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Firstly,
Unveiling isn't a blog, nor do we have a
Facebook page, Twitter account, or any
other form of internet social
interaction for Unveiling apart from
good old email! :-) So please feel free
to email us (we're
Mike and Lynette Woods)
and share your comments,
queries and your own journey by writing
to: woods@unveiling.org
This
website is an avenue for sharing things
that have been revealed to us on this
journey of Life thus far. "Unveiling" is
about revealing, unveiling and showing
what had been hidden, veiled or unseen
by us. Without Light we cannot see what
is hidden and veiled, we can see no
colour, we can see nothing - we are
blind. Spiritually we are in darkness
until God shines His Light (Christ) and
opens our eyes, revealing and unveiling
all... He penetrates, challenges and
dispels darkness - unveiling to us Who He
is and who we are. That can
feel like a personal apocalypse; an
uncomfortable, stormy process through
which He enables us to see and let go of
'self' and our ideas in order to
accept His.
Why Unveiling? Only God can fully answer
that question in the light of
eternity... in January 1999 we were
offered the opportunity to set up a
website and Unveiling.org came into
being. However, for us God's unveiling
had begun three and a half years prior
when He awakened us to Life in Him. At
the time we were both very involved in a
denominational church. I (Lynette) had
lived and breathed Christianity all my
life (Being a Testimony
has more about this).
Quite
unexpectedly, in the first few days of
1996 God called us out of the church we
were members of, although we didn't
understand why. All we knew was that He
was telling us to leave. We knew that He
was calling us to something new and
different to anything we'd known before,
but we didn't know what or why! We were
excited about this, even though we had
virtually no idea of what that might be
or even why He wanted us to leave - it
was simply a step of faith and trust.
Our call to leave was questioned by the
leadership of the church we were part
of, but for us this was a test of
whether we would listen to God or man
and we felt we had no choice but to
trust and obey God. During this very
painful process, we began to see and
understand more about why He had told us
to leave; an article which describes
some of this is entitled Seeing the Son.
Although
I considered myself a born-again,
Spirit-filled, totally committed
follower of Christ, at this point in
time when God chose to breathe His Life
into me, it was as though I had known
and seen nothing previously; I had been
dead and now was truly alive! I had been
the dry bones in Ezekiel's vision
(Ezekiel 37). I felt as though I had
been dead or asleep and had not truly
known or experienced God and His Life up
until that point compared with what I
now was experiencing.
It
is only when you are awake and alive
that you can understand anything and can
begin to see and hear!
As
I began to use my eyes and ears for what
felt like the first time, I couldn't
believe what I was seeing that I'd never
seen before - both negative and
positive. I began to see religion and
the church for what it is, as well as
seeing God's Way, Truth and Life. The
Bible had been transformed into
LIFE and was Living! I had never
questioned what I had heard, practiced
and believed in the church, but now God
Himself began to teach and show me that
many of the things I had believed and
practiced were not Biblical - which was
rather a shock! I realized that many
people who go to church think they know
God and yet do not even recognize His
voice or hear Him for themselves. Yet
hearing and knowing Him personally is
not only essential, it is what we are
created for: to know this Love, Truth
and Way of God!
I
had been blind and deaf, but now I was
beginning to see and hear... I saw that
my "Christianity" had simply been
religious self-righteousness and pride -
religion, myself and the church had been
in the place of Christ in my life. As He
began unveiling Himself to me as the
Truth, Life and Way of God, I felt that
He wanted me to write down what I was
learning so that I would not forget it.
I found that as I wrote, He expanded
upon what He was teaching me and showed
me even more.
We
had no idea that many people around the
world and in previous generations had
also experienced similar crises and
heard a similar call out of religion and
into Life! To us it was as though we
were the only ones that this had ever
happened to. It was only after we had
left it all behind that our Father
confirmed His words to us and brought us
into contact with others who had also
heard, seen and experienced Christ as
their Life in similar ways. This has
been His way since then, He first
teaches us Himself and then confirms His
Truth and Way through Life; often
through writings which we have not read
previously, some of which are shared on
this website in addition to our own
writings. One author who has been used
more than any other in this role of
establishing and confirming what we've
seen, is the late T. Austin-Sparks (www.austin-sparks.net)
whose messages consistently reveal
Christ and His Life.
While
we certainly recognize the problems
with the church and its methods and
systems and have no qualms about
exposing them, our desire is to
maintain our focus on Christ and His
Life. When God unveils our eyes to see
Him as He really is, His Life and
Light overwhelms everything else! All
is brought into focus and into the
correct perspective and balance
through Him. We cannot free those who
are in bondage or open other people's
eyes, ears and hearts to the Truth -
we cannot even open our own eyes and
ears - we are all totally dependent
and reliant upon the only One Who can
do that for each of us personally! Yet
there is a cost associated with seeing
and having our eyes opened and we have
to be willing to pay that price...
It
has been, and still is, a process and
a journey and not an easy one at that.
As on any journey, the way is
sometimes difficult and we stumble and
make mistakes. We are continually
having to unlearn and lay aside our
understanding and ways in order to
learn Christ. It is the process of daily
dying to self and living in Christ.
This is an amazing journey of
discovering and learning Him and all
the freedom that His Life, Truth and
Way entails! The words of this song
sum it up very well:
Never
felt like this before
Now You're all I'm living for
Suddenly, Life has new meaning to me
There's beauty up above and things
we never take notice of
You wake up and suddenly you're in
Love!
As
He reveals and unveils Himself to you,
may He truly become All and Everything
to you; "We pray to the God of our
Lord Jesus Christ, the Father of
glory, that He may grant you a spirit
of wisdom and revelation (unveiling)
of insight into mysteries and secrets
in the deep and intimate (full)
knowledge of Him, by having the eyes
of your heart flooded with Light so
that you can know and understand the
hope to which He has called you and
how rich is His glorious inheritance
in the saints, His set-apart ones." (Eph
1:17,18 Amplified Bible).
May
His Life, Love and Light be unveiled
to you and flow out through you as
death is destroyed and Christ in His
full, real Life is seen, heard and
experienced!
"This
is the Testimony: that God has given
us His Life and this Life is in His
Son." 1 John 5:11.
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