Joy, Joy, and More Joy

Joy, joy, and more joy. But first let me tell you the misery I went through last week--because I didn't follow the will of my Lord last First Day. I was sent to Quaker Meeting to give the true Quaker Message to those who claim to be Quaker but are not because they've never heard the Quaker Message. What they have heard is some other, not-Quaker message.

Quakers of the early Nineteenth Century did not keep under the teaching of Jesus Christ and so Satan got in and snuckered them into beliving man's theory of creation. Soon it was science, philosophy, psychology, and psychiatry teaching them. Then it was all the isms from the Middle East, the Far East, the Near East and Europe. Now, it is a smorgasbord: pick and chose, mix and match, whatever works for you. Who needs God when we have an abundance of stuff that sounds like it might be worth a try? Christianity it so, so OLD, so COMMON, so NOT EXCITING.

Ah, yes, this is the atomosphere Christian Quakers must venture into, because the Lord wills it, at least for me. For the Quaker Message is despised in Quaker Meetings like it was among Christian sects of Seventeenth Century England. A harangue from disgruntled members and attenders is nothing compared to the misery that ensues when you don't follow His will. Like Moses I gave excuses--to myself, because He wasn't being fooled. On the way to Meeting this morning, I got to thinking about the time when George Fox was so tempted to dispair he felt as if he had sinned against the Holy Ghost. I wondered was my misery akin to his because that's what I was thinking in my perplexity and dejection.

The message I didn't give last First Day I gave this First Day. Whether anyone heard it I don't care. It's not for me to make anyone listen; it's to speak the gospel and let the seeds fall where they will. My job is to keep giving the message and witness.

I sat back in my seat to let the angst and heart pounding subside. Then, opened to me, today, in that Meeting, was this truth: it's not about George Fox, Robert Barclay, or Rhonda, etc., or Quaker Meeting, or Quaker way, etc. It's about Jesus Christ, the Author and Finisher of Quaker faith. Sunshine filled the windows; my face lit up with a smile. What Joy!