TESTIMONY OF FAITH by Malcolm Muggeridge 4.

What the wilderness offers, is its emptiness – and silence. The world seems far away. No social life, no media, no votes to cast, money to accumulate. Just an arid haven of refuge. I love the wilderness because when all these pursuits of mind and body have been shed, what remains is an unencumbered soul, with no other concern than to look for God. And, looking is finding, one may dare to hope, is keeping. From such an encounter what emerges ?

That we are indeed made in the image of God, and may aspire to participate in His purposes. What they are we cannot know, what they portend we cannot imagine. Nevertheless knowing God brings with it the faith to surrender to them. Then at last we can say, really meaning it, that line in the Lord’s Prayer: Thy Will be done ….. which is all there is to say to God at any time.

When we accept this, the wilderness is suddenly full of joy and hope; it does veritably blossom like a rose in the confident knowledge that nothing can befall usto our ultimate hurt other than to become separated from God. All other ills than this are transitory and, like clouds melting in the sun’s glow, come to be incorporated in the radiance of God’s universal love.

(Mind you these are words of faith declared by a person who was a convert to Catholicism and who has spoken out to the world to give testimony of what he was convinced of … a genuine belief in the message of Jesus Christ.