Shabbat shalom kol beit Yisra'el and Mishpachah as we embark on the first of four sabbaths that will end our year. As there aren't many of us gathered today I thought I would break with the usual pattern and have more an informal tête-à-tête with you all on matters that the Ruach (Spirit) raises.

I don't know where all our readers live but our little congregation here in Sweden is experiencing the 'winter blues' - we're so sick of the season that we are virtually crying out - begging - for spring. The snow, ice and cold becomes mind-numbingly dull after five or six months and those of you living in Norway, Finland, Iceland, Canada, Alaska and northern Russia will know exactly what I mean. Monotony and boredom are just as devastating killers, albeit it in a different way, to dicing with death in some life-threatening situation. I have never been a fan of the Scandinavian winter but then I don't take pleasure in such things as skiing, ice-fishing or skating which the natives have grown up with and been forced to incorporate into their lifestyle. And therein lies the problem - if you cannot reconcile to your environment, you can never really settle down and be happy in it.

I have lived 10 years of my life in the tropics of the Far East, a little over 20 years in England, and 30 years in Scandinavia. The move from Malaysia to England was not something I had a say in, obviously, because I was a minor, but the move to Norway, and then to Sweden, was definitely my choice - 100 per cent. Both moves were the result of revelation. Without a clear leading from Yahweh I doubt I would ever have come here. And without a clear leading from Yahweh to stay, I would have left years ago, and chosen a warmer climate where English is spoken. I tried to move to America once but Yahweh blocked that. I then tried to move to New Zealand and He blocked that too. I have entertained plans to move to Greece, Germany, Cyprus and one or two other places but they never amounted to anything. The mind and heart may roam but circumstances dictate where we end up, and the Unseen Hand operating in the background.

I have often entertained thoughts of returning to England but each time I have returned there the place has become more and more unrecognisable. I felt chlostrophobic from the overcrowing, stressed out from the frantic pace of life, depressed to see the culture I once knew and loved virtually wiped out by Marxism, massive immigration and malignant ungodliness. I dare say the Malaysia I once knew is even more changed - I returned only once, as a reward for getting into Oxford University, and found that changed beyond recognition too, and that after only being away for a mere ten years. I even thought of moving to Canada once but then I remembered it was as cold - often colder - that it is here. My bones could not endure another icing-up! And from time-to-time I wonder again about making the USA my home - many have invited me to come over to live there, from Pennsylvania to Lousiana - but I am reminded by Yahweh, much to my chagrin, that He wants me here, icicles and all. So Swedes, you are lumbered with me!

I guess it is different if you have only ever lived in one country or one place but in my experience with people, we are always looking for greener pastures. In the old days, before the advent of mass transportation systems, people rarely left their home village or town. Moreover, they were mostly content. Children, more often than not, innherited their father's profession, and sometimes they were glad to, and sometimes they were not. But even with increased mobility, the same 'gamble' of being 'satisfied' or 'dissatisfied' has to be taken. There are no guarantees. Life, wherever it is lived, is full of unexpected twists and turns.

One of my favourite characters in the Bible is, as most of you know, Joseph of Egypt, for a variety of reasons. He had never intended to move to Egypt, let alone end up as a slave or a jailbird. I am sure he had all kinds of dreams about life back in the Promised Land with his family. Yet he never left Egypt while he was alive. Not until the Exodus were his bones finally taken and laid to rest in the Promised Land, as he had requested. And it is the same for us. We must be prepared to live out our lives in places we never chose to live, apart or aside from our dreams, because that is where Yahweh has planted us. Joseph's dry bones still rest in the Promised Land and there they will remain until the resurrection.

Have your circumstances made you miserable? Are you where you do not want to be? Have your plans - your dreams - been dashed? Quite probably. The question is this: will you be reconciled to the domicle that Yahweh has chosen for you? And will you learn the lesson of Joseph, ripped as he was from the bosom of his family by slavery and imprisonment, until finally, toward the end of his life, there was a tearful and joyful reunion? The secret of Joseph was that he learned to be reconciled to where he found himself and determined to do the very best job he could and be the very best person he could be and in so doing bring Yahweh glory.

Now I am not saying that Yahweh will not, or cannot, change your circumstances. He has never told me that I would die in Sweden, though I might. He has only told me to stay put whenever I have asked him. Did you know Jeremiah ended his days in Egypt with some exiles after his beloved Jerusalem was conquered and destroyed? Abraham was suddenly told to leave his affluent life in Ur of the Chaldees and set off to an unknown destination, becoming a bedouin after having enjoyed a comfortable urban existence? Moses exchanged life as a prince of Egypt to first become a simple herdsman in the wilds of Midian for 40 years and then to spend the last 40 years of his life trekking through the blisteringly hot and punishing wilderness of Sinai at the head of an ungrateful, complaining, Egyptianised, and sometimes murderously-minded rabble. Life didn't pan out the way these men had planned or hoped. But then they all came to understand that the purpose of life, or contentment therewith, is not as function of fulfilled mortal dreams, but in being subject to the will of the Immortal One.

We are not here on earth to set-up permanent shop but we are to do our best in whatever situation Yahweh places us in, having the assurance that if we throw our life into service in the here-and-now that we will enjoy the same kind of character-development and inner shalom (peace) as the patriarchs of old did, a condition altogether exceeding the blessings of those like Lot who chose not to follow Yahweh's direction but set-up shop according to their own desires and in places that Yahweh was forced to eventually throw them out of in order to save their lives. Please make sure that He doesn't have to do that to you. I am seriously worried that many of are going to be rudely awakened and driven out from where you are living under less than happy circumstances because you have not heeded the warnings of the imminent Judgment and made inadequate preparations for relocation and emergency supply. You have no idea how quickly circumstances can change and how life can be turned on its head! The whole planet was once turned on its head when the world drowned in a matter of days.

I was watching a fascinating documentary on typewriters last night, and in particular the people involved with the resurgence of this old machine which many of you may have grown up with before the advent of the computer. What really gripped my attention was the reason why people are returning to typewriters, even though they're no longer manufactured anymore, and the main reason is because they produce something tangible and therefore - because the writer is involved in what is physically created - something personal.

For the first few years of this ministry I produced everything on a typewriter. It was slow, it took a lot longer to correct mistakes (which for a two-finger typist like myself meant lots of typos) but there was a sense of satisfaction in being able to hold something in your hands that you had mechanically created and touch and smell. In the documentary, the story of a family business in Berkley, California was covered, a business spanning three generations repairing typewriters. Quite a community grew around this and other enthusiasts. It didn't make a lot of money but it built strong family and friendship ties. And the family was Christian. I guess as a writer myself I could easily identify. I delighted seeing that community and the purpose they found. Yahweh used this Christian family to reach thousands of people from a humble repair shop in the suburbs of a Californian city.

What is your purpose? What is Yahweh's plan for your life? Hopefully most of you already have the answer to that question though equally there will be both young and older folk who are truly still wondering. That's OK, we don't all discover it at once, for any number of reasons. What I'd like to do now is share an incredible experience I had two nights ago that I hope answers this question not just in the present but in the eternities too.

I had a really interesting dream unlike any I have had before. And in the dream I was an opera singer, only I wasn't, or thought I wasn't. Those of you who know me know I mostly hate opera even though I like classical music - only one member of my family really loves opera - though there are some operatic preludes and arias that I find really beautiful.

Well, here I was in the dream in an opera, and the singers, stage hands, lighting staff, director, producer - everyone involved - were people who had hitherto been in my life. But it was far bigger than my life. It was everybody's life, and it was the life of the whole world in all ages too. The opera seemed to be by the Italian composer, Puccini, and I was one of many, many peformers, but my part was essential to the flow of the whole, as was everybody else's. But no one single person had prominence in the operatic piece, it was a cooperative effort. Yet everybody's lines were important to the whole.

Quite early on it became apparent to me that there were two sets, teams or categories of actor or performer: those who belonged to Yahweh, who produced light, and those who belonged to Satan, who produced darkness. The amazing thing is that Yahweh orchestrated and choreographed the whole, vast thing.

Now what happened in the dream is that I arrived at the opera house having forgotten my music or script. I had left it at the home of the person I was staying with. I had somehow got distracted because I had been packing as I was in the process of leaving one place and moving to another. I was distracted because I had accidentally packed some things that weren't mine and it was therefore necessary to remove those things from amongst my belongings. I need help in sorting them out, though, just as we must sort out in our lives, getting rid of baggage that isn't ours, and ensuring that we do what Yahweh wants us to to and stopping what He does not want us doing anymore. And that's realy hard, particularly if you're in the process of making a major life adjustment.

When I arrived at the opera house I was in a panic. The show was about to begin, my part started early on, but I did not have my score, and the score was very complex. As you know in an opera there is a plot and various dialogues between the singers and actors. As I had forgotten my own script I was seeking a replacement copy that I found I could not use. Everybody had one but everybody's script was different because everybody has different lines and sequences. Not only that, but each singer had his or her own 'system' or 'language' that was different from everyone else's. And that's not at all unlike life itself - our script is unique to us and the language we use to process it within.

One very kind and patient man was trying to show me how it worked, a former colleague from my last place of employment, but it was so complicated that I didn't understand any of it at all. It was all Double Dutch to me. He had some kind of flow chart and it wasn't like lines on a score or in a book but went in many different directions, reminding me a bit of the metabolic pathways chart I used to use as a biochemist containing thousands of reactions and their catalysts. He tried to draw lines and colour in boxes in to show me the sequence and form. Even worse, it was all in Italian (as this was an 'Italian' opera) and I didn't speak Italian, though of course I knew it was in Italian and was prepared to sing my lines in Italian. Yet that had never bothered me before because I could, as it were, 'sing in tongues'. It's hard to explain but I suppose it's a bit like being guided guided by the Ruach (Spirit) in prayer. But now the Ruach (Spirit) was gone and it all looked like a hopelessly complex jumble which I knew I could never sort out with my own feeble resources.

Having arrived at the opera house, which was not arranged like a conventional opera house with the stage for the performers at the front, an orchestra pit, and seats in the audience on the ground and up in balconies. The audience and singers seemed to be arranged in groups facing in many different directions, as though there were several different, yet connected, plays all going on at once in this vast auditorium. You wouldn't have thought that one performance was underway. In some mystical sort of way, the audience and performers were apparently split up into many 'operettas' that somehow mystically combined into one performance. What was even more amazing was that there was no conductor to be seen anywhere yet it was all invisibly coordinated.

I arrived late, as I said, dressed in my black suit, the one I had worn at school as a boy, and I could not find the place to go to at first, and at length got lost, finding myself up in the roof of the opera house in the rafters amongst all kinds of junk and débris. At length I found my way back to the giant auditorium.

The opera was already underway and some of my lines had already been sung but without me singing them. However, someone else was already standing in for me though I never saw him. When I arrived there was a sigh of relief from the audience though one or two were angry, and specifically, organisers who were not on Yahweh's side. That, in itself, is amazing because everyone had a rôle, both believers and unbelievers alike, including lapsed believers, believers who were stuck in false traditions - everyone. One lady in particular, who was an organiser and a former colleage from work, was a Catholic who in my life at that time had sometimes been kindly disposed, but at other times was silently hostile.

While all this was going on, another colleague was trying to explain my lines and whilst I was appreciative of his kindness I realsied this approach was hopeless. I would have to simply trust that somewhere inside of me I could find my lines and when to sing them. So I began to sing in faith, my stand-in pulling out of the picture as I got underway. What flowed out of my mouth was more beautiful than I could have hoped for. My heart was fully engaged in one of my favourite Puccini arias. It was at that point a woke up.

Now when I woke up I was amazed - astonished, in awe - because I could suddenly see how Yahweh has woven every life - every man, woman and child - into a script which we are all playing - the script of life, according to their spiritual disposition and free will, without any compulsion from Elohim (God). I could see that the Cosmic Conductor had everything organised in a dynamic way. Everything was moving - constantly.

This was an opera which started at the creation of Adam and Eve and had been playing continuously for the last 6,000 years. Even though things were constantly changing - people were forgetting their parts, or refusing to perform; some were leaving (presumably in death) and new ones were entering the performance (in birth). In all of this great mass of billions of souls, Yahweh, the Great Conductor, was effortlessly moving performers in and out of that Grand Opera so that it flowed, flawlessly, as though the fickle and unreliable mass that is humanity could not spoil it no matter what it tried to distrupt it with. It was beyond stopping and Yahweh had anticipated every actor's move, every decision, every mistake. There was no surprising Him.

So here I am, awake after this dream, and I am slipping into an open vision. I could see in the minds and hearts of the believers, woven into the fabric of the whole. And I could also see the parts of the unbelievers and the devils themselves who were seeking to destroy the opera but could not. They were able to destroy many of the peformers when the performers let them, but the opera went on notwithstanding, to their enormous frustration.

The arias and duets and trios and quartets and sometimes whole choirs of believes shone out against the background of darkness that was the negative, destructive efforts of the wicked and their demonic drivers. And this great concert of interwoven light was giving glory to our Great Elohim (God) above. It was such an enormous scene I could not even begin to describe it to you, and were I to attempt to, it would be like trying to map the location of every single molecule in a glass of water and tracing their individual motions. Not even the world's most powerful supercomputer could do that, let alone figure out all the statistical probabilities.

So here were the qodeshim (saints, set-apart ones), singing and loving in a massive display of complex, beautiful light which was their individual lives - and that life and passion seemed to be made all the brighter against the background of the darkeness of the 'organised chaos' - the chaos sown by Satan which Yahweh was nevertheless intercepting, directing and channelling in and around the works of the faithful like that complex tapestry I have so often spoken to you about, only the tapesty illustration is in some respects inadequate - too simple - to describe what I was seeing. For this was not a two-dimensional piece of art but multi-dimensional, though the idea of a 'front' and a 'back' still held true.

There's another thing that was also crystal clear to me as I listened to the singing and watched the dancing of the lights of the faithful, and it was this: the performance of the faithful had assurance and was PERMANENT. And though thousands were leaving the opera of life all the time, because of death, a permanent testimony or legacy was being left behind that would endure throughout eternity, a living legacy that could never be erased, even though people were coming and going the whole time. The emunah (faith) and works of every believer left an indellible mark over longer or shorter periods of earth time, and was forever recorded and could be played back, as it were, in eternity to the enjoyment of all the participants of heaven. I sensed that this was permanently on display in the Throne Room of the Almighty.

The thing that still strikes me is that everything 'worked together' the way it did, and I could understand Paul's words now, in a new way, when he said that "in all things Elohim (God) works for the good of those who love Him, who have been called according to His purpose" (Rom.8:28, NIV). No sacrifice is ever waisted, no life too short or too long, no work of emunah (faith) in vain, no act of loving kindness unfruitful for they are forever preserved and shine radiantly. Everything good counts and time is not measured in the eternities in the same way that we measure it down here. In heaven - for that was the persepctive that I was being shown - all that was visible was the performance of those of the Light - the darkness was invisible, and even though it had played a supporting rôle in mortality as a backdrop, without the agents of darkness ever realising it (on the reverse side of the tapestry - the side visible in heaven), the side that mattered - it all joined together to form something of immense beauty. I can't compare it to anything that I have seen - all the firework displays in history could not begin to appraoch the glory of what I saw.

Sometimes - perhaps even frequently - we, as believers, forget our lines or try to do things alone our way and in our own strength. We end up leaving the opera for a while, and when we do that someone else has to stand-in for us doing the jobs we were called to do but neglected. Yes, we mess up, but Yahweh is big enough and brilliant enough to still weave our faulty peformance into the canvass as we repent and reform. That is His supreme genius. Sometimes we fall out of the opera when we get lost, or join the dark actors if we lose our salvation. But when we are found again, and start living by emunah (faith) and not by sight, we can instantly rejoin the storyline of the Light - the cosmic opera - provided our eyes are on Yah'shua (Jesus) and not on our performance. When I stopped worrying how I would manage or how well or badly I might do, things started rolling and I was 'on stage' again. My fears had been groundless, because it's not my performance anyway, but His performance through me.

It doesn't matter how good or bad a talmid (disciple) you think you are do long as you just sing, and do so in faith, nothing doubting. Just serve and let the Concert Master choreograph His performance in His way. We don't know the script or score in advance .- we're not supposed to. Most of the time our planning is not to extend beyond one day at a time. So don't strive to 'figure it all out' or control it. That is utterly impossible and if you try to you will get lost and possibly lose your mind.

Don't be distracted by worldly thing and ambitions, consider only your service to His Kingdom and He will arrange everything, and by such means you would never have imagined and in ways you would never think impossible. This life in Messiah is a supernatural performance even though at times we can get deceived by the apparent randomness of it all. It isn't random.

The chaos, brethren and sisters, is only apparent, even if the agents of choas are themselves in the midst of chaos because they are not in Messiah. What you see is the back side of the tapestry, where all the threads are jumbled up in an apparent mess - it's all you can see in mortality. But the fact that you are singing, and you know it's beautiful because your heart is full of simcha (joy), and others know it's beautiful because they can hear and see you, means that there is another side, bigger and more wondrous than brings glory to Yahweh and never passes away.

We previously spent three weeks looking at doubt and faith and sadly we tend to occupy ourselves with far too much doubt sometimes. When we doubt, we wander, and if we wander long enough, we get lost and end up outside the main script - the script that matters - trying to figure everything out only to get more frusrated and lost than ever before. I know that our pride gets offended when we have to trust another, but pride is hardly a friend, is it? To trust means to relinquish control, and that we absolutely must do in so many ways in life - to Yahweh, to parents, to husbands, to bosses, to circumstances. And this is the reality; we never had control in the first place other than to 'trust and obey' or to 'doubt and rebel'. That's the scope of our control! That's the reality of life and why Solomon, when he finally came to his senses again, boiled everything down to this piece of plain-speaking:

"There is no end to opinions ready to be expressed, Studying them can go on forever and become very exhausting! Here [then] is my final conclusion: Fear Elohim (God) and obey His mitzvot (commandments), for this is the duty of every person. Elohim (God) will judge us for everything we do, including every secret thing, whether good or bad" (Eccl.11:12-13, NLT).

And this is what will happen each time you fail to heed this sound advice. You will get shunted out of the Divine Opera so that you end up supporting the devil's own performers, whether in your attempts to hinder believers or make yourself a pain-in-the-backside to them. Yahweh will use you to support them, even in opposition, but you will get no glory for your trouble, and know no shalom (peace), ahavah (love) or simcha (joy).

Rather you will disappear in the darkness and heaven will never see your performance because it was not in emunah (faith) and ahavah (love) but in doubt and in pride. Satan won't see it either because he won't care. You were just a useful idiot to him, readily discardable once your usefulness had served its purpose. You cannot destroy the Opera or the Conductor. It's impossible. You can either play a glorious rôle or an ignominious one. It's your choice. But to be visible, and useful and productive, you have got to forget self and start worshipping the Most High in your service, counting not the cost, not seeking your own glory, but His. For the glory of man is to be found solely in the glory of Elohim (God). Do you believe this?!

I know the struggles of some of you but those of most of you I do not know. But Yahweh most definitely does. We are like the three-year-old standing hesitantly on the edge of a swimming pool. Our Father, waiste deep in the water, stretches out His hands saying, 'Jump! I'll catch you!' This is a critical element of emunah (faith). We might believe our Father will catch us, but without trust we will never jump. We trust Yahweh by believing His Davar (Word) is true, and by depending on Yah'shua the Messiah (Jesus Christ) alone for salvation.

If the picture of the Grand Opera conveys anything to you, I hope it will confirm to you that we can trust Elohim (God) completely because He is completely trustworthy. By trusting in Him, we will be given shalom (peace) (Is.26:3), and in turn, those who can be trusted will be given more (Mt.25:29). And finally, Yahweh always keeps His promises (1 Cor.1:9; Heb.10:23), even though you cannot see Him, so trust Him and rejoin the Cosmic Opera! Then you will be happy because trusting Yahweh produces simcha (joy) (1 Pet.1:8). Amen.

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