Excerpt from Living in the Light by Fred Pruitt

What I have also experienced is that, in God, the temptations, anguish and chaos of the world continually assault us. Nonetheless, it is also all swallowed up in the Cross, so that the release from this chaos and death we continually experience, is also continually coming out in resurrection and victory. The manifestation of the Light, built upon the anguish and darkness, comes out more radiant, more beautiful, more glorious on the other side. And through this continually occurring process, we learn to live in the Light, not in the anguish. The “anguish” is the process, and comes and goes. But the Light is always there. It is an absolute. Let me put it in a brief nutshell. When we live in the Spirit of Jesus Christ, Life originates from the Eternal within us, where we live by a different framework from our old life. In the old life, we are defeated daily by the temporal realities, because we think that this unrest – violence, sin, whatever – is the only thing there is. Therefore, all our focus is continually on the temporal to “fix it,” to make it better, or “avoidance,” to escape from it. In a temporal world, things are happening 1-2-3 in sequence, so that everything appears disharmonious, and we cannot see through to the end result. We are stuck in time. However, in the Spirit, God, “All in all,” is our reality. As we are seasoned through life, disappointing though it is, we learn that the anguish continually returns to find a foothold in us. We are continually assaulted, as I stated above. If we could clearly see with eternal eyes, into time, we would see as Elisha saw when his servant Gehazi could not see. Gehazi could only see the enemy army encamped fully around their city, and was undone in fear. But Elisha prayed that his eyes would be opened, and when Gehazi’s eyes opened, he saw an even greater sight than the fearful army that besieged them. He saw the whole host of heaven on horses and chariots of fire, surrounding the enemy army. (2 Kings 5:14-17). Here, then is the contrast. Elisha saw through the manifestation of evil to the chariots of fire round about. The servant could not see the heavenly host, even though they were already there. However, once his eyes were opened to the Eternal, then he really saw! And it is the same with us. Now we see, that even though the darkness, anguish and chaos come, which we feel and experience in the depths of our humanity, nonetheless, through the Cross of Jesus, all the death, anguish and chaos are continually swallowed up in Him in us. So that by that operation of death, comes the also continual and Eternal manifestation of heaven. In other words, the death (which we experience in the temporal) is continually swallowed up ETERNALLY by the operation of the Cross, and are submerged, and in a real sense, not seen in God the Father, Son, Holy Spirit. Though there is the anguish, it is eternally swallowed up in the Cross and the manifestation of God as The Light, Word, The Way, and finally the manifestation of Heaven in us. So what we end up with is that there is no anguish in God, nor in us, because we are in Him!Though we may despair that the day will never come, there does come one day a “fixedness” of relaxation in the Light side, the Resurrection side. “O God, my heart is fixed,” as the Psalmist said. (Ps 57:7; 108:1; 112:7). There does come that day. John Bunting calls it the day of graduation. We DO graduate! We live in the Light, as He is the Light, and we KNOW it!

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