Karen and I just returned from Germany where we visited our son Daniel, his wonderful wife Sarah, and Abigail the very best baby in the world. When we departed the Lord impressed some verses on my heart. For some time I have held these verses before the Lord: “Again I say unto you, That if two of you shall agree on earth as touching any thing that they shall ask, it shall be done for them of my Father which is in heaven.” (Matthew 18:19 ) and “And all things , whatsoever ye shall ask in prayer, believing, ye shall receive.” (Matthew 21:20)

Now I have never met someone who could ask the Father for “any thing or all things” and God would give it to them. I know when the Bible says, “any thing or all things” it means “any thing or all things.” But what is the requirement, what is the place in God we must come to be able to ask the Father whatsoever we desire and He will give it to us seemly unconditionally? We today in the Church seem to go towards this desire to be able to ask God “any thing and all things” more and more. Our focus seemingly to be on the asking (and the wondering on my part) and not meeting the requirements to be able to move in such supernatural power and authority. Maybe too that is why, seemingly, there is not much of God's supernatural power moving in the Church today. If this be so I am sure it is not God who lacks the power, but is man who lacks the desire to meet the requirements to allow God to move through them. Little did I know on this trip He would reveal some requirements to have this truth hold Daniel and I as we travel to and from Constanta , Romania for a time of ministry at the Lighthouse Church , their missions Bible School , and other churches along the way. It is true we have God, but is it better to know that God has us. So too is truth. It is true we hold on to the truth, but it is far better to know God's truth is holding us firm and steady, like anchors, when difficult times and situations buffet our way. In Exodus Moses shares four anchors of truth that will hold us if we allow, “And Jehovah went before their face by day in a pillar of a cloud, to lead them in the way ; and by night in a pillar of fire, to give them light ; so that they could go day and night. 22  The pillar of the cloud did not remove from before the people by day, nor the pillar of fire by night.” (Exodus 13:21-22)

The first anchor is “God went before their face,” God goes ahead of us. He goes ahead not to make the way easy for us, but to make our time along the way we must go a meaningful learning experience. He goes before us as we follow in obedience. We have heard His direction. On the other hand we may not have been conscience of His leading. Something got us going on the right track. We may hear His voice in front of us as we go in obedience or we may not hear His voice as we continue on the proper path. Do not be overly concerned about His silence, but rather focus your attention upon the first anchor, He goes before you. The Lord goes before us. The Lord is there. That's a fact. If He goes in front of us, then He arrives before we arrive. He goes before you. This is a needy and valuable anchor. We should recognize feelings or no feelings that the Lord is present and He got there before we did. This is a tremendously valuable truth to the person who finds himself in the wilderness. In order for truth to be an anchor, it must grip our inner being. It is not to be gathered by mentally assenting to it, although that certainly will help some what. We must remember truth is not mental gymnastics of the Spirit. If we are to have faith in truth and if we are to gather truth, it will be by the Holy Spirit, by His work in our lives (through His dealing and judgments), and revelation. God measures man by how much revelation of God he possesses. Revelation is God's measuring stick.

The second anchor is God “ lead them in the way,” God ever leads us. When we come to know the Lord as our personal Savior, we come to the One Who is to be our Shepherd. He carries the lambs in His arms. He faithfully shepherds the sheep. The leading of God is not only for the one who has a long experience in walking with Him. Oh no, God's leading is arranged for us at the beginning of our coming into relationship with Him. First He has led us out of death into life. Certainly from that point we can trust Him to continue leading us in His own path, along His own ways for our betterment and our well-being. He led us out from death even before we knew Him. Certainly He can lead us as His child. Having such an abundance of appropriate passage in the Word of God we certainly should know that God is leading us. When the leading seems so strange that we do not believe it to be His, we still have His word to assure us. Jeremiah has shared his experience with us, “He (God) hath led me, and brought me into darkness, but not into the light,” (Lamentations 3:2) When we come into difficult areas, let us look back to the fact that we did not move into it on our prerogative (if that is the case). God led us there. This difficult leading seems to be an unreasonable leading of God. It is not unreasonable, it is proper. We will be aware of it when we open our eyes and see nothing but darkness. It is not necessary that we understand our present plight of darkness. It is only necessary that we understand God has led us there. We may wonder how we got there, our trusted friends will tell us we have sinned. No we arrived there by following the leading of God. How do we think the children of Israel got into the wilderness? They did not want to go to the wilderness they wanted to go to the land that flowed with milk and honey. They followed God's leading.

The third anchor is “ to give them light,” God provides a light in darkness. God takes us onward, traveling at night. How does God expect us to see? He gives us a light. God expects us to travel at night with a light. He led the children of Israel by day and night He gave them a light. Now the most difficult point of time is between the plunge into darkness and the finding of your flashlight. There are two types of darkness: The first darkness is that which arises from sin. It is a darkness that is filled with unhappiness and leads the Christian to eternal death. The second type of darkness is darkness which the Lord allows within our inward part in order to establish and settle virtue. This is a happy darkness because it illuminates (revelation) our inward spirit, strengthens it and gives it greater light. We must never rush out of spiritual darkness in which we can suddenly find our self in. It would be well for us to stop all of our frantic running, struggling, and searching and just wait before the Lord. He will get our flashlight to us. If we can understand God gives light, then we have our third anchor. God provides for us a light in darkness. This is an anchor which will help prevent us from falling upon the rocks or in a dung pit. There are some people who do not know God provides a light to walk through darkness. They go stumbling on and stumbling on and falling into all kinds of unpleasant messes, getting cut and bruised, and crying the blues. They do not believe there could be a light in such intense darkness. They believe many things which are not true. How readily some believe the suggestions of the Liar and others while being slow to believe the Word of God. But for those who believe the truth, this third anchor is available. Job wrote, “By His light, I walked through darkness” (Job 29:3) God gives us a light. We must see these times of darkness as a time we persevere in our inward pursuit. It is a manifest sign that God, in His infinite mercy, is seeking to bring us into the inward path. How good will be the results if we embrace these times with peace and with resignation. Such times are for our spiritual growth and development. As we persevere God will give us a light which grows and increases in the midst of darkness. Often it is in times of darkness wisdom and strong love are begotten. It is in times of darkness not in times of great outward spiritual joy that our self-nature and self-seeking is dealt a mortal blow. Images, ideas, wanderings, and other hindrances which give us a distorted view of God and His ways are consumed. Last of all the Lord uses darkness to purge us of our outward senses; this purging is necessary for our internal progress. Do not particularly try to seek a way out of darkness and most of all do not stop coming before the Lord as in our most faithful times and in those times when spiritual riches and blessing were at their highest. Lastly never forget God provides light not to dispel darkness, but to show us the way.

And the last anchor is He “ did not remove from before the people,” God is ever faithful. If this truth of the faithfulness of God (the fact He does not remove His light) can indeed grip our heart we then will have our fourth anchor. God is faithful forever. Every moment of the day God is faithful to us. Although the consciousness of His presence may be removed He the light will never leave us nor forsakes us. “For He Himself has said, I will never leave you nor forsake you.” (Hebrews 13:5) This truth does not have its foundation in us; it does not depend upon us. Whether we can feel God or not, whether we can see anything or not, whether we can hear anything or not, will not change this truth. This is an anchor not because of us, but in many cases in spite of us. Our sin will not change this, our unfaithfulness will not change this. “ If they break my statues and keep not my commandants; then will I visit their transgression with the rod and their iniquity with stripes. Nevertheless my loving kindness will I not utterly take from him nor suffer my faithfulness to fail.” (Psalm 89:31-33) It is true you may forsake God. It is not true that God forsakes us. “Yea, though I walk through the valley of the shadow of death I will fear no evil; for thou art with me; thy rod and thy staff they comfort me. Thou preparest a table before me in the presence of mine enemies.” (Psalm 23:4-5) How can He prepare a table before us if He is not there? He is there! We may be so conscious of the enemy we cannot sense God nor see the prepared table. Our circumstances and difficulties may be so intense and trying they push out of our awareness of God's nearness. We are very sure that God has forsaken us; we just know it! At such a time we need the fourth anchor. The Word of God is not to be disavowed. The Word of God is true. It does not convey to us false statements and principles. Therefore, when we come up with suggestions from our heart which is contrary to the Word of God, what are we going to believe, our self or the Word? John wrote, “If our heart condemn us, God is greater than our heart, and knoweth all things.” (1 John 3:20) The Word of God says that God does not condemn us . “For God sent not His Son into the world; but that the world through Him might be saved.” (John 3:17) Jesus said to the woman taken in adultery, “Neither do I condemn thee go; and sin no more.” (John 8:11) God is not in the condemning business. Man is. God knows all things my heart does not. God is greater than my heart. I will not believe the suggestions and imaginations which come from me. Now I certainly hear the suggestions; I cannot help that. But to anchor my soul in these suggestions is to miss the anchor which God has provided for me, the faithfulness of God. This fourth anchor, the faithfulness of God, will hold us to such an extent that we can go to sleep in the storm. If we know that God is faithful to us every moment of the day, we can rest in great peace, “Great peace have they which love thy law and nothing shall offend them.” (Psalm 119:165) Our peace and rest can be so complete that the tranquility can give us a guilt complex. We learn just learn how “easy” His yoke can be, and how “light” His burden is. (Matthew 11:30) Do you know where the sea of glass is? It is before the throne (Revelation 4:6). Do you know what the sea of glass is? It is sea which is smooth; it is never disturbed by waves. We never see a storm on the sea of glass; it is calm. This is the condition before the throne of God. It is not in the world. We can so relate to the rulership and dominion of God, so live in Him that we live in tranquility. Now that is not denying the storm. We can have peace in time of war and we can have war in time of peace. We can be in a storm when everything is calm or we can be calm when everything is stormy. We can even be alone in a crowd. It all depends upon where you live. It all depends upon which is gripping our heart, the storm or the faithfulness of God. There is a place of silence in God that brings us to nothingness. A place where we have nothing to say. There are three types of silence: a silence of words, a silence of desires, and a silence of thoughts. The first is perfect. The second is even more perfect and the third is the most perfect. In the first, the silence of words, there is virtue (strength) that is acquired. In the second, the silence of desires, quietness is obtained; and in the third, the silence of thoughts . . . this is our goal: the internal recollection of all of our senses. To lay hold of the silence of thought is to arrive and abide at the center of our being where Christ dwells. Not by speaking, desiring, nor reasoning we reach the central place of our inward walk, that place where God speaks to our inward man. It is there that God communicates. Himself to our spirit; and there in the inmost depths of our being. He teaches us Himself. He guides us to this place where He alone speaks His most secret and hidden things of His heart to us.

The foregoing was some material I shared at the Bible School in Romania . You know it is one thing to say and teach things about God, but it is another thing to experience things of God. When Daniel and I arrived at the Romanian airport to return back to Frankfurt , Germany , Daniel noticed all of the previous flights to Amsterdam , Holland were cancelled. He wanted to see Sarah, Abigail, and Karen bad, me too. He said it may be due to bad weather. I asked him to wait here and I would go find out what was up, well it was God up to His usual ways of making us eat the words we just shared at the Bible School . I walked up to the KLM counter and asked a ticket agent if our flight would be cancelled also. He said maybe due to heavy fog in Amsterdam . I asked him what of the people, he pointed to a huge crowd of people trying to get a seat on our flight. He then told me he doubted our flight would get out. He then asked if I had a connecting flight, I said yes on to Frankfurt , he said wait a minute. God goes ahead of us. He came back and asked for my ticket. I told him of my son Daniel who too needs a seat. God is leading. He departed again and soon returned back telling me to get my son and report to counter one so that we can get our ticket for the Air France flight to Paris , France the city of lights. God is a light in darkness. We arrived Frankfurt one hour earlier then we would have if we were on the KLM flight. God is ever faithful. One thing that struck me was the huge crowd of people God apparently left behind.

Brethren I see now the requirement to be able to ask the Father whatsoever we desire and He will give it to us comes not through the asking, but from the desire to be willing to endure God's dealings and judgments in our lives and to have such a close relationship with Him that He will grant to us the desires of our heart because our desires will be His desires. Let us desire Him so that His anchors of truth will be able to us hold us steady and tight as we travel along His way for our lives.