Fire In The Hole

I am aware, but probably not nearly enough, of my lack of natural appreciation and gratitude. But there are times when things happen that simply cannot be missed, especially by someone who really wants to learn to be more grateful. One of those events happened to me yesterday and I do not want to let it go unnoticed or underrated.

I was working with my brother-in-law getting his house addition ready for them to move into in a couple weeks. I have been working with him and his brother for several weeks now and have enjoyed working with them with their fun-loving, hard-working, easy-going attitudes. I was helping to put in a floor addition that will expand the size of the living room to a more comfortable space and was starting to nail the floor joists into place.

The room addition was inside the garage that we recently built and the day was a rather gloomy, rainy day outside so the light was rather poor. In addition I was trying to work down close to the wall far from the doors or windows so it made it even harder to see where I was nailing exactly. Suddenly just after I shot the air nailer gun to fire a 16 penny nail (about 3 inches long) into the floor joist I felt the nail whiz past my ear and felt my glasses sitting a little askew on my face. I wasn't sure what had happened so I stood up and tried to straighten my glasses.

I finally took them off to see what the problem was and then realized what had happened. The nail had ricocheted from where I had intended it to go, had grazed my finger on my other hand drawing a little blood and then evidently had passed through the corner of my glasses on the way past the side of my head.

The more I thought about it the more I realized that I had been extremely close to either getting killed with a nail into my brain or at least loosing the sight in one eye, neither of which I have any desire to experience to say the least. I also sensed that God had used one of His angels to possibly guide that nail past my face and even through my glasses in such a way as to protect me once again from harm that demonic forces would like to inflict on me.

I realize that many people would just chalk this up to really good luck. I know that it would be somewhat easy for me to do that as well unfortunately. But I also am becoming more aware that there is much more activity in the supernatural realm than we ever realize, and that sometimes their effects show up in things that we can detect if we are willing. And I also believe that our choices about our spirit and how we decide to relate to those supernatural forces have a great deal of influence to determine the outcome of events in our lives as well as the abilities of either side to work in our lives in the future.

So in light of this and as soon as it came to my conscious attention, I began to thank God very intentionally and sincerely for the protection that I knew had come from His hand. I also prayed that I would not downplay this incident due to my fear and shame that too often causes me to only talk about Him to people who are like believers. I want to be more real and more consistent in what I believe internally and how I talk and act around those who do not believe in God or think that He is not worth trusting.

I have observed that there are numerous times that I have been very close to serious harm and that it is completely possible that I have many times recently had supernatural assistance to prevent disasters that could easily maim or hurt me seriously. I know that there is no way of proving most of these encounters, at least to a scientifically skeptical mind with a predisposition to doubt God's care for us. I also strongly suspect that most of the deliverances I have experienced go completely unnoticed and the angels must be in constant amazement at my naivety. But that does not prevent them from continuing to serve and protect me anyway while hoping that I will soon begin to be more appreciative which may in turn give them more permission to work more actively in my life.

At any rate, I want to take this opportunity to thank God publicly for this very specific incident of protection. It causes me to be more conscious more about how blessed I am to have eyesight as good as it is, not to mention the rest of my head that could have been affected. And most of all I am so grateful for the fact that the reason God does things like this is because He is like that in His character and His desires toward me. It is because He is such a faithfully caring God that He looks after me each moment in ways I will never know until I am shown my life in heaven. But I can get to know Him better right now and learn to trust His heart and His consistently good intentions towards me irregardless of whether I am hurt or not.

Father, I want to praise you for protecting me and having your angels intervene on my behalf during this close call. Thank-you so much for your grace and mercy and kindness and faithful love. Dwell in me and cause me to be more free in my praise for you. Heal me of the shame that inhibits me from being more lavish in my gratitude. Thank-you for the work you are doing in me and the incredible plans you have for me. You are my God and I worship you in gratitude and humble appreciation.

Heart Talk and Worship

I just had a discussion with someone that opened my eyes a little bit more as to how much I am still influenced by my old problem of image management – living in such a way as to influence what others think about me. As I thought about it more this morning I also realized that this is one of the greatest inhibitions preventing me from being able to worship God freely as my heart desires to do.

In the culture in which I grew up and am still a part of to a great extent, there are some things about expressive worship that by many people in my culture are considered too far outside the box to be acceptable. Oh, they may or may not say something about it to me, but it is sufficient that inside my own mind the accusations and subtle feelings of condemnation are very present and effective. So generally, I don't feel the freedom to worship as my heart needs to unless I am in a completely different culture – which then presents its own different set of inhibitions – or more likely when I am totally alone.

Actually I am very resentful in a way, of this state of affairs. And I suspect God is not real pleased about it either. For if the worship that is due Him and that connects our hearts to each other is being short-circuited by the false gods of image management and men-pleasing, then in fact I am being controlled and am serving false gods in violation of the second commandment.

I became aware of this sinful condition in my life a couple years ago and wrote extensively about it then. I also think that my awareness of this state of my heart has at least help me to make some progress toward freedom, but I still have a long way to go. And it will not help to simply try to lay a guilt trip on myself in an attempt to shame or frighten me into changing the way I act and think. That is the counterfeit religious practice of my past that I am determined to turn away from. But at the same time I must be willing to accept both the attractions and convictions of the Holy Spirit and also the warnings that alert me to the tragic consequences that are inevitable if I refuse to submit to coming into harmony with the principles of reality as revealed by God.

I, like everyone else, am designed and wired at the deepest level of my psyche to worship. And I, like everyone else, will worship quite frequently even though it is not generally labeled with that term. But the more I understand the truth and substance of what makes up worship, the more I become aware that far too much of my worship is going to the wrong places. I am giving too much authority to false gods in my life, and as a result I have no room to view critically or harshly those in the Old Testament who worshiped idols and think how silly they were. When the light of truth begins to expose my own futile practices of living in fear of what others think of me instead of living in joyful service to my Creator and Savior, then I have joined them in their disloyalty and idol worship and am in need of repentance just as much as they were.

I do not want to keep hiding from this problem. I (at least a part of me) do not want to keep resisting the promptings of the Holy Spirit to be more open and honest in all areas of my life. I realize that I have some very intense areas of blindness in my thinking, but I continue to ask God to open my eyes and show me what I normally cannot see. I believe that this is just one of those blind spots that He is trying to get me to face more directly.

I actually feel very encouraged by this conversation I just had that helped me remember and see better this problem in my life. I feel encouraged in a strange sort of way when I see some of my faults because I know that God is showing them to me because He cares enough to offer me healing and restoration in that area if I am willing to accept and apply His grace to my heart.

During the discussion I was able to actually peek into some of the feelings behind my actions and inhibitions and realize that what I am doing much of the time is trying to avoid shame. Shame and fear are two of the greatest inhibitors in my life and are some of the worst slave-masters that keep me from enjoying the true freedom of the sons of God. Even many of my diversionary temptations are targeted at helping me to avoid facing the shame and fears that still lurk in the background and affect so much of my thinking and my relationships with others. My desires to watch movies are deeply rooted in trying to use pleasure produced vicariously through artificial emotional stimulation as a means of masking my real need to address the much deeper roots of shame and fear that haunt me from the background atmosphere of my soul.

But it is up to me to exercise my power of choice to face these things and to fast from anything that I may be using to avoid facing them. As long as I resort to anything that may help me procrastinate facing the inner pain of my past, the resentment that I carry toward others, the shame that is still so prevalent from my childhood and the fears that haunt me from the residual lies about God in my heart – as long as I allow those diversions to satisfy my hunger for real freedom I will remain in the slavery of bondage to those things even though I may feel like I am free on the surface.

The symptoms of that bondage can be seen in the inhibitions at the gut level that still bind me to the manipulation of what others think of me. I may be ever so independent in many ways and believe that what others think about me has little influence over my choice to live outside the box that others are trapped within. But in deeper ways that is still a mirage in many respects. At the heart level I still crave acceptance and affirmation and to be valued and appreciated by others. I suppose in some ways there is nothing wrong with those desires except when they cause me to subtly seek satisfaction for these needs from others above seeking God's face and believing in how He truly feels about me.

As I was sharing in my conversation, shame is one of the primary emotions that I still don't have very much skill in dealing with effectively yet. When I first became aware of the enormous influence and presence of shame in my life some time ago I was shocked at how much it controlled my thinking and my relationships with others. That is still true today, but it is very difficult to perceive it most of the time because it stays under the surface of my conscious awareness. So because I am not conscious of the presence and strong influence of shame's control over me I too often fail to take action to face it more directly and learn how to deal with it effectively.

During our discussion we both agreed that fear and shame are the primary problems that we both have to deal with and that strongly influence how we relate to others and inhibit our relationship with each other. We also realized that we really desire a mentor in our lives who could show us how to face this problem effectively and learn to live in the freedom and peace that our hearts crave so much. But the problem seems to remain that there are extremely few people around who are mature enough and willing enough to mentor others in the ways of God, and whoever they are they don't seem to be anywhere near our lives right now.

As a result it appears to me like God is going to have to mentor us directly without using any humans to be His agents unless He has someone in mind that we are totally unaware of at this point. Many times in my life when I felt totally alone going through intense struggles and wishing for someone to join me and emotionally guide me through those times, I wondered if maybe God was allowing me to go it alone in order to be trained to help others whom I would encounter later who felt totally alone. I can distinctly remember situations where I nearly felt like screaming out, longing for someone to be with me in my problems and frustrations to overcome problems in my life. But the only answer that seemed to come was that when I learned this lesson I would be better situated to have compassion and sympathy for others in similar circumstances.

I don't know what God has in mind for the process of my healing and I am cautious to try to second-guess how He plans to accomplish that in me. But I do know that what I am learning about Him from the Bible in my own personal encounters with Him each day is full of encouragement and is awakening more hope and love in my own heart. I ultimately have to come back to throwing myself on the promises and words of God that I find written there and trust His heart to guide me through the confusing maze of inner mysteries and outer temptations to the freedom and joy and security that my heart was designed to thrive on in His presence.

Freedom

I got to thinking this morning about freedom. It came to my attention while I was remembering one of my own failures recently and how it related to my own freedom to choose what I do with my time. I thought about why I sometimes make the wrong choices even though I know it is not best for me and then I wonder what the real underlying reason is for me making those decisions. Thats when the issue of freedom came into the mix.

What I am starting to sense is that true freedom can only be enjoyed by advancing in true maturity. This may seem simplistic at first but I am always exploring the “whys” behind things to better understand how my mind works and understand others as well. So I wanted to think a bit more about this issue of freedom and I began to ask myself what freedom really is.

Right now I am thinking that freedom, at least in one important sense, is the removal or absence of artificial restraints. These restraints may be physical or they might be social or emotional. But freedom means that I am not inhibited or controlled by another person or institution or even artificial rules.

It is easy to observe this in the process of growing up and the increasing freedoms that we allow children to enjoy as they get older and learn to have more internal self-control. They learn skills and reasoning, but more importantly they learn to self-regulate and utilize their minds and hearts to make informed decisions based on various reliable sources of information and personal experience. They learn from cause and effect as well as learning from the wisdom of others who have experienced things they have not had to. They learn to consult and seek guidance instead of thinking they have all the wisdom necessary for life and as a result they are entrusted with more responsibility and given more latitude to make independent choices in their lives.

The amount of freedoms granted to young people by wise mentors and parents will be determined by the evaluation of the safety involved in the young person's abilities and preparedness for the next level of freedom. Safety does not mean that a person will never make a mistake but is based on the person's willingness to coordinate with others as well as acquiring personal training to prepare them for greater responsibility.

Preparing for greater freedom and responsibility involves synchronizing the mind with the principles that govern the circumstances for which a person is being trained. It is learning the skills, learning the potential problems as well as the correct way to do things and learning to have a level of self-confidence while interacting properly with others around them. It also involves learning to balance the various parts of the being to better function in ways that are both effective and helpful.

I decided to take this concept of freedom out to its logical extreme potential conclusion. And even though this world's system of restrictions and permissions is a far cry from God's view of real freedom, there are some parallels. Those who misuse their freedoms to inflict problems on others people's lives often find their own freedoms curtailed. The world's system of imprisonment for nearly anything and everything that crosses the whims (laws) of the ones in power are not a good example to examine to understand God's ways of justice. But the cause and effect relationship is still often valid.

But in the realm of true reality toward which we are all moving and must all live within sooner or later when the artificial system of this world finally collapses, we will have a much clearer view of what freedom is all about and how much God values it far more than we ever do.

One thing that came to my attention about freedom is that real freedom always involves a level of selflessness. Those who desire freedom for the purposes of serving their own desires and cravings do not understand the true nature of freedom. For real freedom has far more to do with internal peace and serving others than it has to do with allowing us to indulge ourselves without limitations. When we use our freedom to selfishly serve our own needs more than using it to improve our ability to bless others, we are on the road to losing our freedoms instead of improving them. This is not so much because of an arbitrary decision imposed on us as it is a natural result of the principles inherently involved. Freedoms misused are squandered away and sooner or later are lost.

In the kingdom of reality which is where heaven operates and toward which all of our destinies will ultimately be determined by our current choices, I believe that we will find that God intends for us to return to the full freedom that was once known in the universe before sin was ever thought of in the mind of Lucifer. Back in those times the angels and other created beings didn't even realize that there was such a thing as laws governing the universe. They simply lived them out naturally and their hearts and minds always functioned in loving, selfless service and praise in whatever capacity they found themselves involved in.

I think that quite possibly at some point in the future eternity after sin has been long gone from the scene that there is coming a point of perfect freedom again. All of the surviving beings living in the joys and perfection of paradise will once again find themselves so perfectly synchronized with the principles of reality that they may no longer even notice that there are underlying laws involved in day to day living. In fact, the following text came to my find that now makes more sense in this context.

But this is the covenant that I will make with the house of Israel after those days, says the LORD: I will put my law within them, and I will write it on their hearts; and I will be their God, and they shall be my people. No longer shall they teach one another, or say to each other, "Know the LORD," for they shall all know me, from the least of them to the greatest, says the LORD; for I will forgive their iniquity, and remember their sin no more. (Jeremiah 31:33-34 NRSV)

The ultimate goal for most teaching is to increase our ability to enjoy freedom through the combining of greater knowledge and maturity. What this text seems to be saying is that there may come a time when we will be so mature and have the principles of reality so internalized that there will no longer be any need for such teaching. That sounds to me like the most ultimate freedom that anyone could ever imagine.

Church Encounter

I have been spending the past few weeks with my sister-in-law in Pennsylvania. The last two week-ends I visited different churches but with similar results – very disappointing. In both cases I practically walked in, spent the morning in class and church and walked out without hardly a person asking where I was from or what I was doing there. I know that some people would say that it would not be like this if I were more friendly myself and that is probably true to some extent. But I find it difficult to buy into the claims that our churches are generally friendly places to visit after experiences like this two weeks in a row although I am always reminded that I do not do much better to others when they visit my church.

Anyway, I decided last night to get on the web and see if there were any alternatives within reasonable driving distance this week. I found that there were quite a number of churches within 50 miles of where I am staying but most of them were either a bit too far or were of a nature I didn't feel like trying to visit – like being in a different language etc. But one church got my attention partly because it was listed as having about 500 members compared to very small numbers for most of the rest of them.

Now a bigger church certainly doesn't guarantee that it will be a friendly church, but on the other hand I felt that maybe there might be a good reason so may people wanted to attend there. It was at least worth a try for one week. If it didn't work out I still have two more weeks to try to find a place to at least find someone half-way interested in talking with me. Besides, I found out after checking out the map directions that this church was almost closer than most of the others I had visited even though it was in another state.

When I arrived this morning and walked in I was pleasantly surprised to be eagerly greeted by several people at the door who refused to let me go until they had asked me quite a number of questions while they held my hand. It did not change much for the rest of the time. I had person after person come up to me and talk with me, greet me, ask me my name and where I was from etc. and then tell me they were very glad to see me. And I sensed that it was not a put-on but these people had a spirit that was genuinely glad that I had come today. How refreshing.

Besides a friendly environment I was several times deeply moved, even to tears at times by some of the things that people shared during the service. I felt the Holy Spirit using words and music to touch my heart in a deep and meaningful way and I sensed that the Pastor also had an open spirit and mind. He preached on the Holy Spirit and I found it very compelling, convicting and moving personally. I suspect most people there were not affected nearly as much as I was, but God has been steering me along this line more and more recently and this was another step in that direction.

As is often the case I had to find a piece of paper so that I could capture the many thoughts that were swirling around in my head. All through the service I ended up jotting down things about the Holy Spirit and related ideas that were coming to my mind along with texts that were taking on new life and meaning for me while the Pastor was reading them. I was very blessed by the sermon and even heard it twice today as I attended both early and regular services. Since I had nothing else to do for the day where I am staying I decided to make a day of it if possible after arriving there early.

I was invited to stay for a lunch in the Junior Academy gym that I suspect is prepared weekly primarily in case visitors show up. It was good food and good fellowship as well. This is also a refreshing change from the much smaller church which I usually attend at home. There is generally something about a little larger church that makes it less stuffy and more relaxed than many small churches. In fact, this is one of the most diversely ethnic churches that I have been in for quite awhile and I was impressed with the seemingly complete lack of any racial tension within this community of believers.

I had some good talks with several people, was able to even get a chance to play the piano for a man I just met as he sang a couple songs after the service was over. He had sung one of them acapella for special music and I was wishing I could have played for him then. He is a more expressive singer which makes it much more difficult for him to find an accompanist, but that is also what I really enjoy when accompanying people. I like to play for people who put their heart into their singing in more expressive ways and I enjoy the challenge of trying to sense their emotions and synchronize with their expressions. He sang a couple very old gospel tunes that I recognized right away and we had a good time sharing music together.

At this point I certainly plan to go back to this same church next week and likely the last week I am here as well. Hopefully I can connect even more with some of the people I met today and maybe even establish some longer term friendships that might continue after I go back home. Who knows? But at least I have found a place that fulfills my desire to fellowship on Sabbath while I am away from home and I am very thankful for the welcoming spirit that I enjoyed today from all of these people.

I will likely meditate some more on the notes that I took today and write them up in a separate post. But that is what is happening in my life right now.

Digging Past the Sand

I began to think about something this morning that I want to unpack more. As I thought about the motivations that we seem to wait for before most of us get serious about drawing close to God or obeying His will, I noticed that most of those motivations are rooted in fear. It is a pattern that is very pervasive in most of our lives and I see it in mine just as much. We tend to procrastinate doing the truly important things we should do until dangers are so imminent that we feel we must get serious about God or it may be too late.

There are variations on this pattern but it seems to be rather consistent. Sometimes we might decide to move closer to God for other reasons, but much of the time we tend to prefer to maintain the status quo or maybe we want to continue to indulge in a few pleasures first before we feel that we have to give up what we enjoy and begin to follow God's ways more closely.

But as I thought about the results of this kind of thinking something alarming came to my attention. And it is not the fact that we might not have enough time to finish getting close to God before we may die or be killed as many people might warn. No, there is a much greater danger than even death itself that can preclude or at least greatly inhibit our ability and desire to get serious about our relationship with God. This hidden danger has to do with the very nature of fear itself.

I am coming to realize that what God desires and what we really need in order to be properly aligned with Him and strengthened during a time of crisis and intense pressure is not more information or just facts of truth. What we must have if we are to be ultimately found on the right side of the great spiritual battle about to explode on this earth is an intimate and unbreakable love relationship with our Creator, Lover and Redeemer. We need a confidence that goes far deeper than just head knowledge or emotional good feelings.

This is something that I am afraid most Christians know very little about though they may talk about it a great deal. And I include myself in that class. The problem is that most religion is so oriented for the left brain or is just based on emotions alone that an intimate and obedient relationship with Jesus at the depth and intensity needed to carry us through the intense times just before us is outside of our present abilities to even comprehend.

This intimacy with God that we need so desperately is very similar to the relationship seen in very healthy and dynamic marriages which are also rather in short supply today. It is a relationship that is filled with real romance, real devotion to the other person and total commitment to the relationship no matter what may come or how one may feel. This is a covenant relationship that ultimately supersedes even our instincts for life itself which is also something very unfamiliar to most western minds.

But there is something very important about developing the many tendrils, like little silk threads, needed to have a strong love relationship with another heart. Cultivating this kind of deep heart-level relationship usually does not happen very effectively if at all in an atmosphere electric with fear. While fear may be a very powerful motivator, fear is also a very unstable and ultimately unreliable foundation upon which to build a relationship.

Fear and love are pretty much total opposites to each other. The Bible clearly says that perfect love casts out all fear. But the opposite is equally true as well. Fear seems to be designed to preempt and undermine the very essence of what makes up love. So now as we begin to see the tension here between these two principles we can also begin to realize the serious problem that emerges when we put off embracing an intimate love relationship with God until there is more fear present in the atmosphere around us.

We really are living in relatively peaceful times though we may not realize or believe it very much. Because of our tendency to dwell on our problems more than our blessings and opportunities we may think that we are already being severely oppressed and persecuted. But I have no doubt whatsoever that very shortly we will look back on these present days and would then give anything to return to the circumstances we are living in now to take advantage of the opportunities that will soon be gone forever. We will realize too late that in our current situation today it is far easier to pursue a deep, solid heart relationship with God than it will ever be when fear is forcing itself into our minds and hearts with an intensity that we have never known before in our whole life.

The book of Daniel prophecies that at the end of this world's history there will be a time of trouble worse than has ever been imagined in the whole history of this world. (Dan. 12:1) We know it is coming because God's Word cannot lie and every prophecy always finds fulfillment. But I also believe that we make a potentially fatal mistake when we try to use fear of this impending time of trouble to be the foundation of our relationship with God. God is not looking for a fear-based relationship with His children but a loving parent/child relationship and ultimately a marriage relationship that is full of love and trust and mutual intimacy at the heart level. This is the only kind of connection with the heart of God that will qualify us to be ready to meet Jesus when He comes again to take His children home with Him to heaven.

Fear is the worst possible motivator that we can rely upon to connect us with God and prepare us for the coming times ahead of us. Yes, God will make use our fears in the initial stages of our movement toward Him because that is all we are paying attention to at first. But God wants to wean us away from the false motivations rooted in fear as soon as possible and replace those unstable motives with a solid foundation of love, trust and saving faith that is best cultivated and nurtured in spending intimate time with Him in an environment free of all the coercion and distractions and stress that fear always produces.

Real love is free of all the counterfeit elements of Satan's kingdom, and this especially means that it is free of fear. We will learn to have a healthy respect for the tremendous awesomeness of God and the dangers of not being synchronized with God when approaching His presence. But this is not the same kind of fear that our flesh uses for motivating us. It is unfortunate that the two emotions even use the same word in English because it causes so much confusion in people's minds. It also has the problem of allowing many people to justify their use of the wrong kind of fear to motivate others to come to God for salvation.

A religion rooted and founded upon fear is like building a house upon the sand. (Matt. 7:26) Fear is very much like sand as a foundation for the life. Remember that sand is really just a lot of little rocks. It is not really different material from foundation rock that we need to build our Christian experience on except for at least one very major difference. The rocks that make up sand are unstable and easily shift position whenever it encounters wind, water and other shifting elements. On the other hand, a single solid bedrock is not vulnerable to those elements of crisis and keeps the house of our experience built upon it stable and secure when a crisis comes.

But we must not wait until we see the storm clouds looming on the horizon before we begin on securing our life on a more sure foundation of faith rooted in love. We need to spend every effort now while times are good in intimate interaction with the goodness and kindness of God's heart so that our own hearts will be filled to overflowing with all the positive attributes of God and there will be no room left for Satan's counterfeits.

I need this counsel and advice just as much as anyone. I want to take seriously my present circumstances to do everything possible to cultivate a solid connection with the heart of God to prepare me for the coming crisis that is coming very quickly. I do not want to be so distracted by thinking about the fears that try to impose themselves on me repeatedly that I fail to engage in real worship, in real passionate devotion encounters with Jesus that will teach me the tough lessons of faith that I need to secure me to the only true Rock. Neither do I want to waste away precious time in relatively meaningless distractions like news, entertainment or anything that will draw me away from keeping in tune with heaven. This is my prayer for myself today and for you as well.

Then the kingdom of heaven will be like this. Ten bridesmaids took their lamps and went to meet the bridegroom. Five of them were foolish, and five were wise. When the foolish took their lamps, they took no oil with them; but the wise took flasks of oil with their lamps. As the bridegroom was delayed, all of them became drowsy and slept. But at midnight there was a shout, 'Look! Here is the bridegroom! Come out to meet him.' Then all those bridesmaids got up and trimmed their lamps. The foolish said to the wise, 'Give us some of your oil, for our lamps are going out.' But the wise replied, 'No! there will not be enough for you and for us; you had better go to the dealers and buy some for yourselves.' And while they went to buy it, the bridegroom came, and those who were ready went with him into the wedding banquet; and the door was shut. Later the other bridesmaids came also, saying, 'Lord, lord, open to us.' But he replied, 'Truly I tell you, I do not know you.' Keep awake therefore, for you know neither the day nor the hour. (Matthew 25:1-13 NRSV)