© 1991 Robert Crickett
© 1991 ANZURA, Australia & New Zealand Urantia Association
By Robert Crickett
Of all the great disappointments which traverse the mortal heart, a terribly frustrating one must surely be that of desiring to serve in the kingdom of heaven according to the will of God, and having trouble getting off the starting block: “Woman of Sychar” stuff, in a sense.
Suzie is twenty one, a prostitute, grossly over weight, courting problems with heroin, alcohol and heart disease. She casts a tragic figure: essentially friendless, homeless and unable to return to her family nest because her father beats her when he’s drunk and the other family members are prone to locking her out of sight in a room and forgetting about her: at least that’s her story… but then, anyone who is set on doing nothing about their situation has their story, and they treasure it far above making a move for the better.
But as tragic as her situation seems there is one bright spot: she’s a born again Christian. It occurred one Saturday. On the previous night she had been raped and mugged and quite literally left for dead on a city street. A young Christian woman found Suzie and took her home where she bathed her, nursed her, bandaged up her wounds, fed her, and spoke to her about the great love she had for Jesus — recommending that Suzie also open her heart to Him so that her life might be turned around. And it was. And that was five years ago.
So what went wrong? How born again must one become for a God- knowing life to revolutionise itself? Obviously a little more than however much Suzie grasped onto, yet, it’s her final hope. She’s a church nut! She’ll praise the Lord with the best of them…but she’ll do anything at all for that matter, so long as she can receive.
And that might just be the snag in the whole show, because the kingdom’s about increasing the yield of the fruits of the spirit, and Suzie, like the rest of us, can only increase the yield by giving.
And when the giving stops, or never really starts, what else can the branch do but wither and fade away until the husbandman has no choice but to prune it off the vine? And what can the husbandman say? ‘I showed you how to have life. I showed you the joy of loving others and drawing up living waters out of them that you and they both might have life. Did you do that?’ ‘No…but I really wanted to.’ ‘Are you sure?’ ‘Yes! Yes!’ ‘Are you really sure?’ ‘Well…er…no…I guess I’ve never really been sure about anything.’ SNIP.