“Don’t keep judging by what you know.  I AM Truth, and Truth is so much more than you yet understand.

Don’t contend for what is already Mine.

Come and sit with Me and I will give you discernment.”

“But when he, the Spirit of truth, comes, he will guide you into all the truth. He will not speak on his own; he will speak only what he hears, and he will tell you what is yet to come.”   John 16:13.

“What we have received is not the spirit of the world, but the Spirit who is from God, so that we may understand what God has freely given us.”   1 Corinthians 2:12.

“As for you, the anointing you received from him remains in you, and you do not need anyone to teach you.  But as his anointing teaches you about all things and as that anointing is real, not counterfeit — just as it has taught you, remain in him.”   1 John 2:27.

Ickworth House is a big ” Country House” in Suffolk in the United Kingdom.  It is now owned by the National Trust and open to the public.

It is Neoclassical in style and unusual for its day.  Right at the centre of the house is a huge, domed, rotunda, or circular building.  This is flanked by two curved single storey arcades that lead to two large wings, each the size of a small mansion and was designed by Antonio Asprucci for Frederick Hervey.

Some members of the Hervey family in the past few hundred years led troubled lives, which has been highly publicised.

So after a lady I used to know visited the house with her mother, she informed me censoriously that there was something bad about Ickworth.  The atmosphere was disturbing to them.

They were avid readers of a particular, very gossip-prone newspaper.

She was Christian and she and her mother both found the house creepy.  They were quite disturbed.

They absolutely insisted it was due to lingering unclean influences invited by the lifestyles of those particular members of the Hervey family.

Except that none of that is true.  I have seen Ickworth myself.

I noticed just how starkly imposing the house feels when viewed from the front as you arrive.

It’s not the result of lingering unclean influences.

It’s a Country House and it was designed to look imposing.

The physical design of the front, or northern façade, is curved towards you.

The Rotunda and the linked arcades almost loom over you.

It gives the impression of two curved arms reaching out towards you.

You can gain a partial sense of what I mean in this picture:

Viewed from the other side, or southern façade, the Rotunda is still really big, which isn’t surprising, but the overall impression is not imposing or looming over you.

At the back of the house the atmosphere is relaxed, peaceful and welcoming, even with the formal garden.

From this side, it almost looks “friendly” by comparison.

( I couldn’t find photographs that show either the ‘looming’ of the northern side or the graciousness of the southern side. )

If you ever visit Ickworth, you will at once understand what I mean.

The Christian lady and her mother had allowed their knowledge of gossip surrounding some of the family that had lived in the house previously, to influence them now.

I really wanted to tell them the only lingering unclean influence was prurient interest in salacious gossip, and the unpleasant newspaper that fed it.

But I didn’t want to be tactless or rude.

It revealed me two truths though, and today The LORD asked me to share them with you.

Firstly, that what we see and feel can be deceptive.  Spirit-led discernment is always vital but especially so at the moment when there is so much happening.

Sometimes we can be affected by deliberate manipulation but often, as with Ickworth, it is the result of really quite ordinary issues.

Take time to sit with The LORD and He will give you discernment.

Secondly, in our walk with The LORD, don’t allow your preconceptions to shape your experience.

The mindsets of those two ladies completely changed how they experienced that visit.

Their prurience and curiosity about the lives of others was not of The LORD.

The gossip, half-truths and untruths they were feeding on were not good for their spiritual health and it affected them in the natural too.

That allowed them to think a house was full of unclean influences when it was simply the effect on their senses of an unfamiliar physical design.

Either they had not bothered to go and see it from the other side, or they had but they were too set in their ways to see the truth.

Our hearts and minds should be tender towards The LORD.  The hour is critical and we can’t afford to waste time not understanding when He Speaks.

We can’t afford to waste time unnecessarily trying to take territory that is already occupied by God, when so much still remains to be claimed for Him.

 

~ Iris Maud, UK.

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Iris Maud, UK.

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