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There is a line in a song which goes ‘A Good Heart these days is hard to find.’ Thinking about it, what will really last forever, beyond your works even, is if you have a good heart which people are attracted to and find peace in. If people can get
along with you and find acceptance with you, if you can overlook their flaws and fallible nature and love them simply for being them, for being human and alive and worthy of love because of it, if you can show empathy and relate your
heart to theirs and
give them consolation when they are low and be a faithful friend in both difficult times and good times, if you can be a little rock of eternal friendship and hope in their lives, then that will really last forever and be a
blessing of untold wealth.
Money comes and goes. Perhaps, in the world to come, we will be trillionairres a trillion times over, and perhaps right at the bottom a number of times too. Who can really say, hey? Perhaps we will own mansions, and cars, star in movies
and sing great
songs. But when everyone has had their turn at glory, what will last? Thinking about Jesus, who I don’t believe is the Christ or Messiah or God or anything like that type of nonsense, but thinking about how he often comes across in his
simple human
wisdom, he apparently forsaked all the glory of wealth in his life, didn’t bother really trying to earn thousands of drachmas (or whatever their currency was) and living out the high life, but instead sought to teach people spiritual
values and share a
message of love with them. And while I think God has various ways of looking at
the person of Jesus of Nazareth, ways unlike how the church views him, I think there is still a heart of popularity attributed to this man simply because he comes across has
having cared about people, and perhaps was even willing to die for them, which he apparently did. I couldn’t do that, personally. I have the guts to take a bullet for any wife I would marry and children, but I couldn’t die on a cross. But then again,
that’s not me. If someone asked me ‘Would you die for me?’ I would have to tell them ‘NO.’ But then I would say ‘But I would LIVE for you instead.’ But, whatever, the message of Jesus simple love is, really, what is
going to last forever.
The message of finding a heart which accepts you and treats you kindly, which will sacrifice for you and dig you out of difficult situations, will give you blessings when you need them, and stay faithful to you – well who can say that they don’t
really want that a lot? And, hopefully, that is what Haven Noahide Fellowship, if it really ever starts growing well and turning into something which I hope it could become, will be all about. Above all else I want Haven to be exactly that – ‘A Haven�
��. I think everyone can say at some time in their lives they needed a place to
get away, a place to call their own, a place to be accepted, loved unconditionally, and helped out in difficult circumstances. In Australia were I
live we are so lucky that
we have a good welfare system which helps out the people with low incomes. I know that Indigenous Australians still have a degree of poverty, but it has gotten to the point in Australia that if you really want to succeed in life, the opportunities are
there. Schooling will be free if you can’t afford it, you can gain HECS to study a university degree and pay it back later. There is the jobsearch allowance to support you while you are looking for work. And there is government housing for people who
can’t afford to own or rent in the private sector. All of this comes from, to
my way of thinking, a society which genuinely cares about its citizens. And that is what we all want, isn’t it? To live in a world which cares and has a heart in it. All my
life I have heard it said occasionally that this is a cold hard uncaring world.
But I have found the opposite often equally true. There ARE a lot of caring people in this world. There are synagogues and churches and mosques and temples
full of religious
and spiritual people who are motivated by pleasing God and helping their fellow
humans. And there are non-religious people who hold to an ethical or moral stance of live and let live and trying to be a good person. And, I think, that may just be what it
is all about, this thing called life. C S Lewis argued in ‘Mere Christianity’ that there is a ‘Moral Law’ which we all seem to ascribe to. For example, we often say of things ‘That’s not right’. Or ‘That shouldn’t be’ as if there is
some benchmark or standard of righteousness which we all seemingly hint at, even unknowingly. A lot of that may be as a result of centuries of grooming on our morals, but is it more than that? Is there really a sense of justice innate
to being human,
made in the image of God. And, for me, Justice is not just about righting wrongs, but acting justly to ensure a society in which happiness is found. Haven Noahide Fellowship, as of today, has a tiny number of members. But it has
a growing number of
people who know about us. My hope is that Haven WILL grow, and end up being that Haven in peoples lives, a place of sanctuary, a place were they can escape
to and find peace from God and solace for the heart and soul. I want Haven to be a place were
EVERYONE is accepted, because we are all children of Noah and Noahides. It is to be a place were people can be put right with God, meeting him, encountering him in prayer and meditation, and finding others who also connect to him. It is
to be a place,
ultimately, in which Jew, Christian, Muslim, Bahai and any of the believers in the God of Adam, Noah and Abraham can connect and find Haven from the conflicts
which have often beset them. You see, Haven accepts everyone of all the Adamic religions,
wanting to be a place were they can find acceptance with each other and tolerance for their differences. And it is the sign, the simple sign of the ‘Rainbow’ with its bright colours, which all of us can see and witness to, and have hope in the
promises of God that his Grace will remain, everlastingly so.

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I have had a crush on a number of female pop singers for a number of years now.
I have fancied the Christian pop singer ‘Rebecca St James’ for a long time,
ever since the mid 1990s when I was given a Christian compilation CD from my sister with her
song ‘Here I Am’ on it. I think she is a wonderful person, and hope she soon finds the right man for her, because she is still a virgin in her early 30s and has been faithfully waiting for the right one. I really like all 5 Spice Girls, and am
currently reading Geri Halliwell’s biography ‘If Only’. She comes across as a very genuine person, in no way flakey, with a very real upbringing and with a heart which cares. I think she is FAB. I am also a big Madonna fan now, and hope the best
for her. I also really like Britney Spears and Kelly Clarkson, as well as Mandy
Moore, Hilary Duff and Lily Allen. I remember in the 1980s when I first heard of Madonna. She was that new big super popstar, who at the time I thought was basically one of
the real big popstar's like Michael Jackson. I never bought any of her albums though and was never really a fan until the early 1990s when I was at a video store and looking at CDs for rent and thought I may as well try the ‘Bedtime Stories’ album by
Madonna. I loved it and became a fan then. I know Madonna has studied Kabbalah for many years, and I also know she still seems to be a Christian in faith as well. I find her a very interesting personality and the fact that she has faith
in God is, to me,
a great thing. To me that is someone who ‘has it all’ but still remembers where her bread is buttered. Success in life, finding the big dream of it all, and finding your piece of the pie seems to be what it is all about for many of us in the west. I
wrote a poem a while ago called ‘Stuck’ which sort of summed up how I view things. It is in my ‘Life, Love and Other Mysteries’ anthology of poetry and song. So much of my own yearnings in life over these past 20 years have been for some sort of
success. To make a name for myself, to achieve wealth and success, to gain my own, supposedly deserved, glory. But I suppose I have to learn the poem God gave me to write for myself. ‘In patience what I need comes to be.’ I guess, if we can learn to
wait, to learn to let go of the demand for ‘Instant Wealth’ and ‘Instant Success’, then perhaps what we actually really NEED will be given to us by God and that in this ‘Prison of Life’ we will end up FREE from the frustrations of our own
covetous lusts for wealth and success, instead transformed into a person which is content with God’s love and whatever he sees fit to provide for us. Because if we have God’s love – if we have the love of the one who is eternal and has always been
there – then it is just patience we need to have, for he will give us all good things in the fullness of time. What we need to learn in the mean times is
to love each other, to respect each other, and to value each other. For those gifts, which are
FREE, are the ones we really need for eternity anyway.

* * * * *

When I stopped going to Catholic Church at 16 it wasn’t really because I didn’t believe in God. It was because church was boring and I had better things to do. But, gradually, looking back, I realize now that the simple faith
I had in God as a child
disappeared in those years from 16 to 18 or so. But not for long. I questioned,
intently, wether God was there or not. I thought about it all the time, a great
deal, and then, later on in year 11 or 12 at Lake Tuggeranong College I stole a
book on
philosophy for beginners from the library (which I might have eventually returned to the Civic library) and read some of the arguments for the existence
of God. What nailed it for me was the ‘Argument from Design’. Essentially it argues that nature
is so complex, wonderful, beautiful and has such a design to it that it indicates a ‘DESIGNER’ behind it. I gave this thought, then, and within a short while confessed my faith. Yes, God was there, had designed the universe, and was the creator. It
was at that point I really did believe in God, and have never stopped since. But I was NOT a religious believer, instead, I guess, being deistic in my viewpoint. I did believe in an afterlife, though, and shared that view briefly once with Ariel Cheng, a
friend from CIT. But she alluded that unless I was a Christian I wouldn’t receive that afterlife. That got me interested in Christianity and later I became a pentecostal. But for a long time now, since being a Noahide, I KNOW I was in the right
position back then. I had faith in God, believed in a world to come, and I know
that was and still is enough for God to accept you. It was all he needed to save me. Over the course of my walk with God, though, I have come to know that Jehovah is NOT a
trinity, and that Israel is his ‘Rock’. But, the way the Noahide world is gradually emerging now, we Noahides are becoming God’s ‘Rock’ as well. After all, we are of the ‘Oldest’ of the biblical covenants, older still than Abraham’s
covenants, and perhaps in that sense should be the MOST responsible of God’s holy people. Perhaps, because we are of the OLDEST covenant, we should be the most mature and reliable in our service to the Most High. It is what I believe personally anyway.
Faith in God in action can mean a lot for many people. For many it is a belief system which guides their lives and moral choices. For others it becomes the central focus in a religious calling. And for others still, just that little part of faith in
their lives, that little corner, which they occasionally go to that reminds them that, yes, they believe, and that there is a meaning to it. But then back off to the real world. For me, personally, it is perhaps a mixture of all those
perspectives. As a
Christian in Potters House and the United Pentecostal Church I evangelized on the streets of Civic in Canberra a great deal, handing out flyers, talking to people and even street preaching. I hardly ever saw anyone come to church that I had talked to,
but wonder these days what, if any, impact I had. It has been slow going in Noahide faith as well, but what I seem to be understanding these days is that you REALLY need to get your time up in a religion and a religious assembly and show REAL commitment
before God will bless you with souls. If you are a monotheistic evangelist, and
you want to win souls to your assembly, they won’t come forth unless YOU stick to your assembly. If you quit later on, God has wasted his time in using you as an example,
hasn’t he? You have GOT to stick to your guns and really commit, or you are just wasting your time. Real soul winners are ones who end up sticking to something, and showing people their faith is genuine. If it isn’t you won’t
bear fruit in the end.
In this day and age it is as simple as that, because with all the religions on offer people see through the shallow ones very quickly now and move on.

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