Teaching

On a May evening of 2019 Friends of the Light held one of their online Meeting for Worship times. During that time of worship I experienced Christ giving me counsel about an incident that I had been involved in earlier that same day.

To give some background, I was pushing my wife in a wheelchair (she had been through some orthopaedic surgery), through the city centre. As we approached a paved 3 way junction that began to go slightly uphill, I saw a man standing on a platform waving a Bible in his hand. He was speaking to the crowd and talking of “hell”.

I spoke out as I passed by saying that there was no such outward place as “hell” and that he was wrong. As I continued to push my wife up the long slope I was met by another man at the back of the crowd who was obviously there as back up for the speaker. He “walked and talked” with me trying to give credence to the speakers argument of “hell” and we continued to talk with each other whilst I continued to push my wife, and me getting steadily more out of breath. Both of us held very different views and it became obvious that neither of us were going to agree in such a short time. As we had travelled about a hundred yards from the speaker and as I still continued on my physical journey the man said goodbye and returned towards the speaker.

Going back to the evening online worship, Christ explained to me that my approach had been wrong. That I could not get over my understanding by arguing directly with and against their firmly held views. That to argue head to head achieves nothing as neither will give way to the threat that they feel from each other.

Christ then went on to explain to me that to speak to those who were listening would be a better approach. In future I was to stop, remain calm, sit or stand quietly for a while and understand not only what is being said, but also the sense of the crowd. Then speak to the crowd showing a different way, one of love and inward contentment that leads to inner peace. Begin to get the trust of those around that there is another way that they can take part in themselves which will allow them to feel the love of the risen and present Christ within each and every one of them.

I felt enlightened and thankful that Christ had changed me, He had gently but firmly showed me my error and another more positive way of approaching not only this situation, but that I could apply the same or a very similar technique to many of those types of situations in every day life for the benefit of others, and for my own internal peace as well.

Shajom