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with Martha Kilpatrick and hosted by John Enslow
(J) Well, Martha, we are going between Barcelona and Madrid on the high speed train and we just wanted to do a podcast here. I thought it was going to be real interesting to be able to do a podcast on the high speed train. And we’re looking at the country side. It’s absolutely gorgeous. When you get down to Madrid it’s really quite different than I’ve ever thought it would be. It’s desert like. When you get up into the north, further north into Barcelona on the coast and up into the Catalonian area and towards the border of France, it’s really beautiful and more lush. But during this trip we’ve had, you know, some revelations from the Lord about living, and we wanted to share those while we’re doing this. So, Martha, what is the Lord saying to you?
(M) I want to first tell a little background. He just gave me a scripture before we left. It’s Psalm 50:23. “He who sacrifices thank offerings honors Me and he prepares the way that I may show him the salvation of God.” Really, it started when our dear friend Julie, the missionary to Mexico, came up for several days to be together and pray. We were kneeling by the bed to worship and the Holy Spirit came on me to say, “You must love everything. Everything is love.” And I said to Julie, “I love my pashmina. I love this room. I love this chair. I love what God has given.” It was a very powerful anointing of the Spirit to just love. So, that was nice. But it began to expand into loving what God provides and what He doesn’t provide. And so He called me on this trip to love, love Him, not the item, but to love Him. Well, we have never been so thrust upon the Lord in traveling as in this trip.
(J) Truly.
(M) We usually don’t go sightseeing when we go to these places to visit with brothers and sisters in the Lord, but we set aside two or three days just for John and I to go around Spain. So we go against the best advice and we take a train to Barcelona and rent a car in the middle of Barcelona. Everything is so difficult because we don’t speak the language and they don’t speak ours. And so we finally get the car, finally find the place to get the car and find the place to get off the train. We can’t read any of the signs so we’re just praying that God will lead us every step of the way. So we can’t imagine we get in this busy European city…
(J) Busy is an understatement.
(M) Ok. Well, you describe it. Wild.
(J) Wild. Wild would be a good word. It was like mayhem and chaos in the driving. There were lines, but I don’t know that anybody was paying attention to the lines other than me. I was in the lines where I’m normally not a line kind of person. I was all in the line and everybody was in my line, and oh, yeah…
(M) And plus there were motorcycles.
(J) Everywhere! And they would just all run up to the front of the line. I mean it didn’t matter if they were in the very back they would wriggle their way through the cars, which didn’t have any space between each other. They would wriggle around and get all to the front so you would have like fifty motorcycles in the very front of the line to go when the light turned.
(M) But before we get into this mayhem, John’s behind the wheel, we finally get out of the Avis parking lot and we get ready to enter it and John says, “Ok, Jesus, here I come,” with his hands gripping the steering wheel. And I got so tickled that I was absolutely no help. So there was an initial absence of faith as we struck out. And I kept trying to help him and John said, “Look the other way. Don’t help me.” So then John begins to talk to the Lord just spontaneously the whole way and I am giggling because it is so funny. We got out the Barcelona safe.
(J) Thank you, Jesus.
(M) And all in one piece. And we started into the country. Truly we went around in circles even though we had a global positioning satellite.
(J) ..a GPS…
(M) GPS. Still the signs didn’t coincide with the guidance system so we were…. And we wanted to go this place called Monseret and I don’t know how we got there because we didn’t know where we were going. But we ended up in the right place. We went up a tram to these absolutely gorgeous mountains. But we’ve had a lot of fun because we have totally depended on the Lord even with the GPS. We’ve had to have Him guide us because we really couldn’t go. We just couldn’t have done it without Him.
(J) And the funny thing is is that the GPS had a crisis of faith as well. All of a sudden when we’re driving back from Cordona and we’re coming back and all of a sudden we’re on the highway and it freeks out and it says, “Drive the unpaved highway” to this particular area. It just totally blipped me out of the whole area.
(M) We tried to follow some kind of tourist schedule getting in a little town and we were in the most narrow streets I’ve ever seen in my life. So we decided we liked the countryside better, that we could handle it. But truly, it was all about trusting the Lord for everything.
(J) Right. Right, definitely.
(M) And thanking Him for everything and seeing that everything comes from Him. But, you know, as I brooded on that a lot, I really saw that when you love God you love what He gives you. And I wrote in the Manna that in the Paris airport I just lost it because I was so frustrated and had many… The Paris airport is difficult, we’ll say gracefully, for us. And I had to carry my baggage down three flights and that’s difficult for me. Then up two flights to the airplane, and by the time I got on the airplane I was just so frustrated. Then I realized I had failed the test. I had failed to thank God for the steps.
(J) And the ability that you could walk up the steps.
(M) Yes.
(J) That’s what you were telling me. Oh, I can at least walk up these steps. So, you know, I believe that I probably failed it as well, cause I was seething and gritting my teeth.
(M) So I was just struck in the airplane that I had failed so. And the interesting thing was that I just went to the Lord with all my heart and He was just really delighted that I had failed, because it was as if He said to me, “Now you know that you cannot possibly be that grateful. You cannot possibly love every step of life and every difficulty. You cannot do it. There’s only One who ever did it, and that’s the Son of God. And so immediately He poured on me the grace for that failure. It was an inevitable failure, because you cannot thank Him in everything. I don’t remember it, you know. Do you, John?
(J) Never. Not ever.
(M) I don’t remember it. If it’s something you have to remember I’m done for. I get into it before I know it and then I’m in the flesh. But the issue is not remembering that. The issue is wanting to see the Son of God live your life and get to know Him. And I’ve seen something about Him in this that because He loves the Father so, so deeply, so fully, so perfectly, I know, I know that He loved everything that came, and everything that didn’t. And I thought about the verse that says “I thank You Father” when He had been rejected. His miracles had been rejected in Capernaum and Chorizin. Then He said, “Thank You, Father, that You’ve revealed it. You’ve hidden it from the wise and intelligent; revealed it to babes.” And then in the Greek it’s exuberant praise. And so I saw that He lived in unbroken love, praise, worship and gratitude with the Father, that that was His whole being. He loved everything the Father gave.
(J) Do you think primarily what it was was that His whole focus was so directed at the Father that the circumstance was kind of… It’s not like the circumstance… You’re not aware of it. It’s not that it’s not going to bring you pain but you’re not involved with it. You’re involved with Him. I would like to know more of how to do that because I don’t think it’s a how. It’s a who. Right?
(M) Exactly. And you’ve hit on the head as you usually do, John. It was His complete focus on the Father. So everything was of the Father, from the Father, for the Father. He wouldn’t, He didn’t.. I’m sure He didn’t have the temptations that we do to be fussy and murmuring. He was just utterly involved with the Father every moment.
(J) You know something? We know about the crucifixion, but the continual and ever present persecution against Him, He wasn’t involved with the pain of it. I don’t know. I am usually involved with my pain level. I’m saying where’s my comfort level? That’s where I’m going to go… and to avoid the pain level that I don’t want to experience. And so because I do that I might miss the Father because the Father is not interested in whether I’m in pain or whether I’m in comfort. He’s interested in the fact that I am utterly dependent on Him and in relationship with Him. Look at this building. So the thing that I have to know is that He’s not involved with my pain level or my comfort level because that’s not His goal. His goal is communion.
(M) We’re just passing a castle, an old, old castle. America is so new that we don’t have such ancient buildings as this. They’re fascinating. This is almost like a fortress, a castle and church all in one. Ok. And you know, John, too if your goal of life is to know Him, if you choose as Paul did, that your one purpose in life is to know Him, then everything you do is about knowing Him. And I’m just so grateful that He gave us this chance to know Him. I know Him as One in unbroken worship through this. I know Him as One who is grateful for every small thing. I think I’ve put in the Manna for every tissue, for every glass, ability to make one step.. I tend to think it’s to know Spain, but we haven’t touched remotely this country. We’ve been a lot of miles and a lot of places already in just a few days, but we have yet to know the country. But we have deeply come to know Him. That we would ask Him to oh get us there, Lord. Guard our steps up many treacherous steps and places and up a tram and up a train that went almost straight up. And we’ve just committed our lives to Him every step and He has kept us fully and beautifully.
(J) Well the thing I’m utterly aware of is that most typical, including myself, Christians are not involved with Him as much as they’re involved with them.
(M) Actually the world, self and the world. It’s so tempting to be involved with your, as you say, your comfort level.
(J) Well, yeah. And it’s real easy to do because you… Really, it’s like if you’re in the flow the Spirit you’re going to be going where He’s going. But if you’re in the flow of the flesh, it is going to take you to your comfort. And any kind of obstacle you’re going to avoid that because that’s not in your, you know, comfort. It’s like a boulder being put in there, but maybe He wants you to go over it or under it or through it or something like that.
(M) And you know I never comprehended that constant travel is very hard work. It‘s very stressful. It’s hard work. It’s hard work to deal with all of it. Just to learn to travel in faith with ease and poise, is quite an issue of faith, not comfort, but of faith. He has been amazingly with us. We’ve seen things that have grieved us deeply. We’ve seen things that He’s commissioned us to pray about. I think the other thing I’ve seen, John, is not just being grateful to Him. That’s the first level. But as I’ve gone along and prayed about this and listened to Him and communed I think I’ve asked the question, is simple gratitude the core issue? Is ingratitude so basic that every other sin is built upon that? Is rebellion just ingratitude? Does ingratitude lead to discontent and discontent to greed and then unbelief and independence? And in the end it’s living for yourself and self worship. Because the most angry people I know are also the most ungrateful. They cannot see the enormous blessings. I knew a man in my family that was given the most wonderful compensation by God for suffering and he never saw it.
(J) It’s almost like you’re blind to it, isn’t it?
(M) Yeah, if you’re ungrateful you will be blind to what you’ve given by God. He gives all of us lavishly. But I think it boils down to the exchanged life. I want to witness His unbroken worship of the Father, His unselfish gratitude. Gratitude is above all unselfish. So I am grateful for the lesson. I’m grateful to know that it is not humanly possible. Israel had everything and they went amiss. When they murmured they died, because murmuring attacks the goodness of God. And that’s what ingratitude is. It’s the old, old lie of Satan. “Eve, He’s not good. He’s not given you enough.”
(J) …and withholding from you.
(M) Right. Withholding what you need. But for the believer who has surrendered… I’m not sure this applies to a rebel… But for the believer who has surrendered everything is given me by God. He is committed to responsibility for you. So, it’s wonderful. We’re learning… We’ve learned, I hope, a new level of faith on this journey. And we’ve still got some days to go.
(J) Absolutely. We’re about to visit our friends that we’ve never known or seen in person. We’re meeting a whole family in Madrid that they have followed Martha’s books and writings and teachings for a long time, and actually translated “Adoration” into Castilian Spanish. So we’re going to finally meet these people that have been aware of us, but we’ve not been aware of them.
(M) And I already feel a kinship and a love for them. So we’re excited. When this train is over they will find us, because we don’t know what they look like.
(J) Yeah, we’ve never seen their picture, so we’re just going, you know, go out and hopefully this trip hasn’t aged us too much so that they won’t even know who we are.
(M) Oh, dear. Well, we’ll trust God for our restoration as well. I want to see Him all my days. I want to watch Him, be grateful to the Father, who’s goodness is absolutely incomprehensible.
