THE UNKNOWN: The craziest thing; I saw an angel sitting in the grass under a bridge, leaning up against the buttress.

God this is getting crazy. Now I’m seeing angels. At least I think I am.

You are.

COME ON GOD – CUT IT OUT!! This is getting too weird now. Until now a lot of our conversations have been arguably rational. Well at least at a Christian level.

How do you mean?

Well the stuff you say, even though at the time I’m still incredulous that we’re actually talking…

Why are you always incredulous??

Because after 40 years of Christianity, most of it Pentecostal, I’ve NEVER come across this idea of you talking back and forward like a friend. It just doesn’t happen. We’re supposed to be too sinful or you’re too busy or something in that department.  But anyway I’m trying to make a point here God.

Ok go ahead Mark.

Alright. Well until now a lot of what we’ve discussed has, at least at a Christian level been fairly rational, but now I’m seeing angels everywhere. Good and bad angels.

Do you mind seeing them?

Well no. It’s kind of cool I suppose.

What’s the problem then?

It seems too kooky. I’m not sure I want people to know that I’m seeing them, and too many people read these conversations now God.

What do you mean ‘too many’?

Too many to try and keep anything quiet. If I publish this conversation people will tell people that ‘Mark Holloway thinks he’s seeing angels’.

You are.

You’re not making this any easier God! I’ve always thought that you’re actually a brainy God, not a kooky religious God. I’ve always hated how silly mindless religion has given you a bad report.

Mark Religion, give him a capital R; that sliming, conniving demon Religion is silly, but he’s never mindless. He is constantly mindful of and busy at his task. He has to be. His master the great liar drives him on and on. His task is to keep you thinking that there are rules and systems you must follow in order to have access to me. His job is to teach you all that his voice, Religion’s voice, is actually mine. His job is to keep you listening  to Religion’s commands that you must read this passage, pray that sort of prayer, sing these songs, have quiet times, that you must hear me in impressions and nudges and feelings, but never real conversation; that you must attend this meeting, stop that sin, and so on in order to please me.

God we’re getting off track.

No we’re not. I KEEP telling you Mark that a conversation, a real conversation with a friend doesn’t have to have an agenda. If there’s always an agenda then you’re talking with your friend with the aim of getting them to say what you want to hear. That’s how people converse with me, well it’s not even a conversation, but that’s how they talk to me. They want me to say a particular thing to fit their beliefs. They want to hear me say things in a way that fits with what they believe in and are comfortable thinking about. So they steer their talking at me in the direction they want.

And that’s exactly what you’re doing in this conversation Mark. You don’t want me to talk about angels, so you’re trying to get me to talk about other things. But I want to talk to you about angels. Are you up for that, or do we have to talk about stuff you’re more comfortable with??

Mark your life is already fully nutty anyway, so what’s the problem?? You’re having a back and forward conversation with God for goodness sake!! That doesn’t happen, no one much does it, nobody much teaches it. It’s madness. Everyone thinks it’s madness. I’m ok when I’m in the morning prayer box or the church box. That’s predictable. You can come and talk to me, well really it’s more talking AT me than anything, but you can do all that at nice predictable times – that’s easy.

But a conversation with me? And me turning up for more and more conversations about anything and everything?? That’s madness Mark. You know it is. It’s madness for everyone from atheists who believe I don’t exist right through to the Christians who devote their lives to me. Nobody thinks you can have a conversation with me.

Ok. Alright God I give up. The craziest thing - I SAW AN ANGEL LEANING AGAINST THAT BRIDGE GOD for goodness sake God!!! It was sitting under the bridge in the grass beside the little creek, leaning up against the buttress. At least I think it was an angel.

It was. It is. It’s still there.

Why God? That’s three days ago. Why is the poor bugger still sitting out there day after day, night after night??

It’s his job.

Pardon?

What else did you see at that bridge Mark?

Oh oh. This bit’s totally crazy – I think I saw one of the shadows of men, a demon I think.

It was. You saw it.

I really did God?? Man! It was a bit hard to believe.

It was a demon. What’s so unusual about that Mark. Tolkien knew they existed. His Lord of The Rings has taught the world that monstrous beings are a conceivable believable thing.

Not really God. His characters are something we think about but relegate to the imaginary world.

They’re NOT imaginary Mark.

Yes they are God!! It’s just a film.

Yes it is, now it is, but once it was a book and before a book it was an idea in Tolkien’s mind. And as he wrote, as he brought that idea to life in words Tolkien saw the characters Mark, they are based on reality, some imagined, but many based on the angelic and demonic beings that really do exist. Tolkien saw it, many like him have seen it.

Ok ok. This conversation is wearing me out God. Ok so I saw a demon by that bridge.

Describe what it looked like?

It was very pale, like a man with no hair, and too skinny somehow, and not quite the right shape for a man, sort of like a drawing of a man.

Did it have clothing??

I couldn’t really tell God. But this is crazy God!!! Now we’re having a conversation about something I think I saw, but think I might have been making up.

You weren’t making it up. Did it have clothing??

I don’t know. It was there and yet it wasn’t. It was as though someone had said; “Picture you could see a man standing there by the bridge. A very pale man with no hair.” I didn’t notice whether he had any clothing.

That’s the nature of what you were looking at. They are there, everywhere around you, but you can’t often see them with the naked eye. Instead you just sense them, and normally only if you want to sense them. And when you sense them you can’t often ‘see’ them, not unless you actually want to.

Here’s how it works Mark; if you want to see them your spirit paints a picture of them for you in your mind’s eye. It does it in the way radar scans what you can’t see. Radar is becoming more advanced. Once it was only able to show glowing shapes, but things have progressed, radar can now produce a photographic image. It does not ‘see’ the thing it is photographing, it ‘senses’ it and produces a photograph from what it senses.

In the same way your spiritual radar will grow more advanced as you practise its use. You saw the demon by the bridge with your spirit. You saw it in the same way a bat ‘sees’ things at night. A bat senses natures and shapes and produces mental pictures so accurate that the bat does not collide with the objects it sees. Instead the bat can hunt and kill those things, swoop and dive after them, catch and kill them without ever seeing them with the naked eye.

God I don’t know if I do want to see those things all the time though – why do I feel slightly uncomfortable with the idea?

Actually Mark you feel very uncomfortable with the idea, and that’s the way you were designed, it’s natural. It’s not a bad thing, it’s built into you to ensure your entry to the unseen world is by choice and not accident. You have a finite mind and body, it’s designed to war against your spirit. And for good reason. Being finite, your natural default position is to try and limit, keep at finite level, what you know and see. I programmed you to be like that.

Your finite mind and body is constantly resisting the idea of knowing and seeing what your spirit wants to see. I created you that way so that you would have to make a choice to operate in the infinite, a choice to break free of the natural, or ‘carnal’ restraints of your body and mind in order to see and hear things in the spiritual realm. That way those who do converse with me, those who do see the enemy and hunt him down, those who do see angels and call on them for assistance in the battle, they only do it by choice. A developed skill.

Mark why have I often told you that this choice – this choice of yours to see me, choice to hear me, choice to know what’s going on is so necessary?

Well I find it frustrating because it would be so much easier if we could see you with our eyes and hear you with our ears God – but you tell me it’s because if we could see and hear you we’d be so overwhelmed by your size and power that we’d cower in obedience. That you’d never be able to have a man-to-man conversation. You’d never be able to reason together with us, we’d be helplessly obedient and subservient?

Exactly. No fun for either of us. I either had to make you my size which would have become complex, or I had to bring myself down to yours. I do that by hiding most of myself. It’s your decision if you want to uncover and reveal me to yourself.

Ok. So I saw this angel sitting on the grass under that bridge, sitting by the stream, leaning up against the buttress, relaxed.

He was. He was enjoying his work.

What’s his work?

To keep watch, to keep the demon you saw and all his associates who congregate there under control. To stop them getting up to any more mischief than they do.

Why?

Because that’s the order of things. The demons are afraid of the angels, they’re even more afraid of you humans.

Really? Why God? 

Because you’re so unpredictably powerful. You have little idea of your power, scant idea of the damage you are often doing to them and the enormous damage you could do if only you knew how. They understand that one day a whole generation of you are going to stand up, be counted and pursue them with a vengeance. They know that when that day comes the gates of hell will be kicked aside by small children, the greatest strongman will be tortured and taunted by old ladies. They have heard the whisper, they know the legend and they are desperately trying to tell each of you – Muslim, Buddhist, Christian, Hindu, Atheist, Agnostic and every other religion – they’re desperately telling you that you are NOT dangerous, that you DON’T have any power over them.

Why are we so scared of them then? When they come near, even just when we talk about them the hair stands up on our arms and backs, why is that?

Because when you talk of them it makes you aware of them.

Ok but why, when aware of them do we feel fear?

Hah! Simple. This will make you laugh Mark, it should do anyway. It should make you laugh with courage and the desire to hunt and chase them down. Great belly rolls of laughter rising up inside you and making you want to shout ‘to war’, ‘after them’. The reason you feel fear is that you can sense theirs. You can sense their fear.

Really? Their fear of what?

They’re terrified of you! Humans terrify them. And when they are near you, you sense their fear. When you sense fear in another human, you become afraid. Your adrenalin begins to surge through your body, you go into defend and attack position. Demons are afraid of you. When you sense their fear you pick it up and begin to feel it. And because you can’t see them it bewilders you and the feeling of their fear of you becomes your fear of them. And they see this and grow bold and attack. Just like a dog attacks when it senses fear.

It’s all because you can’t see them Mark. They are able to be scary because they are the unknown. But actually, the irony is this; you are scary to them because YOU ARE THE UNKNOWN. They don’t know whether this is finally the generation that will rise up and hunt them down. You’re beginning to sound like that generation Mark, but will you be? Will you hunt them down?

PRAISE FOR THE FREEDOM DIARIES

The Freedom Diaries will stretch you. It describes Mark’s real life struggle with Doubt as he discovered that he could hear God’s voice every day.Dr Mark Virkler. Author of 4 Keys to hearing God’s Voice. Buffalo. New York.

Like a child on Christmas morning, I was delighted to discover how simple yet wonderful it is to place my hand into the hand of God and listen to his whispers and enjoy his affection.  I could only ask why no one had ever told me he was this good and this close.  I wish I had read this book a long, long time ago.  Daniel Walker. Founder and Executive Director of Nvader. Author of God in a brothel.

This is new and exciting. It’s not the idea of hearing from God that’s new, it’s having conversations back and forth, question and answers. That’s new for most of us. Now I am enjoying my own conversations with God, which always leave me with hope. David Garratt of Scripture in Song. Hawaii.