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Chapter 11

You ARE an angel!

Scene I

It seemed clear at the time. Little A had been involved in the wild wanderings of adults, so was it not time that he came upon the source of the rivers, before they grew broad and so polluted, and met with the young ?

After devoting a morning to contemplating the Gospel, the goodness of God, the character of his new field and making channels in his mind for various contingencies, then committing the whole matter to the Lord, he decided he would take the form apt for being treated as an 'angel unawares', and since there is no limit to the Lord in dealing with His ambassadors, of whatever degree, he decided that BEING an angel and BECOMING someone new formed for a function, he might as well seek a youthful form for youthful work. In that way, he could overcome a lifetime of comparative ignorance of the ways of the young, by seeming to be one of them.

It was not, he reflected, like those teachers who use first names and never discipline and imagine that life is just a spree or whatever you make it, as if our designs did not exist, our DNA could be instructed or our systems could be invented by mere imagination. He would BE a youth in all appearance and take NO appearance of authority. In this way, help might be given at their own level, without masquerading. It was then that a twinge of conscience afflicted him but only for a second, for was he not masquerading, for he was not in fact a youth but an angel!

Not, he reflected, masquerading, for as to that, I am no sort or kind or species of human being, and have no such qualities as they have inherently, and being a youth is no more a masquerading than being an old man or any other kind. Yet his conscience protested, that is only part of an answer. If being a youth is no SPECIAL piece of a masquerade, is not the whole thing, in any age category, by its very nature ...

NO! he interrupted, and then apologised to his conscience, and reflectively asked it to carry on. By, said his conscience, somewhat portentously he felt, its very nature an imposition, for they are led to believe one thing when really it is another.

Here Little A felt quite strongly, so he replied: LED! Am I leading them, do I lie, do I make up statements or pretend experience that I have not said, do I in ANY point act as I am not ? Well, said his conscience, this time a little dubiously, so that it was clear their positions had changed, no, that is a good point, but see that you keep to it, and NEVER say or intimate what is dishonest, untrue in any point.

It seems to me, then, said Little A, who hated the specious, but began to realise that he was in the clear, that I am not masquerading, which implies a deceitful and deliberately misleading facade, but taking a part as in a play, and without denying what my origin and nature is, I am sharing the nature of others.

Done! said his conscience, only remember, nothing in the least untrue. Done! said Little A, who loved harmony and prized peace, but not so much as to interrupt his own conscience, and he relaxed, giving it a large and becoming smile of peace.

He decided to be a farm boy, but realising from his reading that the term was a little dated, and wishing by all means to win some, he decided it would be an agricultural youth, until this suddenly troubled him, since he might be expected to know things of which he was startlingly ignorant, so he turned this to a country lad. Dressing accordingly from the elaborate inventory available, he decided on slightly curly hair, rather plump cheeks, but a comparatively spare and muscular body, not too good looking, not noticeable in any way.

Thus dressed in a cloak of flesh (for it was not an incarnation, merely an adoption for a time, maybe a day or two), he boarded a train, knowing full well it was school holiday time, and that for the Universities as well. Having sought out a youth camp area, he found that if the Lord willed, he might select the very train on which some might be travelling. To be sure he had been watching some church notice boards, and his guess was rewarded. On that train, there was a group of 13 students, ranging from 17 to 19 years of age, and they were going to a deliciously tasteful camp by a lake, where they could yacht and swim and caper about marvellously.

He sat near them and listened. The 'listening ear' he reflected, a little mischievously, since he seemed to do a great deal of this, but he found them a high-spirited bunch who were chatting about one of their members who had suffered a mysterious illness just before the camp time, and noting that this left them one short, and he a leader, they were wondering what could be done.

This seemed too good to miss, so Little A moved down to the buffet car as they went, and mingled with them. Avoiding such American misnomers as 'you guys' or such antique efforts as 'fellows', he decided to get what they were eating, and sit at a table where there was one space left. Mind if I join you ? he enquired.

Surely, said one, take a seat. Where are you from ?

I'm from the country where one feels much nearer to God than here! he said, drawing in his breath sharply as this seemed the place where his conscience put him in a hole.

Up higher eh ? asked one. Yes, much, he replied. Deciding that taking the initiative was far safer, he then asked them where they were going. On being told, he smiled and said, yes, he loved yachting, for that was one of the preliminary preparations he had made, and he hoped that they were not on the whole too expert. There was something so angelic looking about him, that their attention seemed arrested, and one of them asked him, Would you like to join us ? are you on vacation too ?

I would really, he said, but I am gathering experience, so it is good enough for a vacation.

Sure, they said, come along, we'll talk the the Manager when we get there. We're a Christian group, you know, or some of us are, and we come from a Church.

That's fine, said Little A, I have studied the Bible and find it tough but delightful, and its words like little streams developing from the snow, seemingly small, but growing all the time till in one large and vast river they carry you along.

Hey, that's good! said Angie, who was more literary than some. It seems to remind me of something in the Bible, the way you put that.

Oh possibly Ezekiel 47, said Little A, where there is a stream which comes from the area of the altar, and it starts at the prophet's feet, then comes to his ankles, then his knees and his chest until he must swim, and then its current carries him. It relates to surrender to Christ until you are not merely moved a little, not only made aware of a pressure, not only solemnly moved by His Spirit, but actually brought to the point of committing yourself to His will and finding in Him washing as from the altar, through His blood, and then being led, you go where you are sent. In the environment, you see in Ezekiel 47, fishers, who are the figure Christ used, in talking of fishing for men. Some places are marshy, so even the salty and cleansing water does not change them, and marshy their way, marshy they stay.

You talk like an angel! said Angie, who was used to that sort of play on words, but in so saying she was not playing, for there was something angelic about Little A, and this he had not been able to hide, so he decided to make use of it, since it was a fact.

Instead, therefore, in view of conscience, of saying, Not really! which would have been socially ideal, he had to work out an answer, and it brought a rufflement of the wing butts which were currently unused, which was just as well, since too much of a flutter might have been visible, which would inhibit the disguise. After a little, he declared this, Oh, knowing the Bible does not make you holy! but I happen to love it.

We NEED a discussion leader, said Donald, and you're not of some sect or anything like that, are you ? Far from it, said Little A, the apostle's creed, the Nicene, these are fine with me, the trinity is simply a fact, the substitutionary atonement is meat and drink to me, the bodily resurrection is the beginning of it and the glory in the general resurrection of all believers is the end of the beginning.

Done! said Donald. I'll ask the Manager.

Now, thought Little A, if I were not sent, there would be no way I could even contemplate this, for the Manager is nearly sure to ask me about my church! But being a trusting little angel, he did not worry, though he did pray and ponder the path of his feet, knowing this, that if you do, 'your ways will be established', and so he left it there for their arrival.

When they DID arrive, and the Manager was duly consulted, he just seemed to assume that Little A, being so well known to the company, was all right, and readily gave his consent. It is not for me, thought Little A, to give him a curriculum vitae, if he does not ask, and so the thing was settled.

That night, after sailing, where none of them seemed expert fortunately for Little A, the discussion was to come, but they were so tired that little was done. However, the angel found the names of Jill, Glenda and Angie, Bill, Norman and Donald in his group, and found that they were all city people, going to the same school, and only too glad for someone from what they took to be 'the country'. Since one of them surfed, Little A had one point of contact, and this allowed the conversation to go naturally into natural things, to the point that the scope of waves and their peculiar thrill arose, and they spoke as old buddies. For all that, Little A was so glad that there were no ocean beaches about the place, and that the waters of the lake lacked breakers, rolling in haste and fury.

The next day, sharing became knowing, and knowing led to familiarity and this to an entente so that by the evening, they were a well knit group, one half of those who had come from the Church.

I'm not really very religious, said Donald, but I guess that is because my father is a minister.

This seemed odd to Little A, but he knew better than to pump Donald for information, and simply smiled musingly, saying, I guess that can be.

Well, you get if from grub to glory, and I find it rather an attrition on the personality, said Donald. Everything is always known, and there is no scope for being yourself.

Yes, responded Little A, it can rather seem like that, can't it!

Me too, said Angie, for despite my name, I am no angel.

It was quite impossible for Little A to use the social mode of replying, "Oh, neither am I!", since that would be a straight lie, so praying swiftly, he replied, Few of the young are; and for that matter, are those older far different, I mean statistically ? he enquired.

Some are like angels, but not many said Glenda, for we seem to get our wings grubby very soon.

Wings! said Little A, reflectively, before he realised the danger, aren't they just wonderful equipment! flying without waiting, like the rays of the sun. He felt a little nostalgic, like a bird suddenly given walking equipment, and told to amble. Yet it is far better to keep them clean, since they fly rather better, that way, and do not get pitted, you know, like a car's duco. It not only looks nice, but it lasts longer in good shape.

You ARE an angel! said Glenda, and it was becoming increasingly difficult to know what to say, so Little A decided to frown as if troubled by something, and merely pouted his lips a little, which being ambiguous prevented any untruth parting from his lips, which made his conscience most happy, as it fluttered about, for it had not ceased to wear its angelic robes, fortunately invisible to others.

Well, I figure like this, said the angel. Donald and you Angie, don't want to be house-proud, always dusting and so on, but you find answers or actions all over the place, and you would rather like to move the furnishings about, different colours, your own taste ?

That's about it, I suppose, said Donald, Angie agreeing.

Well, if you were physicists, you might FEEL the same, but you could not do it, since your purpose is to find what is there and report and understand and help others to do the same.

Yes, but there would be the splendour of the chase, the detective work of FINDING out what was not known.

True, said Little A, but I have always found just that. While there is always instruction available, there has been so much that I have had to find out, trying this and considering that, seeing what fits and what does not, trying to find practical ways of applying things, and just hankering to get my spiritual teeth into issues that challenge my mind and frustrate my wings, if you want to put it that way, that I dart about and try and flutter until I tease and chase and find, one way or another, what I am seeking. Sometimes the good Lord supplies someone really angelic, who can tell me, and then I grow and it is fun to grow. I love it, for if we were all fully grown at once, it would be perhaps in danger of being boring, but having but little mind and less understanding, and having the whole of the Bible to grasp in its interconnections and spiritual meaning and practical application, and needing to see God behind it and to know Him and to learn how to walk with Him, why it is the challenge of a life time!

I begin to see what you mean with your analogies, said Donald, but I mean, I believe in God, in the atonement for sins ... all that, isn't it rather pointless ? I mean, what difference does it make ?

Well I think it makes a difference, Norman contributed. It means that stacks of things I might do, I don't, and presses of things I wouldn't do, I do, so that it is a different life.

But what's wrong with just doing what comes more naturally, from within yourself ? asked Donald.

In my case, said Norman, I find that there is plenty wrong. If I just yielded to my own crummy thoughts, I would be looking for the best paying job, the most attractive girl, the most popular companions ...

Hey! I don't think I like the implications of that! said Bill playfully.

That's just it! Norman mused. It is not popularity which matters, though peer pressure would lead you to think so. It is what is behind the scenes in a person's spirit, not what is on the front, like a pretty dress or a tattoo, carefully displayed, despite the dangers of that sort of addition to the way we were formed.

What is the good, I suppose, really, said Donald, of a popular friend, if he is no friend when you make a bad mistake or err in some way, or become unpopular yourself!

Right! said Little A, feeling they were beginning to grow.

It is just, Donald pursued the thought, that you feel you are conforming to a pattern, and are not really yourself.

If you think a good friend is better than a merely popular one, then, and that clean wings are better than dirty ones, and that solid strength in the way we were made is better than weakness through any kind of abuse, and that a godly perspective, being from God, is the best for one of His designs, where is the art form in that ? It is then your own understanding.

But how do I really KNOW that it is God who speaks in the Bible, anyway, said Donald with something so near a scowl that it made the angel blink.

Do you really think He made you then, or that one day nothing decided to become something, and then, delighted at that, it decided to do the thing properly, and to become something better, and continually thinking ahead of itself, continued to make up the equipment to let it make more and better, until one day it became a man ?

No, actually I don't, said Donald. But what if something was there, and it thought it would be good to become better, and so on ?

What sort of a something ? asked Little A. Something sufficient for the future, so that it could come from it, or something insufficient, so that it couldn't!

Oh, that answers itself, said Donald, who was for the first time in a long while beginning to enjoy spiritual discussion. It HAD to be sufficient or it COULD not come, and since we are here, it must have come, and so yes, something sufficient could be there at the first.

Good! said Norman, and if something sufficient, then what ? A blob of matter, without the mind to think the word 'better', far less the mind to make things so, or an intelligence able to think and to act.

Why the latter! said Donald, for how can anything be constructed by what has no ability to plan, to make and to understand.

Well if understanding is there, so is intelligence to cover it, and if understanding and intelligence is there, and power to make, then this is surprisingly like personality, and if personality and power to make and understanding with executive power to get things done, is there, since not getting them done ...

Would mean, that we would not be here! continued Donald, interrupting, and we are, then ...

Then, said Norman, good-naturedly contributing again, since we are, it was like that from the first.

But is that not what is normally called God ? asked Little A.

It is, said Norman, and I think we all really know that, and it is really a question ...

Of knowing why the Bible is supposed to be "God's word" and all that, added Donald completing the sentence.

Would you imagine that the intelligent and executively magnificent being back of all the layers of law and form and construction and mathematics and all the plain work behind our beings, would regard it as so trifling that nothing would be done about maintenance or travelling instructions ? asked Little A.

No, agreed Jill, who had been mainly an listener so far, because it would be too silly to go to such intensive labours and then turn around and forget about it. That is not the sort of thing WE see in our world, and here you have to look after things if you want them to keep working.

Right! said Norman, and so since we have been equipped with the thing called personality, so that we can be stupid and bossy, or careless and negligent, or reckless and unreliable, and ask for what we get, or otherwise, then we would expect something to enable due care and proper function.

Unless, of course, mused Angie, the Being decided to test us.

Would any intelligent aircraft manufacturer have tests which are quite likely to destroy it, when a little intelligence could conserve it and still test it thoroughly ? asked Norman.

No, agreed Donald, I don't think so, for that would be inane. Well then what sort of a thing would be needed to make testing wise and competent, but not needlessly dangerous ?

A test which put to you what you could not know, and let you resolve to follow it, but did not force you to do so ... said Little A.

Right, said Angie, and that is the Bible, right ?

Yes but it is much more said Little A. It asks you to TEST IT too, in Isaiah 43, 41, 48, pointing out that it has been telling us just what would happen for donkey's years, and it always does, and that there is nothing else like that, and that it is about time we trusted the God of creation to have come clean with a good test like that, and stopped treating him like someone so dumb he could not help failing Year 12, when in fact He made the equipment which we merely USE to get there, and hence is past all comparison so wise that it would make us seem rather nit-wits in any contest.

He remembered as he spoke, the way he had in fact felt rather a nitwit in various encounters with the Almighty or His angels, and declared this therefore with some noticeable feeling.

You speak as if you have experience, there, said Donald, always apt to notice personal matters.

Oh I do, said Little A, for there are times when you cannot believe how dumb you are, and find it almost satisfying to grow into knowledge as the good Lord lets you find out by bumping into reality, or letting it bump into you, or helps you to realise by the pure stupidity of your ideas, until they become clear, and then in a marvellous fashion, you see how obvious and clear it all is.

So you're not an angel after all! said Angie mischievously.

This was stumper for the angel. How could he honestly agree with a smirk, no, he was not an angel, when he was one. He had a sudden inspiration. I am not your idea of one, any way, he smiled deprecatingly.

As he said this, there was such a glow of spirituality about him, that they could not help noticing, and they felt suddenly drawn to him, and listened, as the Americans say in their lesser moments, and listened good!

What test then could you expect from the Creator for creatures able to think with Him and listen to Him, and yet who must be sincere and not merely glumly subservient, but alight with understanding and rejoicing in the truth ?

Well, Donald mused, I suppose you could tell them basic things that you want, and to be clear about, and let them work out some of the details, applications and meanings at their leisure, though making sure there would not be too much of that!

Right, Little A agreed, and what better than His own words, for this, showing principles, promises and provisions, and surveying history past, present and future, so that His oversight and power is obvious, and His requirements are apparent, yet you have to work to find out more.

Which is the Bible! said Angie, astonished at herself, and agreeably so.

The work is called theology! intoned Norman, playfully.

And being pilgrims and strangers on this earth ? asked Glenda.

How do you get that ? Donald enquired in turn.

Well, if you have plenty to do to gain understanding adequately, and if you are being tested, and if this earth is a place of test, where is the RESULT of the test to be found ? in the wind tunnel itself ? Scarcely. When you fly, you are not in a wind tunnel, but in the atmosphere, where assured knowledge applies, and though you have to use due care, things are straightened out, at least in principle.

Good! smiled Little A. This earth has tragedy enough for any dramatist, and is filled with macabre incidents, horrendous catastrophes and hideous dictators, corporate or individual, and it is no game, that is for sure! It is not the place and plane of our eventual action if and when children of God, but Trial Hill!

Hence we are pilgrims and strangers in it, until we find God ? asked Glenda.

Of course, replied Donald, now feeling very much a man of the mission. You see, we are on trial and this is not our home, so that we have to have ideals and morals and strength and all that, until the time comes when the platform for TESTING ONLY is down and the airways for FLYING TIME are revealed, don't you think ... buddy ? Donald had only just realised that he did not know the angel's name, and not knowing he was an angel, it amazed him. So he asked: What is your name by the way ?

Oh, just call me Angas, said Little A, Angas Little.

Rather like an angel, isn't it ? asked Angie.

Well, in some distant sort of a way, it is, said Little A, but it would be fascinating if you could be one, wouldn't it! (caution, crooned his conscience - but I am thinking of THEM! said the angel to his mentor).

That means, then Angas, said Donald, that it is all test, and we have all we need in the Bible, and just need to meet its conditions and all is well. That sounds good to me.

Norman wrinkled his youthful brow. But what of salvation, of the atonement, of redemption, of Christ's being a ransom ?

Oh, that's just figurative, said Donald.

Figurative ? the cross was figurative ? asked Norman. You mean, the shedding of sweat like drops of blood at Gethsemane was figurative ? the crown of thorns did not bite, the nails did not screw up His veins, and ruin His muscles, His chest did not slowly collapse, and being delivered into the hands of His enemies was some sort of stunt ? that death was an event that just happened along, even though it was all predicted for a millenium, and was interpreted as His bearing the sin of all those who received His holy help and godly pardon ? you mean that! Norman declared, a gleam of battle in his eye.

No...o, said Donald, I guess not. But I always like to think it all depends on me, my understanding and my modelling of it all, and that if it is good, so will I fare well.

Farewell to the atonement then, said Norman.

And of course, to the Bible, added Angie, musingly.

And to knowing God! said Little A, for you see, you CAN only know anyone if you have the means to do it; and while it is obvious as Paul says in Romans 1:17ff., that God is, is divine, is eternal, yet how you KNOW what He is like, that is another thing. You cannot know me, he said daringly, you could not be really sure that I am not a criminal or an angel, for that matter, he smiled, unless I tell you. You might look at evidence, but this can be manipulated for years, as you see in finance companies and the like.

To know anyone, the only sure-fire method is for them to tell you, and at that, you have to be sure that they are not lying, too.

How do you know God is not lying ? asked Bill.

Because if He were, said Little A, He would be denying Himself, since all the system, yes the very idea of personality and therefore of liberty to love or to lie (for you do not love well if you lie, since you attack your very basics when you so distort them, and hence the plan of the Maker of those basics, and so Himself), is from Him. If then He wanted to lie, it would be because He made a mistake, or was inadequate, and had to contradict His works with His words, and that is putting Him in the creature bin, while we are talking about our Creator. So that cannot be.

But what if He WANTED to lie, just for the fun of it ? asked Angie.

Then there would be some deficiency in Him, so that He wanted to be one thing and say another, countermanding in word, a construction which His own word had made; and this would be a contradiction, making of Him a mere someone constructed, a flittery mutant. Then He would not be one Being with all power to act, but someone with elemental opposites are work and at war. And even if you pretend that He wanted to be contrary to Himself, like some outrageous little idiot of a child, pouting and playing, if HE were contrary to Himself, it would all be gone, since He being almighty, the contradiction would mean devastation and He would not be there.

But what if He knew HOW to prevent the devastation ? asked Angie persistently.

Then He would know how to make almighty power not be itself, which is like asking, what if infinity were non-infinity, which is as they say, denying the conditions of your own discourse. It means that you don't know what you are talking about, and since the whole point IS to know Him, then this is simply off-track.

But what if He just wanted to SEEM like that ? asked Bill, in order to teach us to trust Him whatever He might seem.

Then He would be deceptive, said Donald, and that does not pass. If He wanted us to think things were NOT as they are, then He would be against truth, and since this is Himself, His words and works being His alone with nothing added from any finite beings, He would be against Himself, and we have already been into that. He cannot deny Himself: it is the end. All power would deny all power. The very thought is a contradiction at the commencement. However, there is almost an infinity of means to test in truth and with it! The devil is subtle, and there are tests enough, but the truth does not vary.

But what if God should die ? asked Angie.

He could not die, said Little A, as Himself, because since He knows the end from the beginning, nothing being beyond Him, and all things at His will and by His work so that He is exhaustively knowledgeable, and nothing in man or system can surprise Him, then what He is is what He wants to be, and hence since life is His will, it is always the choice. What He once wants concerning Himself, is for keeps, since time itself is merely a creation, where you have to wait for this and that, whereas HE has no limits, for how should He be limited, on whom all depends, and without whom nothing even exists! If He is to be this, this He is; and He lives, this being thus forever.

How did Christ die, then ? asked Norman. He is very God of very God and so forth, as in the creed ...

And as in the Bible, said Donald, now thoroughly warming to the discussion, where He tells one of the disciples that seeing Him IS seeing God ...

Like telling Angus that seeing him IS seeing an angel! said Angie, who was becoming decidedly playful towards Angus, and did not know the trouble it was causing him before his conscience.

Well then WHY did He die ? asked Bill.

It was to carry the guilt of sin, and to show what it means, that it is as costly as some mad kid running into a light pole, and expecting that it really does not matter too much, since Dad can pay or the insurance or something not himself, anyway, said Norman.

I get that, said Donald, the idea that JUSTICE MUST BE, and yet, He did pay, for now I realise why! If He had not paid, then mercy would become indulgence, discretion would be king and nobody would know what the truth was, as in some arbitrary competition, where you could have no idea about the mind of the judges, and it all added up to a rotten apple.

He died, the just for the unjust to bring us to God ? asked Angie. Isn't that somewhere Angus ?

Yes, it is in II Peter 3:18, was the reply.

Well, said Bill, HOW did He die ? I mean, God in human form, "He became flesh and dwelt among us," I seem to remember from John 1 somewhere - how does death come for someone for whom life is the eternal choice, then ?

That's easy, said Angie ... I think. You see, He took a FORM. The pastor was saying that the other day... it was from ...

Philippians 2, supplied Little A.

Yes, and the FORM of God is glorious and invincible and unimpugnable - is that the right word, Angus ?

It should do, he replied, I think rather well, Angie.

But when He TOOK the form of a man in order to take what was coming to us, and clear the mess, our panel-bearing was His beating, and with His stripes we are healed - that's Isaiah 53, we had that last Easter.

That's WHY, but I am asking HOW He could die! persisted Bill.

Little A intervened here. I think Angie is making this point. If you TAKE a form, say like a butterfly, before it flies, with the form of a grub, then WHILE you are in that form, the things a grub does are what you do; you do not fly as a grub.

Ah! said Norman, that's it. If He was to be a man, and He did become one, then He MUST be able to say no, to die, to lie, to do anything a man does; but because that is only the FORM He takes, the grub cover, He does not HAVE to. Grubs do not have to be stupid, even if grubs. As God, He could not lie; so He did not, even though the door was open for the form of a man. As man, He could die, and that is no contradiction for the FORM of a man, but merely one of the things you can do in that form. In any case, when we die, it is not at all the end of us, as Solomon says, for the body returns to the dirt, but the spirit to God who gave it - I think that's in Ecclesiastes.

Well what did God do when He actually died in this form ?

God is a trinity, said Donald, remembering now with relish more and more of what He had once found rather boring at times, and so the mere passing from one form to another in one member of the trinity does not embarrass, if you want to put it that way, the trinity itself, which merely has one member in instant transition from form B to form A. I suppose it's a bit like joining the Army when you are a prince. You do not cease to be the Prince, but you do not really look quite like it, though your quality would remain the same. You wear the clothes of a private, take orders like one, but never vary from the principles of a prince.

That of course, said Glenda, could only be so if you were a princely person by nature.

Precisely, said Little A, and Christ being God by nature, taking the new form of a man, would act serviceably as God does, and not in mere autocratic disdain, but with a loving mercifulness which is the very core of His nature ...

Encore! said Angie, who was thoroughly enjoying it, and feeling continually more and more that Angus WAS rather an angel, but was quickly gathering that playing on that was not welcomed, and wondered about it all, being a very perceptive young woman herself.

Who would like to acknowledge this Prince of peace, this Redeemer, this payment for sin, and to make clear and sure once and for all that it is He whom we worship, serve and love, and on Him that we rely, according to the Bible, and who has the faith given, to actually say it BECAUSE IT IS TRUE! asked Little A, feeling rather like a father asking children who would like to go to University.

I would! said Donald aptly, and I, agreed Angie, and I, said Norman, and I followed Glenda.

So they all prayed and acknowledged the Lord whose Spirit was just then really in their hearts, but Bill had not spoken.

Bill ? asked Angie.

I don't know, I just don't know ... muttered Bill.

Oh well, said Angie, if you think God is not good enough, or Christ is not good enough as His Son.

It is not that! said Bill. It is just that I am not good enough.

Ah! said Little A, Bill are you good enough to be a sinner ?

I am outstanding in that capacity! said Bill wryly.

Are you bad enough to need a Saviour to bring you to God, then ? persisted the angel.

I have undoubted qualifications for that! Bill smiled.

Then why not take Him ? asked Angus.

Would He be interested still ? asked Bill.

God SO loved the world that He gave ... that WHOEVER ...

Yes, I believe Him, then, said Bill, so yes, I'll be glad to acknowledge Him, since I do believe in Him. As he spoke, a strange smile spread over Bill's whole countenance, his shoulders seemed to re-align themselves and his face was lit by what almost seemed sunlight, so that they looked and saw only the flickering of the Camp fire.

SCENE II

The next day, in the early part of the afternoon, which was unscheduled time, another young person approached Angus.

Bill was telling me you know your Bible, he started.

I study it because it is better than gold or power, prestige or name, Angus replied. It shows WHERE to go, WHY and HOW! and its reasons cannot be overthrown, never change and always stand.

But I have a problem.

You know how you feel, well, turbulent at times, and as if a number of unfulfilled resources or urges or desires or dreams are competing and probing you to find if you will give them their head, and you seek to define them better, and to evaluate things, but somehow just cannot, so you feel well… unstable or weak as if it were because of a design flaw.

My! Said Angus, you have been thinking; but do you feel this is what all experience ?

I just don’t know, said, Frank, for this was his name, and he certainly seemed to live up to it.

What I have seen, said Angus, and without speaking too personally, suggests some feel rather like that, and some decidedly do not, either because they are too self-assured and fulfilled or about to be fulfilled already, or because they have found the truth, and are bent on fulfilling it, what God wants of them.

Sometimes people of the first type you mentioned, appal me! said Frank. Self-sufficient little gnomes in spirit, they simply walk down a prepared path without investigating too carefully where it all ends, it seems to me; and I can think of some cases like that already in my small experience. I am in no danger of that. Rather, I feel half-formed and without a formula.

YOU, said Angus – but by the way, why don’t we walk down to the lake where it is both more pleasant to look at, and cooler.

So they sauntered down, and when comfortably seated on some roots and leaves, looking at the still waters, Angus continued – YOU are a person. You do not just need a formula, and are far too perceptive to be satisfied with a mere form. You want to know of what it IS a form, and how and why you should relate to it. You actually need a person for your guide, your vision, your inspiration and your goal.

I am not the bobby-soxer type.

That is a good thing. However you are the human type, if you’ll forgive me for pointing it out, and this, being personal, needs the mentor who is both personal and powerful, not tinsel in bikinis, not muscles in uniform, not dancers in style, but knowledge in personal spirit, wisdom in depth and inspiration because of truth.

And where am I supposed to get that! moaned Frank.

This is a Christian camp, is it not ? asked Angus, and you have heard therefore of Jesus Christ ?

Sure, he is the religious side of things, but I am concerned about my own self, what it is, where it is going, and even what it is for.

If you’ll forgive me, responded Angus, that is almost like being offered water when you are thirsty, and replying yes, but what you really want is fluid.

How ?

Does it not occur to you that you are a created being ?

Of course. That is not the point. I hear all about creation at church; it is what I am FOR! THAT IS MY CURRENT CONCERN.

Where better to find out, then, than by seeking your Creator while you are young. You know Ecclesiastes, don’t you, remember this:

“Rejoice, O young man, in your youth,

And let your heart cheer you in the days of your youth;

Walk in the ways of your heart,

And in the sight of your eyes;

But know that for all these

God will bring you into judgment.

Therefore remove sorrow from your heart,

And put away evil from your flesh,

“For childhood and youth are vanity.”

That’s a part of the problem, as I am seeing it, not of the solution! Frank lamented.

Judgment certainly is an added problem when you are straying like a yacht that has left its moorings. You know Proverbs 26:2 ?

“As the bird by wandering, as the swallow by flying,
so the curse causeless

shall not come.”

Wandering is like a bird without a nest, listlessly or wistfully or in tired lagging, having no home, no place, enervated, dispirited and almost in despair. It needs its nest. You need your rest too, and it is to be found where you were minted, made, fabricated and constructed. You need the Service Manual, the tune-up, and, by the way, the driver.

That’s just analogy. I am not a car.

True, but you are a product, and there is a point of contact between the two fields, that in each case, the Creator of the thing in question – in your case, you – is to be consulted in both word and work.

How do you do that ?

You find where He lives, and how to get an interview, and go and see Him, and find out how to get things done the way He wants. It is quite simple really, though you are not; and if you do not find your place, your rest in quest, then of course it is a highly complex problem which many people ‘solve’ by living till they die, in order to live, and so work to eat and have thrills, of mind, spirit or body, interactions with themes or throngs, and so on, and thus ignore the question, till judgment answers it for them. There is no way of avoiding the issue; it is either shelved, or failed, or met.

I should, for my part, like to meet it.

God, then, is to be found where He made Himself most available, most readily, at great cost, and with considerable passion, for we who are …

Angus felt it necessary to pause, so allowing his eyes to rest on the lake, while Frank continued his own thoughts without noticing very much. The angel was going to say, We who are human, and then realised that this would be in type, a straight lie. Now he had not meant to lie, and only just in time understood where his words were going, for he did indeed feel immense empathy with Frank, but this was in spirit, and man he certainly was not, but angel.

Quickly collecting his scattered wits, he continued … we who are created spirits, in this way or that, can see the aweful deed – what the Bible calls His strange work in Isaiah 28:21, 29:14 with 52-55. And what ultimately was that ? It was His making Himself of no account, being born on earth, and although able to heal, to raise the dead, to outspeak the wise and to rebuke the foolish, He …

Oh I KNOW all that! said Frank wearily.

Do you want an answer then ? asked Frank, and a reason for it ? for if you do, you have a need to listen, do you not ? People tend to glamorise our being young (well said! echoed Angus' conscience, since Angus was the angelic counterpart of young), and to act as if it is very strange or odd or amazing, or awesome and delicate, as if we were delicate structures, strange new things, not mere developing images being focussed more and more intensely and maturely: when it is simply a design in distress because it is in a mess, like a scalpel in the mud.

There is no great thing about the feelings of mud; it is just that it shouldn't be there, and needs to be taken out, fast. If you want to analyse all the effects of mud on a scalpel, chemical, physical, superficial, on the sharpness, on the different metals in the stainless steel and so on, you could have a ball; but it is a drab affair and the real need is extraction from the mud, restoration and right use in the right hands, incidentally; for otherwise the whole thing is just approaching a sort of oscillation; but that cannot last long.

Sorry, said Frank. I guess you’ll come to it, and forgive me for being so outspoken.

I am glad you are, Angus responded, for it alerts me to the need to get more swiftly to the point. This Jesus Christ, then is the exact image of the invisible God who did not make us in order to be confused, and who though He rebukes sin in multiple manners, yet provides solution for His creation. Hence, since He became man, He is so AS man. It is solution in person, and though it was first of all in proposition in the prophets who forecast the whole thing down to the date of it centuries before, in the end, as in any project, it had to be done, and it was His own choice to do it.

He had to experience temptation, test and trial, and meet blunt batterings, unbaffle the baffled and render retort to the bafflers, and this one after the other, without any time ‘off’. He had it hard, even to the point of meeting a guilt He did not have in order to spare us the results of it, if we will but receive this pardon on this basis. Most won’t. Some will. Where are you in this Frank ?

I would gladly do all that …

Do all that ? Frank it begins to appear that you are tuned out of Christian things because you failed to find where they fit into your problems.

You could put it like that.

IF you want to follow reason to the only book which speaks its mind and is never wrong, and covers persons, nations and sin, soul, life and judgment, focusses on Israel so that all is fulfilled, and then on us, the Gentiles, so that our little ways are foretold with equal accuracy, and in the middle of it all, has this Christ speaking back to the one, Israel divorcing itself from Him, and forward to the other, the Gentiles distancing their nations from Him, the very pivot of destiny: then listen.

How does it help me ?

IF you find in Christ the living word of God, then you need simply to KNOW Him, and to do that to FIND Him, and for this, to believe in Him, stricken with stripes for our personal failure to be what we should and so to do what He would. You need to receive Him, and not a formula merely, for it is He who was raised from the dead, and it is we who face judgment. You need to participate in this way in His personal overcoming once and for all the death which hit Him for just that purpose. You need to be one of His, provided by Him and for Him, who being God, became man, so that man might become, one by one, children of God, everyone who will.

I do believe that.

But do you trust HIM ?

Of course.

Good, then instead of being a person now pitiable, pliable, but not always pliant, now compliant, now complaining, now seeking, now despairing, now almost cynical, now ready to believe almost anything sort of a life, you need to go to the Cross, to the tomb, to the fishing expedition of the disciples, to hear Thomas being told to put his fingers in the wounds since he had some difficulties about that, to find John being referred to as not going as soon as Peter, not dying till his own time came, while Peter was told he would die as he fulfilled his own work on this earth, rather more briskly.

And then ? asked the ever progressive Frank.

Then you need to take yourself with you, your spirit to the Lord, as He enables it who loves and would have all reconciled to Himself, and in the stream of His grace and the power of His mercy, to submit yourself like Peter to this same Christ, whom death could not hold, who is the very donor of eternal life.

You could say something like this. I am a sinner, and I know it. For my own self pre-occupation, forgive me, and for my failure to be duly occupied with your words, will and orders, please give pardon. My life is a derivative from you as Creator, and it now needs redemption. Please accept me, since it says ‘whoever’ and I am one.

Frank did so. What now ?

Now you need to tell Him that you are in need of being re-designed, since your steering is broken, your motor needs re-boring and your sense of design itself, is defective; and to ask Him to complete entirely the recreation in you of a clean heart, a willing spirit, and a sense of perspective.

All right, I buy that, said Frank.

Frank, have you repented ? You sound like a metronome on legs, but it is not for me to say. That is just the way it sounds.

Frank for once was silent.

In his heart many things were embroiling him, desire to assert himself, desire to forget himself, desire to have a terrific self-fulfilment, and desire to lose his life for Christ’s sake, and following His pastoral shepherding, to fulfil HIS will and so be a member of His body.

How individual is a Christian ? he suddenly asked.

As individual as Jesus Christ, in essence, said Angus, for you see, in form, He became ONE OF US, and we ARE individual, so that John in I John 3 tells us that as He was resurrected, so will we be.

How CAN you be an individual, though, if He is boss ?

Is a dog individual if he has some orders ?

I see what you mean. Yes, there is as on a ship, a place for the wireless operator, the helmsman, or whatever, and these are individual not so much despite having orders, but in the case of a good ship, because they have an assigned place, duty, work and special field for action, fitting for their abilities, and are working with the head who gives placement orders and conditions, specifying the qualities he wants to see.

In this case, Frank, the Head is not just someone with administrative savvy, or experience, but the Creator, and without that I would not buy any of it myself; but because of this glorious fact, there is that little difference between the finite and the infinite, and this makes all the difference. Restoration to fellowship with Him is fit for us as creations fitted out for fellowship; and so comes an end to flitting out instead of being fitted in.

It refers in Colossians to the unsearchable riches of Christ, and that is the way it is, for as God , He gives, and as He said, All that the Father has is mine! So there is no limit. I must say, that while you seem pre-occupied with what seems just now the high personal price of yielding to the Head, I find the magnificence of finding in so doing, finding what is there, available and willing: and with this, the colossal magnificence of being close to the God who is mine!

I lose, not my identity, far from it, for it grows vastly more obvious what that is and why it is, but my autonomy, my self-expressive thrust, as if being myself is all that matters, instead of understanding who I am in His sight who made me, doing what is my work, taking my role, and finding an inter-communication with my Creator which is first of all most challenging, secondly empowering for that particular work which He assigns, thirdly a source of peace so individual that it is like a lake, just one, where you are, and a joy which is like a trumpet, for being … you remember, not like a bird out of its nest, which brings a curse that is far from causeless – so being, secure in the will of God.

I take it, said Frank, and you are right, for it was becoming just something formal for me. I see now that I must yield in spirit to Him, and having believed Him, I am finding that just as He said that the one who believes in Him is born of God, so it is. I just had to find the application point, to put my trust IN Him, and not just wavering about him, like a fly in the scrub. Now it is done, I must thank you.

Thank God, said Angus.

By the way, Frank added, do you ever have any doubts about yourself ? I mean, you are a bit of an angel, they say, and don’t seem so terribly tempted, and what do you do when you are ? Do you just smile seraphically, or something like that, or call on the name of the Lord ? Why are you so peaceful ?

Angus, don’t you suffer ?

Frank you are, indeed, mused Angus. It may surprise you, Frank, to know that even in our present conversation I met a real temptation, and had to ponder before the Lord about it; but yes, I have strong desires for this or that, but I am learning to accept the fact …

And here Angus nearly said, That I am a little angel, and had to made a swift appeal for light to the Lord, before continuing in honesty and prudence together.

Then he continued.

Yes, I am learning to accept my position as a learner, a lover of God and a servant of Christ, with much to learn, much to overcome, much spiritual growth to find; but it is not as some burden that it appears to me, for it is God who works in me both to will and to do, as Paul says in Philippians 2. I simply trust Him, ponder my paths, contemplate the word of God as in Psalm 1; and if at any point in any matter, or in the very quality or eal of my spirit, too blind, too wilful, I should fall, because I am not at all sinless, then what is to be done ? I repent at once and seek strength to avoid that pitfall, and so move, as it says, Everyone of them in Zion appears before God. That is just the way it is. You have ACCESS without appointment! That IS divine, for God has no limits. Is it understanding, is it wisdom, is it self-control, is it a love deficiency or a bravado or depressive onset ? whatever it is, He is there, available, operative, the Great Physician who was indeed healed, even of death, showing the way of irresistible overcoming to and for all … all that is, who use it, to whom it is not only a grant, but a grant by grace as you see in Romans 5:15.

It sounsd very challenging, but I am looking forward to it, and that ‘grace’ part is reassuring. From what you say, the real power is not from oneself, but from God, and the same is true of the wisdom, the grace and all the goodness we need to absorb.

Angus referred to I Corinthians 1:303-1 in corroboration, and went on.

Whether it is personal qualities, or financial adequacy, whether it is peace or serviceability, overcoming some fault or finding the grace to face faults before having to be told about them, growth in knowledge of God and in grace, whatever it is, it is all … well, rather like walking in a magnificent gallery. You may fail to see this or that, but there is SO MUCH to see, that as you go, inspiration attends your thoughts and you grow as you go.

I guess my Designer will perfect His own design in me, and there is structure for fluidity, but strength and growth with it and in it, how amazing! and I had better start looking at the Bible as a designer’s manual, and fit myself out …

By the power of His Spirit, He can fit you out, the Dynamiser for the Design and the Director of growth as a person; so just seek His will, in your qualities, work, gifts, decisions, and relying on Him: whenever you have done your homework in any field, submit it to Him for wisdom, and trust Him for it, as in James 1. Do nothing in a hurry, except perhaps moving out of the way of a rattle-snake, ecclesiastical, animal, or spiritual – as in Romans 16:17, I Thessalonians 5:21-22; and accept that your Shepherd has all it takes. Just ensure you take all of Him, while excluding Him from nothing. No pet projects to which He does not NEED to know, in which He might not want to participate. Except you surrender all you have, He said in Luke 14, you cannot be My disciple. Study that and ponder it always. Imagine a surgeon competing with the patient in the midst of a heart operation. Forget it!

With that, something very strange happened. Little A simply vanished. Now he had been allowed an enormous amount of liberty and opportunity to learn, but this was an interposition of deity. Why ? he asked, why was I swept off like that ? The answer seeped into his spirit, like a soft breeze … your departure will do more for Me than your presence would. You were taken just when he was looking around and musing, so he will not know what happened, but it will increase the sense of mystery in the camp, and I am moving the Director to speak on that verse… about entertaining angels unawares.

So it seemed to Little A, was the Lord speaking to his heart.

I wonder what next, he mused.

Next, you pray, came the consciousness of divine wisdom. As Little A in faith sought for enough wisdom to go straight like an arrow to his next step in his mission, and spent the rest of the afternoon praying for all whom he had contacted in the Camp, and for the Lord to use for good and not evil, his sudden disappearance, his peace returned, and he began to understand that the next step was the USA.

Why, Father ? he asked. As he asked, so a sense of intimation came upon him. It is because in that land in a special way, there is sophistication in spiritual things, there is history in Christian things, there is an overfed seminary situation, where finding some new way to go wrong is almost a ground for greatness and glory, where schools of thought begin to domineer and dominate as at Athens, only here they are more settled. It is time they received a shock to begin to bring them back to the realities that so many make mouthings about, as if it were a game or a play. It is growing like an Athens – there are many like it, but it has rather a central role, having had so much, and still bustling.

But what can a Little Angel do ? asked Angus. What the Lord ensures, He achieves, came the sense of the divine in him. In other words, he thought, perhaps my simplicity will strike sparks on their complexity, like a hammer, very direct, on a nail, very shaped, and needing to be driven in … but to what ?

That is what they seem to be forgetting, it seems, thought Little A. Where is their base ? Is it their preference, choice and qualities, or Christ! Yet I don’t see myself as a hammer, unless a tack hammer … Yet the voice seemed to commune in him further, and to say, when the nails shrink into tacks, that is all that is needed!

The next day, in the early part of the afternoon, which was unscheduled time, another young person approached Angus.

Bill was telling me you know your Bible, he started.

I study it because it is better than gold or power, prestige or name, Angus replied.

But I have a problem.

My! Said Angus, you have been thinking; but do you feel this is what all experience ?

I just don’t know said, Frank, for this was his name, and he certainly seemed to live up to it.

Sometimes people of the first type you mentioned, appal me! said Frank. Self-sufficient little gnomes in spirit, they simply walk down a prepared path without investigating too carefully where it all ends, it seems to me, and I can think of some cases like that already in my small experience. I am in no danger of that. Rather, I feel half-formed and without a formula.

YOU, said Angus – but by the way, why don’t we walk down to the lake where it is both more pleasant to look at, and cooler.

So they sauntered down, and when comfortably seated on some roots and leaves, looking at the still waters, Angus continued – YOU are a person. You do not just need a formula, and are far too perceptive to be satisfied with a mere form. You need a person for your guide, your vision, your inspiration and your goal.

I am not the bobby-soxer type.

That is a good thing. However you are the human type, if you’ll forgive me for pointing it out, and this, being personal, needs the mentor which is both personal and powerful, not tinsel in bikinis, not muscles in uniform, not dancers in style, but knowledge in personal spirit, wisdom in depth and inspiration because of truth.

And where am I supposed to get that! moaned Frank.

This is a Christian camp, is it not ? asked Angus, and you have heard therefore of Jesus Christ ?

Sure, he is the religious side of things, but I am concerned about my own self, what it is, where it is going, and even what it is for.

If you’ll forgive me, responded Angus, that is almost like being offered water when you are thirsty, and replying yes, but what you really want is fluid.

How ?

Does it not occur to you that you are a created being ?

Of course. That is not the point. I hear all about creation at church; it is what I am FOR! THAT IS MY CURRENT CONCERN.

Where better to find out, then, than by seeking your Creator while you are young. You know Ecclesiastes, don’t you, remember this:

“Rejoice, O young man, in your youth,

And let your heart cheer you in the days of your youth;

Walk in the ways of your heart,

And in the sight of your eyes;

But know that for all these

God will bring you into judgment.

Therefore remove sorrow from your heart,

And put away evil from your flesh,

“For childhood and youth are vanity.”

That’s a part of the problem, as I am seeing it, not of the solution! Frank lamented.

Judgment certainly is an added problem when you are straying like a yacht that has left its moorings. You know Proverbs 26:2 ?

“As the bird by wandering, as the swallow by flying,
so the curse causeless

shall not come.”

Wandering is like a bird without a nest, listlessly or wistfully or in tired lagging, having no home, no place, tired, dispirited and almost in despair. It needs its nest. You need your rest too, and it is to be found where you were minted, made, fabricated and constructed. You need the Service Manual, the tune-up, and, by the way, the driver.

That’s just analogy. I am not a car.

How do you do that ?

You find where He lives, and how to get an interview, and go and see Him, and find out how to get things done the way He wants. It is quite simple really, though you are not, and if you do not find your place, your rest in quest, then of course it is a highly complex problem which many people ‘solve’ by living till they die, in order to live, and so work to eat and have thrills and so on, and thus ignore the question, till judgment answers it for them. There is no way of avoiding the issue; it is either shelved, or failed, or met.

I should, for my part, like to meet it.

God, then, is to be found where He made Himself most available, most readily, at great cost, and with considerable passion, for we who are …

Angus felt it necessary to pause, so allowing his eyes to rest on the lake, while Frank continued his own thoughts without noticing very much. He was going to say, We who are human, and then realised that this would be in type, a straight lie. Now he had not meant to lie, and only just in time understood where his words were going, for he did indeed feel immense empathy with Frank, but this was in spirit, and man he certainly was not, but angel.

Quickly collecting his scattered wits, he continue … we who are created spirits, in this way or that, can see the aweful deed – what the Bible calls His strange work, His making Himself of no account, being born on earth, and although able to heal, to raise the dead, to outspeak the wise and to rebuke the foolish, He …

Oh I KNOW all that! said Frank wearily.

Do you want an answer then ? asked Frank, and a reason for it ? for if you do, you have a need to listen, do you not ? People tend to glamorise our being young (well said! echoed Angus' conscience, since Angus was the angelic counterpart of young), and to act as if it is very strange or odd or amazing, or awesome and delicate, as if we were delicate structures, when it is simply a design in distress because it is in a mess, like a scalpel in the mud. There is no great thing about the feelings of mud; it is just that it shouldn't be there, and needs to be taken out, fast.

Sorry, said Frank. I guess you’ll come to it, and forgive me for being so outspoken.

I am glad you are, Angus responded, for it alerts me to the need to get more swiftly to the point. This Jesus Christ, then is the exact image of the invisible God AND since He became man, He is so AS man. He had to experience temptation, test and trial, and meet blunt batterings, unbaffle the baffled and retort to the bafflers, and this one after the other, without any time ‘off’. He had it hard, even to the point of meeting a guilt He did not have in order to spare us the results of it, if we will but receive this pardon on this basis. Most won’t. Some will. Where are you in this Frank ?

I would gladly do all that …

Do all that ? Frank it begins to appear that you are tuned out of Christian things because you failed to find where they fit into your problems.

You could put it like that.

IF you want to follow reason to the only book which speaks its mind and is never wrong, and covers persons, nations and sin, soul, life and judgment, focusses on Israel so that all is fulfilled, and then on us, the Gentiles, so that our little ways are foretold with equal accuracy, and in the middle of it all, has this Christ speaking back to the one, and forward to the other, the very pivot of destiny: then listen.

How does it help me ?

I do believe that.

But do you trust HIM ?

Of course.

Good, then instead of a pitiable, pliable, but not always pliant, now compliant, now complaining, now seeking, now despairing, now almost cynical, now ready to believe almost anything sort of a life, you need to go to the Cross, to the tomb, to the fishing expedition of the disciples, to hear Thomas being told to put his fingers in the wounds since he had some difficulties about that, to find John being referred to as not going as soon as Peter, not dying till his own time came, and Peter being told he would die as he fulfilled his own work on this earth.

And then ? asked the ever progressive Frank.

Then you need to take yourself with you, and to submit yourself like Peter to this same Christ, whom death could not hold, who is the very donor of eternal life, and say something like this. I am a sinner, and I know it. For my own self pre-occupation, forgive me, and for my failure to be duly occupied with your words, will and orders, please give pardon. My life is a derivative from you as Creator, and it now needs redemption. Please accept me, since it says ‘whoever’ and I am one.

Frank did so. What now ?

Now you need to tell Him that you are in need of being re-designed, since your steering is broken, your motor needs re-boring and your sense of design itself, is defective; and to ask Him to re-create in you a clean heart, a willing spirit, and a sense of perspective.

All right, I buy that, said Frank.

Frank, have you repented ? You sound like a metronome on legs, but it is not for me to say. That is just the way it sounds.

Frank for once was silent.

How individual is a Christian ? he suddenly asked.

As individual as Jesus Christ, in essence, said Angus, for you see, in form, He became ONE OF US, and we ARE individual, so that John in I John 3 tells us that as He was resurrected, so will we be.

How CAN you be an individual, though, if He is boss ?

Is a dog individual if he has some orders ?

In this case, Frank, the Head is not just someone with administrative savvy, or experience, but the Creator, and without that I would not buy any of it myself; but becaue of it, there is that little difference between the finite and the infinite, and this makes all the difference. It refers in Colossians to the unsearchable riches of Christ, and that is the way it is, for as God , He gives, and as He said, All that the Father has is mine! So there is no limit. I must say, that while you seem pre-occupied with what seems just now the high personal price of yielding to the Head, I find the magnificence of finding in so doing, the colossal magnificence of being close to the God who is mine! I lose, not my identity, far from it, for it grows vastly more obvious what that is and why it is, but my autonomy, my self-expressive thrust, as if being myself is all that matters, instead of doing what is my work, taking my role, and finding an inter-communication with my Creator which is first of all most challenging, secondly empowering for that particular work which He assigns, thirdly a source of peace so individual that it is like a lake, just one, where you are, and a joy which is like a trumpet, for being … you remember, not like a bird out of its nest, which brings a curse that is far from causeless – secure in the will of God.

Thank God, said Angus.

Don’t you suffer ?

And here Angus nearly said, That I am a little angel, and had to made a swift appeal for light to the Lord, before continuing in honesty and prudence together.

It sound very challenging, but I am looking forward to it. From what you say, the real power is not from oneself, but from God, and the same is true of the wisdom, the grace and all the goodness we need to absorb.

Whether it is personal qualities, or financial adequacy, whether it is peace or serviceability, overcoming some fault or finding the grace to face faults before having to be told about them, it is all … well, rather like walking in a magnificent gallery. You may fail to see this or that, but there is SO MUCH to see, that as you go, inspiration attends your thoughts and you grow as you go.

I guess my designer will perfect his own design in me, and I had better start looking at the Bible as a designer’s manual, and fit myself out …

By the power of His Spirit, He can fit you out; so just seek His will, in your qualities, work, gifts, decisions, and relying on Him, whenever you have done your homework in any field, submit it to Him for wisdom, and trust Him as in James 1. Do nothing in a hurry, except perhaps moving out of the way of a rattle-snake, ecclesiastical, animal, or spiritual; and accept that your Shepherd has all it takes. Just ensure you take all of Him, excluding Him from nothing.

So it seemed to Little A, was the Lord speaking to his heart.

I wonder what next, he mused.

Why, Father ? he asked. As he asked, so a sense of intimation came upon him. It is because there is sophistication in spiritual things, there is history in Christian things, there is an overfed seminary situation, where finding some new way to go wrong is almost a ground for greatness and glory, where schools of thought begin to domineer and dominate as at Athens, only here they are more settled. It is time they received a shock to begin to bring them back to the realities that so many make mouthings about, as if it were a game or a play.

But what can a Little Angel do ? asked Angus. What the Lord ensures he achieves, came the sense of the divine in him. In other words, he thought, perhaps my simplicity will strike sparks on their complexity, like a hammer, very direct, on a nail, very shaped, and needing to be driven in … but to what ?

That is what they seem to be forgetting, it seems, thought Little A. Yet I don’t see myself as a hammer, unless a tack hammer … Yet the voice seemed to commune in him further, and to say, when the nails shrink into tacks, that is all that is needed!