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Following God's Willby Paul Williams I was born and brought up in the manse, my father being a Congregational (later United Reformed) Minister. So I absorbed Christianity by 'osmosis' and even, at the age of about 15, began preaching in some of my father's out-lying churches. One evening we had a group of visiting speakers at our church Youth Club who were different. They were not fervent or 'hot gospel' but definitely and disturbingly different. I think what really got through to me was their reality. They seemed to be very ordinary people who had a natural and were cheerfully honest about themselves. That, and their total conviction about the new direction they said their lives were now taking, both fascinated and bothered me. Dead, downright honesty about the way I lived was definitely not my current style. In fact it was totally strange to me. They set out very simple yardsticks that cut right through my good-intentions and well hidden compromises. Was it honest? Was it pure? Was it unselfish? Was it loving? They said that these yardsticks came from Jesus's teaching in the Sermon on the Mount, but I'd never measured the way I was living by that sort of test. I remember one of the visitors saying that her previous attempts at Christianity, "Demanded no faith and resulted in no miracles". This hit me with both barrels. Nothing I had ever done called for any faith and there had certainly been no miracles. These young visitors to our Youth Club were the first people I met from among a revolutionary bunch of Christians calling themselves Moral Rearmament. I later discovered that their full name was Moral and Spiritual Rearmament. They said that it was not a new denomination, but a new determination. I next saw a play that they were putting on in the industrial town where my father was a minister. It was about industry and was professionally produced and apparently very effective. It was called "The Forgotten Factor". It said that God was the forgotten factor in industry and in industrial disputes. I'd never thought of that before. I ended up, after leaving Oxford University, working with Moral Rearmament full-time and have done so in many countries for the last 30 years. It's been fascinating. Put very simply (they used to say that at college, so simple that even the intellectuals can understand it) MRA says, "God has a plan. You have a part." Life is about finding your part in God's plan. It doesn't mean everyone going off and working without a salary, as I did. It means everyone finding what is right for them - God's next step for them. One thing has been an immense help. Every day of my life I take time (preferably before breakfast and the day's chaos starts) to listen to the "inner voice" - to give Him a chance to speak. It's a time to read the Bible and pray, but also to listen. I sit with a note book and a pen at the ready, prepared to write down any thought that comes. The Chinese have a saying, "The strongest memory is weaker than the palest ink." Sometimes there is correction from the day before - an apology perhaps or a call to be honest with someone. Sometimes there is a word on the content of a talk I'm to give or to have, or some direction about something I'm writing. It may be a thought for a friend, or for a friend, or for myself or fro a situation. It certainly to keep life fresh and adventurous, and how else are we to be Jesus's disciples if we don't listen to what He may be saying or asking?
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All articles are (c) their respective authors, and
appeared in, or were submitted for the Christian Friendship magazine published
in Immingham, England, 1989-1990. |