give the clue?  Then dare to have it out with God – and after all, that is the shortest way.  Dare to lay bare your whole life and being before Him, and ask Him to show you whether or not all is focussed on Christ and His glory. Dare to face the fact that unfocussed good and useful as it may seem, it will prove to have failed of its purpose.

What does this focussing mean?  Study the matter and you will see that it means two things – gathering in all that can be gathered, and letting the rest drop. The working of any lens – microscope, telescope, camera – will show you this. The lens of your own eye, in the room where you are sitting, as clearly as any other. Look at the window bars, and the beyond is only a shadow; look through at the distance, and it is the bars that turn into ghosts.  You have to choose which you will fix your gaze upon and let the other go.

Are we ready for a cleavage to be wrought through the whole range of our lives, like the division long ago at the taking of Jericho, the division between things that could be passed through the fire of consecration into “the treasury of the Lord,” and the things that, unable to “bide the fire,” must be destroyed?  All aims, all ambitions, all desires, all pursuits – shall we dare to drop them if they cannot be gathered sharply and clearly into the focus of “this one thing I do”?

Will it not make life narrow, this focusing?  In a sense, it will – just as the mountain path grows narrower, for it matters more and more, the higher we go, where we set our feet – but there is always, as it narrows, a wider and wider outlook and purer, clearer air.  Narrow as Christ’s life was narrow, this is our aim; narrow as regards self-seeking, broad as the love of God to all around.  Is there anything to fear in that?

And in the narrowing and focussing, the channel will be prepared for God’s power – like the stream hemmed between the rockbeds, that wells up in a spring – like the burning glass that gathers the rays into an intensity that will kindle fire.  It is worth while to let God see what He can do with these lives of ours, when “to live is Christ.”

How do we bring things to a focus in the world of optics?  Not by looking at the things to be dropped, but by looking at the one point that is to be brought out.

Turn full your soul’s vision to Jesus, and look and look at Him, and a strange dimness will come over all that is apart from Him, and the Divine “attrait” by which God’s saints are made, even in this 20th century, will lay hold of you.  For “He is worthy” to have all there is to be had in the heart that He has died to win.

Hath not each heart a passion and a dream,

Each some companionship for ever sweet,

And each in saddest skies some silver gleam,

And each some passing joy, too fair and fleet,

And each a staff and stay, though frail it prove,

And each a face he fain would ever see?

And what have I?  an endless stream of love,

A rapture, and a glory, and a calm

A life that is an everlasting psalm,

All, O Beloved, in Thee.

                                                                                                              – Tersteegen

THE BIRD BOOK

Cover Page

The Book of the Voice of the Bird among the Flowers.

 

Title Page

 We love the birds because God loves them.

And Christ said:  “Even one of them is not forgotten.”

He teaches them and we must listen to their story.

The Story of the Wings

This bird has wings

And he can fly with them

and soar above the trees.

This angel has wings

and he can fly with them

and go up to heaven.

This is little Nunu.

He does not need wings

but God gave him his mother

to carry him.

And you children do not need wings to fly to heaven

but you need our Master Jesus to lift you to heaven.

 The Story of the Eagle and the Chicks 

 

This eagle is hovering over the chicks.

He wants to snatch them (and grill them)

(and their mother), who fears for her chicks

because of him.

Satan is like the eagle,

but Jesus Christ wants to guard us from him.

So when Satan comes near you to fight you,

flee to Jesus and He will protect you from him.

David said in the Psalms,

“You are a shelter to me, you preserve me from trouble.”

The Story of Food of the Birds

 Do these birds search for anything?

 They search for food and every day find something to eat,

for it is written in the Bible:

“Your heavenly Father feeds them”

And what is the food of children?

God, may He be praised, created rice, milk, eggs, fruit,

barley, bread, etc. to be food for us.

He created the hands of mothers

to prepare your food for you,

because you are considered better than the birds by your Lord,

And Christ taught us in the Lord’s Prayer to say:

“Give us this day our (daily) bread.”

The Story of the Nests 

 Do you see the nests in the tree?

How the nest is made?

One of the birds brings straw to make the nest

And another bird brings wool to cover the nest

And so they  work.

Look at these children

how they prepare their ground

And the Bible says”

“In love serve one another.”

The Story of Patience and Long Suffering

This bird plays

all day and

entertains himself.

But this mother bird lies in the nest night and day

On the eggs lest they spoil:

And love makes her forget her tiredness.

These are the eggs which she lies on.

And from them

the baby chicks come.

Patience is hard for you

when the particular lesson is lengthy for you.

Or when your mother is sick, or when your little brother

cries a lot, but love makes work light.

The Bible says:

“Love endures all things.”

Ask love from God, and patience will come with it.

The Story About Joy

 

Why do birds sing (warble)?

Know that the cat settles down when you

stroke it gently.

But the children

And the birds

and the angels

sing when their hearts are happy.

And when the small children praise the Lord Jesus Christ,

their voices rise up before God with the voices of angels.

And the Bible says:

“Worship the Lord with joy, enter His presence with singing.”

The Story of the Bird When It Wants To Sleep

 

When the bird wants to sleep he puts his head under his wings.

It is not afraid of cats,

neither of rats.

But the bird sleeps quietly and does not concern itself with

those two.

But there are children who are afraid at night.

So their mother lights a candle for them

even though there is nothing to make them afraid.

For God takes care of you at night just like He cares for the

birds – and even more.

And He promises us in the Bible and says: “He commands His

angels concerning you to keep you,”

and our Master Jesus Christ about whom the Bible says,

“Your protector does not slumber.”