An excerpt from Beyond the Veil published by Regal Books (October 1997).

Identified in Death

A lady once showed the famous artist Buskin a costly handkerchief on which a blot of ink had been dropped. The handkerchief, she complained, was ruined. Nothing was left but to throw it away. Buskin said nothing, but took the handkerchief away from her. Shortly afterward the lady received it back, but so changed that she could hardly belief it was the original. Using the ink blot as the basis, he had worked around it a beautiful and artistic design, changing what was valueless into a thing of beauty and joy.1

So it is with Christ. He takes the blots and failures of our lives and transforms them into valuable assets. Those hurts, disappointments and failures that appear to us as obstacles and threaten to ruin us become perfect opportunities for the Son of God to make new, if only we will let Him.

Understanding God's Way

Why does He allow us to experience this kind of pain? All life is the result of some form of brokenness. The earth must be broken before the seed can be planted. The seed must be broken before the plant can grow. And the earth must once again be broken before new plant life can emerge upon it. Brokenness then is a lifebirthing process that musket precede every area of growth in our lives. This is especially true as God develops our spiritual lives. Any spiritual fruitfulness will require the breaking of the outer person so the spirit can commune with the Spirit of Christ in us.

Prayer is the key! As we collapse into the arms of God, the outer person sloughs off like grave clothes. In prayer we see:

The absolute holiness of God (see Rev. 15:4)
Taste the joy of heaven (see John 16:7)
Understand the reality of His Word (see Ps. 119:103)

Recognizing how Christ works in our lives is vitally important. Unless we understand the process, the journey can be quite discouraging. As a matter of fact, if we fail to understand the process, at the point where the Lord Jesus wants to draw us into a deeper experience with Himself, we will struggle against the journey toward intimacy, not realizing that we are actually being freed from the domination of our souls. We are being delivered daily from our carnal minds, our self-determined wills and the earthly emotions that enslave us. When we realize how very much unlike Jesus we are, our spirit cries out for His overcoming power.

We can experience this overcoming power if we are willing to yield to Him. Our human nature, however, resists surrendering to the will of another. And because of our stubborn, carnal love for self, the Father must break us so we may follow Jesus' example of becoming "broken bread" and "poured out wine" for His sake (see 1 Cor. 11: 23-27). Broken bread is needful for life-giving service and poured out wine is needful to bring comfort to those who are hurting and perishing. Notice that the bread must be broken and the wine must be poured out.

As we reach the end of soul strength and begin to surrender to the process of spiritual maturity, we experience a freedom, a peace and a power yet unknown to us. This process can take a few years, even a lifetime. The stages of this spiritual journey usually occur gradually and are often a combination of many crises.

The dynamics of being drawn into intimacy are much like those of a midwife during the birth process. When the crises heightens by nature's demands, the breaking of the water bag reassures us that one phase of life is ending to produce greater life. God's promise is that out of what has been broken will come greater life if we do not abort His process. Though it is difficult to understand why we need such agony, God proves the inner strength needed to take us through the labor to complete the work.

In every stage of our spiritual growth, new opportunities can strip away our soul's domination. The primary way of dealing with the "soul man" (commonly called flesh) is to deny it. We deny it any authority in our lives. The soul tries to rationalize, reason, figure and conclude what God is doing. But the Christian life is not to be a life of reasoning; it is to be a life of faith. And because it is a faith walk, any attempt to exercise willpower against the plan of God will only bring frustration.

Seeking the opinions of others will often delay the Spirit's work, as well. The heavenly Bridegroom is wooing His Bride by destroying all her other lovers, with self being the biggest of all.

God's plan begins as we elect to die to ourselves so the Lord can bring resurrection. I am not referring to the "new birth" of salvation. I am describing a metamorphosis in the life of a believer that precedes Christ's life flowing freely through that person.

Psalm 42:8 says, "By day the Lord directs his love, at night his song is with me - a prayer to the God of my life." Nothing can disturb the peace of lessen the passion that is present in the person who is walking in resurrection life because resurrection life produces the fruit of deepest love and intimacy with the Lord.

Antoine De Saint-Exupery once said, "Love does not consist in gazing at each other but in looking outward together in the same direction."2

Soulish Approaches to God

If only believers would gaze upward instead of inward, we would understand God's way and we would not seek intimacy with Him in our own goulash ways. However, God says, "As the heavens are higher than the earth, so are my ways higher than your ways and my thoughts than your thoughts" (Isa. 55:9). The following are three ways that we believers often approach God:

 

1. Volitionally
2. Emotionally
3. Intellectually

In each case (which we will cover in-depth later in this chapter), we are seeking to enter His presence in our grave clothes. The grave clothes are a metaphor for the flesh or soul - mind, will and emotions. But resurrection life can only fellowship with resurrection life! (See John 4:23,24.)

On the day of Jesus' resurrection, He left His grave clothes in the tomb. When Jesus raised Lazarus from the dead, His command was, "Loose him, and let him go" (John 11:44, NKJV). Many of us are bound by worldly attitudes and actions that entomb us. The stench of our dead works and self-promoting talk prevents us from seeing the truth about ourselves and God. We, too, need to strip off the remnant of our old unregenerate selves before we can begin to experience true intimacy with Christ. This is how it works...

"Jesus loved Martha and her sister (Mary) and (their brother) Lazarus" (John 11:5). Nevertheless, He did not hurry to the tomb. His job was to resurrect Lazarus, not heal him (see John 11:11). God is not interested in keeping our soulish selves in repair. He is wanting to "pronounce us dead." After all, He signed our death certificates with His own blood 2,000 years ago! (See Rom. 6:6.) The best statement we could hear about ourselves today would be what Lazarus could not hear about himself: "Then said Jesus unto them plainly, 'Lazarus is dead'" (John 11:14, NKJV). The next verse says it all! "Jesus said, 'I am glad...let us go unto him'" (John 11:15, NKJV). Jesus knows firsthand that death must precede resurrection! (See Gal. 2:20.)

The Volitional Approach

Death will cause us to abandon the three primary soulish approaches to knowing God - the first of which is the volitional or performance approach. People who value performance think that what they do for God determines how much He loves them and how much He should do for them. Caught in the trap of performing, they view their productivity as an appraisal of their relationship with God. Driven by performance, they become legalistic and impatient with others who are not performance oriented.

They not only judge others by their own chosen personal disciplines, but they judge themselves to the point that they often suffer from discouragement and restlessness. These believers invent plans for God and rush forward to tackle any project with the greatest zeal. But because they are constantly striving and driven, their souls are never quiet and rested. They have no peace and cannot know peace because their internal taskmaster gives them no time off for their good-works behavior. They become so driven by their internal perfectionist slave masters that they can be quite judgmental, frustrated, defeated and angry - especially and often unknowingly with God.

Their spiritual lives with God find them imprisoned and restricted. So the Lord allows many disappointments to come their way. Their emotions are often rigid and controlled, offering little spiritual sympathy for the pain of others. Spirit life cannot come forth because they are guarding their hearts. They may want to express compassion, but their outer man is in such control that they are unable to do so.

To reach the works-driven believer, God creates crisis. He begins breaking their volitional wills through physical affliction, loss of job or other uncontrollable events. Still fearing failure and resisting God's brokenness, they seek to get affirmation from others by working harder. This actually delays the process of death to self. God will reveal their plight to them, for God alone can strip the soul.

Once brokenness has begun, the judgmental voice of self is gradually replaced with sensitivity to the loving, leading voice of the Holy Spirit. As the Spirit speaks into their hearts, they become aware of His presence and experience a desire to obey. This does not mean they become idle, but in time their activities become divinely directed and seasoned with supernatural love. As God crushes self, He replaces all soulish activity with Himself. Rather than being driven, these people can find peace in being led by the Holy Spirit.

This personality type can advance toward intimacy by learning to seek God with the same intensity used to seek the affirmation of people. They must practice the art of quietly meditating on the majesty of God. This will take effort, because in the past the outer man was in control. Altering their beliefs about who and what God is like is an essential part of their restorative process.

A biblical example of the performance personality is Martha who "had a sister called Mary, who sat at the Lord's feet listening to what he said. But Martha was distracted by all the preparations that had to be made. She came to Him and asked , 'Lord, don't you care that my sister has left me to do the work by myself? Tell her to help me!'"

"'Martha, Martha,' the Lord answered, 'you are worried and upset about many things, but only one thing is needed. Mary has chosen what is better, and it will not be taken away from her'" (Luke 10:39-42).

Oh, that those Martha's who are internally driven by a need to do more for God could understand the transforming power awaiting them in a life that is energized and motivated as it rests at the feet of Jesus and finds its strength from an overflow of His love within! This is what Michael de Holiness, the Spanish saint, taught in The Spiritual Guide: God will guide the souls by the hand and lead it through the way of pure faith, and "causing the understanding to leave behind all considerations and reasoning He draws her forward ... Thus He causes her by means of a simple and obscure knowledge of faith to aspire only to her Bridegroom upon the wings of love.""3

Approaching the heavenly Bridegroom on the wings of love will happen as we take the following steps:

 

Step 1: Sit quietly before the Lord. Learn to read aloud intimate passages of the Word of God. (See Ps. 46; 51; 119; Song of Songs.) Speak them slowly and with expression. Tell the Lord you love Him repeatedly throughout the day.

Step 2: Choose to maintain an attitude of gratitude. (See Ps. 95:2; 100:4; Phil. 4:6; Col. 4:2; 1 Pet. 1:8; Rev. 7:12.)

Step 3: Ask the Lord for direction during the day. Do not fill the day with busyness, but focus on loving people. Be attentive to the Holy Spirit, allowing Him to speak to your heart about specific assignments. Be sure to ask Him for confirmation until you an recognize the voice of God. (See Ps. 19:7; 52:7; Isa. 26:3; Heb. 7:19; Jas. 1: 25,26; 1 John 4: 18,19.)

The Emotional Approach

Not everyone struggles with performance in their approach to God. Some struggle with pity and overvalue emotion, believing their tears will move Him. Frankly, as important as emotions are, Scripture reveals that faith, more than tears, moves the heart of God." "And without faith it is impossible to please God"(Heb. 11:6.)

Controlled by their emotions, some believers are easily excitable and easily depressed. Their emotional roller coasters take them to the highest highs and the lowest lows. Left unbroken by God they can become gossips and manipulators absorbed in self-pity, depression, unhappiness, anger and moodiness. As someone has said, "They suffer from ingrown eyeballs!"

Unlike others who must fight to express their emotions, these people actually flaunt theirs. Tears can even become the power they use to impress or control others. The intercessors who have never yielded their emotions to Christ, have difficulty discerning between the Lord's burden and their own soulish emotions. The core of the problem is selfishness.

The Lord wants to develop an intimate, mature relationship with these emotionally-driven believers, but unless they die to self-pity and selfishness, continuous whining will fill their prayer closets, and their self-absorbed tears will blind them to the ministry of the Spirit and the needs of others. The Lord did not put us here so others would minister to us. Instead, we are to minister to others. Jesus modeled this for us:

Just as the Son of Man did not come to be served, but to serve, and to give his life as a ransom for many (Matt. 20:28).

We are to express the same Spirit-life that Jesus expressed, and crucify our self-lives. This is well illustrated in the story of the two water buckets tied on opposite ends of the same rope.

Day after day they would go down for water. They worked in the same well and carried the same water the same distance. One bucket, however, was always happy while the other bucket was always sad. After years of frustration the happy bucket challenged the sad bucket in the middle of the well, "Why are you always so sad?"

The sad water bucket whined, "Because, it seems no matter how full I come up, I always go down empty."

The happy water bucket replied, "Not me, I figure no matter how empty I go down, I always come up full."

As we see in the story of these two buckets, attitude is a matter of choice and focus. Just as Jesus "endured the cross, scorning its shame," an intercessor who becomes intimate with the King of kings will endure, not complain. "Consider him who endured such opposition from sinful men, so that you will not grow weary and lose heart. In your struggle against sin, you have not yet resisted to the point of shedding your blood" (Heb. 12:3,4). We who have not shed our blood for others have no right to whine or complain. And when we catch His vision, surely we should expect to have His like-minded heart for lost souls.

But we cannot have His vision if we have a divided heart. "If any of you lacks wisdom, he should ask of God, who gives generously to all without finding fault, and it will be given to him. But when he asks, he must believe an don't doubt, because he who doubts is like a wave of the sea, blown and tossed by the wind. That man should not think he will receive anything from the Lord; he is a double-minded man, unstable in all he does" (Jas. 1: 5-8). We cannot be sold into self and sold out for Christ at the same time.

The word "double-minded" in the Greek is dipsuchos, which comes from the root dis, meaning "two" and psuche, meaning "the soul." These scriptures therefore refer to one who is "two-souled," or one who has a divided heart. A heart is divided when the spirit grasps for faith and the soul is clinging to unbelief. Randy Shankle, in his book The Merismos, agrees:

If your heart is divided, you then have dual interests, dual desires and dual affections. When you heart is divided, you will negate the forces that will change your life and the lives of those around you. If you do not keep your heart, it will not come forth with the forces of life. Remember that to keep it means "to guard it or protect it." What are you guarding your heart against? You are guarding against whatever desires to enter it, because whatever flows in will divide it.4

King Saul was a man driven by his emotions and divided in his interests. First Samuel 14 tells how King Saul bound the men of Israel under a royal oath not to eat during the battle against the Philistines. In his own greed for vengeance against this enemies, his "men were faint" from exhaustion (v.28). Later in the evening the king found out that his own son, Jonathan, who was in the woods, had not heard the oath and had eaten honey. Saul pronounced a death sentence on him! It was Saul's officers who saved Jonathan from the sword.

One chapter later (see 1 Sam. 15), Saul ordered the Israelites into battle against the Amalekites. Samuel, the prophet, gave clear instruction from God that they were to kill every man, woman, child and animal in the Amalekite tribe. However, King Saul, again driven by his soulish desires, disobeyed god by saving King Agag and the best of the animals. In his anger, Samuel reprimanded Saul and announced that God had torn the kingdom from him.

King Saul replied, "I have sinned. I violated the Lord's command and your instruction. I was afraid of the people and so I gave in to them" (1 Sam. 15:24). One minute King Saul was ready to kill his own son; the next he was ready to spare a heathen king. Saul's undisciplined, double-minded life cost him his kingdom.

The Intellectual Approach

As we have already discovered, some people approach God through their performance or wills and some through their emotions. Now we will consider those who approach god by depending on the third part of their soul - the intellect or mind. These believers tend to lean on formulas and principles for every situation. When the soul is dominant and unbroken, these people are often intellectual, power driven, restricted, haughty, stoic, untouched, insecure and idealistic. With mental confidence, they insist upon logical explanations for spiritual realities.

Their inclination is to elevate knowledge over experience. They often control conversations with what seems to them to be impressive wisdom, however, they are unable to hold back that which expresses their true nature. Sadly, they must reveal what they are. They say more than they hear because they are fascinated with their own intelligence, and the sound of their own voices. In truth, they are speaking from the soul, not from the spirit:

A fool's mouth is his undoing, and his lips are a snare to his soul. Before his downfall a man's heart is proud, but humility comes before honor (Prov. 18:7,12).

To set the intellectually-dependent believer free, the Lord must work a twofold plan. First, He must break down the outer man; second, divide it from the spirit. The first is done through the discipline of the Holy Spirit, while the second is accomplished through the revelation of the Spirit. During the dividing phase, the Word of God, being quick and powerful, separates the spirit and the soul:

For the word of God is living and active. Sharper than any double-edged sword, it penetrates even to dividing soul and spirit, joints and marrow; it judges the thoughts and attitudes of the heart (Heb. 4:12).

The twofold plan will involve separating three soulish categories:

 

Spiritual and natural forces
Spiritual and natural abilities
Spiritual and natural talents

In his book The Release of the Spirit, Watchman Nee interestingly delineates the need for God's Word in the dividing of the spirit and soul:

What then does God's Word do for us? It penetrates and divides. It is sharper than any two-edged sword . Its sharpness is demonstrated in the "penetrating to the division of the soul and spirit, both of joints and marrow." Note the analogy here: the two-edged sword against joints and marrow, and the Word of God against soul and spirit. Joints and marrow are embedded deeply in the human body. To separate the joints is to cut across the bones; to divide the marrow is to crack the bones. The two-edged sword can work thus in our mystical body. Only two things are harder to be divided than the joints and marrow; the soul and spirit. No sword, however sharp, can divide them. Even so we are wholly unable to distinguish between what is soul and what is spirit. Yet the Scripture tells us how the Living Word can do the job, for it is sharper than any two-edged sword. God's Word is living, operative, and able to penetrate and divide."5

This dividing is more than intellectual. It is the Word that permeates, and the Spirit that reveals to us our true motives. Deliverance can only come by divine revelation of the real nature of things. True knowledge is to discover what is of ourselves (from the soul), and what is of the Lord (from the spirit). Once revealed to us, we can ask the Holy Spirit to empower us through brokenness to live a resurrected life.

Uzziah's life points to the necessity for differentiating what is of the soul from what is of the spirit. He was 16 years old when he became king of Judah. "He sought God during the days of Zechariah, who instructed him in the fear of God. As long as he sought the Lord, God gave him success" (2 Chron. 26:5).

Uzziah was successful. His credits would have filled a hall of fame. His army won every battle, and every kingdom knew of his splendid reputation. He built towers and waterways in Jerusalem. All his fields and animals flourished. He had 307,500 well-trained, finely dressed military men. Yet his indictment came in 2 Chronicles 26:16, "But after Uzziah became powerful, his pride led to his downfall." The king entered the temple to burn incense, and in his defiance against the priests of God, the Lord afflicted him with leprosy for the rest of his life. Indeed, his pride led to a fall.

Jessie Penn-Lewis, in her book Life Out of Death, explains:

A true "self-effacement" does not mean a state of unconsciousness, it means that you become more acutely conscious, both of things around you and, above all, of Christ Himself. The only way you could know that Paul was "crucified" was that there was an entire absence of the "I" motive in all his words and actions."6

Steps Toward Intimacy

What is motivating you? Would you like to be "crucified" so that you will reflect Christ in all of your words and actions? Let's look together at the steps you will need to take.

Step 1: Sit quietly before the Lord. Ask the Lord to break, to divide, your outward man daily. (See Rom. 1:9; 8:4-8; John 4:23,24; 12:24; 1 Cor. 2:11-14; 2 Cor. 3:6.)

Step 2: Study the Scripture from a relational point of view. Tell the Lord how much you want a close relationship, instead of cognitive knowledge of Him. Read passionate verses aloud. Free you mind while in prayer, by keeping a pen and notebook handy to write down the thoughts that clutter your mind constantly. (See Ps. 63:3-11; 86; Phil. 2:1-7; 1 Tim. 6:7-11; Jas. 2:3-8; Rev. 12:11.)

Step 3: Be real. Refuse to hide behind the prideful walls of intellectualism. Realize that love is more important to God than human reasoning. (See Mark 12:33; John 8:32,36; 1 Cor. 13: 1 Pet. 1:22; 3 John 1:4.)

Stripping the Soul for an Eternal Goal

The Lord loves each one of us too much to leave us where we are. Therefore, once we say yes to His ways in our lives, He will dig up the hardened ground in our spiritual soil and remove the calluses from our hardened hearts by stripping the soul. Three primary tools are used to bring us to total surrender, and He alone selects the most affective and timely tools for our circumstances. In varying degrees He will use all three:

Suffering
Brokenness
Failure

Suffering

One of the tools most effective for building godly character is suffering. And though every person will encounter some suffering in his or her lifetime, for the Christian suffering will eventually result in greater glory. "Now if we are children, then we are heirs - heirs of God and co-heirs with Christ, if indeed we share in his sufferings in order that we may also share in his glory" (Rom. 8:17).

Often, however, we fall prey to thinking that suffering will happen only once. But stripping the soul is a process that happens throughout a lifetime. Every stage of stripping the soulish life includes a beginning, a working out and a completion. The end of one stage is the entrance to the next. The process is the same in every stage. We are sometimes confused because it seems that in each stage the lessons are repetitive. In truth, we are continually learning at deeper degrees.

When a much stronger force of demonic opposition comes against us than we remember from the past, it is because we have moved into a deeper level with Christ through suffering. As author and speaker Francis Frangipane said, "new level, new devil." We must be willing, in the anointing of the Spirit, to move forward aggressively against the powers of darkness. As our spirit lives are strengthened, the Lord allows more trials. Yet we are able to bear them with our newly acquired level of spiritual power which is Christ's resurrected life in us. In this we become victorious overcomers!

We can say with David, "Thou has enlarged me when I was in distress" (Ps. 4:1, KJV). The best news of all is that "To him who overcomes, I will give the right to sit with me on my throne, just as I overcame and sat down with my Father on his throne" (Rev. 3:21).

Brokenness

Randy Shankle describes in his book The Merismos, "The key to releasing the spirit man is found in the word brokenne3ss. What does brokenness do to a stony heart? It breaks it up. Jeremiah 4:3 says: 'Break up your unplowed ground and do not sow among thorns.' Fallow ground becomes hardened by exposure to the elements. If you allow your soul to be exposed to the elements [or world] for a long time and not to the things of Jesus, your soul man will harden over. It will become rough, rigid and nonresponsive to the touch of God."7

Jeremiah explained to the people that before God could bring forth life from them, He would have to bring brokenness to remove all soul strength. Once brokenness was complete, the spirit man could have preeminence.

In the spring of 1989, the Lord began dealing with me about taking a sabbatical from selling real estate. At the time I was a successful real estate agent in Houston, Texas. I had experience a financially profitable year. In the fall of 1989, I went for a weekend to spend time with the Lord. I knew in my heart that He was going to ask some difficult questions of me. As I lay praying on the floor of a hotel room, the Lord spoke to me with clarity such as I had never heard before.

He said, Alice, will you give up your real estate business in 1990 to do nothing but minister to Me and pray?

I could feel my body tighten as I groaned over my answer, Lord, I love my work and I am so good at it. Sadly, I could feel a resistance that surprised even me. Again, as He repeated the words, waves of love seemed to roll over me. I cried bitterly to think that anything could possibly be more important to me that He. He revealed how I was finding my significance in my real estate success. Unsettled, I wept as never before.

Then with a indescribable love He gently said, I gave everything for you, won't you give this to Me? The dam of resistance inside of me broke and submission flooded my heart. Absolute surrender was my answer that evening. I spent the next two months closing down my real estate business. My assignment for 1990 was simple: PRAY! This is the way of consecration, and with John I say, "He must become greater; I must become less" (John 3:30).

I cannot tell you how grateful I am for the ongoing breaking process in my own life. I have come to realize that brokenness is not our enemy; it is our friend. God wants us to have "a broken spirit; a broken and contrite heart, O God, you will not despise" (Ps. 51:17). The definition of contrite is "to be humble or quick to repent." When brokenness occurs, resistance, independence and pride are replaced with submission, tenderness, obedience and love.

Failure

Failure is an especially difficult issue for the twentieth-century western mind. From birth we are taught the importance of success. Whether it is the young person in the beauty pageant or the little boy in the peewee or T-ball league, the message is the same:

Winning is everything!

The necessity to win feeds our self-sufficiency. We find ourselves saying as the church in Laodicea, "I am rich; I have acquired wealth and do not need a thing" (Rev. 3:17). In other words, "I am a winner!" We re so accustomed to saying so, that we can even fake it if necessary. It is perhaps here that God meets His biggest challenge of stripping the soul. Here is where He must allow us to fail so completely and so miserably that we will never again seek sufficiency in self.

As Christ told the apostle Paul, "My grace is sufficient for you, for my power is made perfect in weakness" (2 Cor. 12:9). From this point on, we find our sufficiency in His grace! We can no longer boast of our victories. We can no longer brag about our successes. We no longer need to succeed. We are able to "boast all the more gladly about {our}weakness, so that Christ's power may rest on {us}" (2 Cor. 12:9).

It is a liberating feeling to no longer strive for success. No longer am I driven to win! Never again will human opinions manipulate me! No longer will I esteem myself and accept Him! Now I can accept myself and esteem Him!

The Submission of the Soul

In order to come to the place where He is esteemed above self, we must actively submit. Active submission is different from passive acceptance. It is willful participation, even partnership with the Father in the process. What looks impossible when God starts the process, in time will produce a fresh sweetness within.

Few people have more clearly demonstrated a life so fully submitted to Christ as that of the Spaffords, a fine Christian family who lived in Chicago during the 1850s. Horatio (commonly referred to as H.G.) and Anna Spafford were pillars of the community, serving those in need. They were supporters of Dwight L. Moody and helped establish his ministry. In 1871 when the Chicago fire struck, the Spaffords worked faithfully to help the survivors in the aftermath of the fire.

By 1873 the stress of their many years of relief work finally took its toll on Anna Spafford. Doctors advised Anna to take a vacation. H.G. Spafford had visited France years before and decided this would be the perfect place to take his family. He booked the voyage for the family on the Ville du Havre, the safest and most luxurious ship afloat. With great anticipation, their four daughters along with their governess prepared for the voyage. As the date for their departure approached, a business problem prevented H.G. from sailing with the rest of the family. He promised, however, to join them on their vacation as soon as possible.

During the journey across the Atlantic Ocean, on a calm, starry night, the Ville du Havre was rammed midship. Despite reassurances from the crew, the ship split in two and sank within 15 minutes, taking the Spafford family to the ocean's depths. Anna felt her infant daughter slip from her arms as she sunk under the water by the force of the sea. Only by a miracle was Anna saved. A piece of wood planking had floated up under her unconscious body, bringing her to the surface. Only 57 people survived, including Anna and the governess. Gone were the Spafford's four precious daughters.

Upon arrival in France, Anna cable Horation with just two words, "Saved alone." In his grief-stricken state, H.G. quickly booked passage on another ship to meet his wife. While on the ship in recluse, the captain summoned Mr. Spafford to come to him in the wheel house. Peeing into the starry night, the captain said, "Sir, this is where the Ville du Havre sank." After gazing into the watery grave of his four little daughters, Horatio wiped the tears from his eyes and retired to his cabin below. There he took a pen and paper and wrote:

When peace, like a river,
attendeth my way,
When sorrows like sea billows roll,
Whatever my lot, thou has taught me to know:
It is well, it is well, with my soul.

Note: "The original says, "thou has taught me to know," which has a much deeper meaning. The words expressed his continued faith in the face of complete disaster.

As you press forward with God from stage to stage, completing the warfare with you own soul and achieving victory on each level, you can then lead others through the same process. We can lead others no farther than we have gone ourselves.

Today we are beginning to understand our position as the Bride of Christ. To date, we have lived, at best, as a "girlfriend." In the next chapter we will look deeply into the significance of being His Bride.