Hidden Matters: A Supplication to Walk in Simple Truth…

By Stef Louw

HIDDEN MATTERS is a candid conversation between the carnal human and the ineffable God. In this cogent expos, the reader is challenged to re-examine conventional belief and urged to consider the grievous consequesnce of living outside the boundary of the honorable. Herein, the words become a lambent candle in the hands of anyone who dares to walk out of darkness.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Partridge Publishing Africa
• Release date: Aug 31, 2017
• ISBN: 9781482877311

Stef Louw

Born in 1980, in Europe’s Eastern Block, Stef immigrated to Africa as a teenager. Through her life experiences, she developed as a prolific writer and now bares witness of God’s glory.

Book preview

Copyright © 2017 by Witnessed by Stef Louw.

ISBN:                        Hardcover                        978-1-4828-7732-8

                                  Softcover                          978-1-4828-7733-5

                                  eBook                                978-1-4828-7731-1

All rights reserved. No part of this book may be used or reproduced by any means, graphic, electronic, or mechanical, including photocopying, recording, taping or by any information storage retrieval system without the written permission of the author except in the case of brief quotations embodied in critical articles and reviews.

Scripture quotations, unless otherwise noted, are from the early version of the Wycliffe Bible. Online source used with permission:

http://wesley.nnu.edu/fileadmin/imported_site/wycliffe/

Wesley Centre Online

School of Theology and Christian Ministries

Northwest Nazarene University

623 S. University Boulevard, Nampa, ID 83686

Because of the dynamic nature of the Internet, any web addresses or links contained in this book may have changed since publication and may no longer be valid. The views expressed in this work are solely those of the author and do not necessarily reflect the views of the publisher, and the publisher hereby disclaims any responsibility for them.

www.partridgepublishing.com/africa

CONTENTS

Acknowledgments

Chapter 1      The Fort of Denial

Chapter 2      A Bag Full of Red Flags

Chapter 3      At The Feet of Grace

Chapter 4      Two-Way Forward

ACKNOWLEDGMENTS

Thank You Hashem Elohim, my God and my Creator, for you showed me great mercy. I bless you!

Let your name be clarified through this work of my hands.

You alone are worthy of praise.

I dedicate this book to my Beloved, Yeshuah!

Lord I love you with all my heart, soul, mind and strength.

Thank you for making an overcomer out of me, like you promised…

Precious Holy Ghost … You and me, together, without end!

To my mother, Snejana, thank you for believing in me and for encouraging me to keep going. I did it mama, I did it to make you proud!

To my dearest friend, Amanda Gee,

Your courage, your friendship and your sense of humor changed my life!

I’m eternally grateful to God that He sent you!

To my daughter Angelica Louw,

You inspire me.

Your love is like sunshine, and colorful rainbows, and pink ballerina shoes, and sweet chocolates, and teddy bears, and a million beautiful smiles!

CHAPTER 1

The Fort of Denial

(Searching for Love)

O nce in a lifetime comes a real opportunity to take inventory and discover that life is spent chasing after the notion of love. People think they know much about the matter of love but they can’t explain the all-consuming need for it. Perhaps what propels and fuels their lifelong search is the primal belief that love is weaved into the tapestry of the human being. It is the desire to experience love that has become their absolute goal. So humanity blindly boards a ship and sails away to uncover the mystery. But the harsh elements, the length of time and the impossibility of figuring out such enigma soon render their efforts a failure and halt the search. The sad realization arrives that the people of this world always return ravished from sailing, left with a bag full of unfulfilled dreams. Many have pitiful ideas of what true love could be and try to define the spectrum. If only they knew, their complex experiences and filtered perceptions is what got them wondering away from the truth in the first place. I was one such person, who went looking and searching for love.

And while on this implausible voyage, the fallen world got a hold of me and forced down my throat its own twisted version of the image of love. In the interim, I, the brave sailor of discovery, became no exception to dismal worldly conformation. Surely many have shared the same fate as me. But in all the pursuing and after all the failed attempts, I was not satisfied with what I presumed to be unadulterated loving. This explains why I often found myself emptied out, broken in pieces and wandering. Looking back on my journey, I see now that whatever I encountered was lust and not love. Although I tried to blame it on the enthusiasm with which I landed in all the wrong places, one thing became evident; I fell short of the fairy-tale experience every time. I hope many will agree when I say the search for love has become an artifice. Songs are written and movies are made to commemorate the fantasy, but in reality humans are nowhere near experiencing true love. The habitual way of thinking, which this world has adopted is a joke. People acts as if they understands the truth about love. It seems like somebody out there has taking the human mind for a ride. But even though this illusion has wrecked people emotionally, their unsettled hearts continue to desire love. The search goes on; for me, for you, and for the whole of mankind.

Personally, it took me many itinerant years of wondering. But only after I became a believer in the Lord Jesus Christ, and as I crossed over the threshold of my thirties that the mystery of love unfolded before me. It was then that I could learn and understand its meaning and purpose. Bravely I ought to confess I was seriously lost, misled to roam in dark places and forced to drift away from authenticity. The more I looked for love the deeper I sunk in wretchedness. Today, my involvements and the extensive research I have done make up the essence of this book. This is my testimony but it adds to the collective story of mankind! Every paragraph was written to expose the identity of the culprit behind the demise of my innocence. To reveal the delinquent’s intentions by presenting the facts, triumphs and failures experienced during the derisory search for love. On these pages, I am confident of telling the truth regarding my human downfall and backing it up with a few hard lessons learnt. The point is to share. At some strange level of life, we are not so different from each other. Our stories may match up, here and there, often, and in so many ways. The bottom line remains the same; we both want loving.

Still, it may come as a surprise to find out that people’s archest enemy, the devil, begins his iniquitous work in their lives at the time of infancy. He enters through the gates of their cities (regarding ‘the city’ I mean the mind area), while no one is watching, and goes in unnoticed. His mission is to carry out a cruel and vicious assignment against the human heart (regarding ‘the heart’ I mean the thinking process). Later on, folks discover the manifold snares and traps he sets before their feet, to capture and confine them in prison. His trickery is too weighty for a simple explanation. It is somewhat disquieting to learn how he lays the foundations of denial. He implements a deliberate progression of wicked events that are carefully designed and put in place to abort the development of the human being. Wickedness makes people subject to his will, lucratively and for long. The enemy disguises horrible things as normal and ordinary, thus persuading them to accept and follow in his ways. There is evidence of evil everywhere, expressed through total disregard for moral boundaries. It leaves little left to the imagination on its path of destruction. Humanity is taken captive without the possibility of parole, not able to grasp the idea of mercy. He knows many would not wake up to ‘smell the coffee’, and even if they did, it may be too late. Innocence is stained and time is lost. Many lives lay in ruins. Let me tell you the adversary has resolved to waste our time because time, as I recently discovered, is the redemption factor for mankind. So, the enemy often has an unfair advantage in battle. He has purposefully built the fort of denial and from there he wastes time. Yes, indeed! Time is wasted while people deny wickedness exists or they deny that they partake of it. Meanwhile, the devil finds the good soil and plants his seeds. He waters, watches over the produce and patiently waits for the harvest of souls.

The discouraging part is that the gates of many cities remain unguarded, and there are no watchmen on the walls. The rest is history. However, this enhances the