“Many things begin with seeing in this world of ours.
The colour pages and the letterpress are with one and the same intent – to make you see.
So we ask you to come and look…”
– Lilias Trotter
Unveiling was first set up in 1999 as an avenue for sharing things that we have seen (we’re Mike and Lynette Woods) on this journey of Life thus far. “Unveiling” is about revealing and showing what had been previously hidden, veiled and unseen by us.
This isn’t a journaling blog, nor do we have an Unveiling Facebook page, Twitter account, or any other form of internet social interaction for Unveiling apart from good old email and this website! 🙂 So please feel free to email us by writing to: look@unveiling.org.
Why Unveiling? Only God can fully answer that question in the light of eternity… in January 1999 we were offered the opportunity to set up a website and Unveiling.org came into being. However, for us God’s unveiling had begun three and a half years prior when He awakened us to Life in Him. At the time we were both very involved in a denominational church. I (Lynette) had lived and breathed Christianity all my life (Being a Testimony has more about this).
Quite unexpectedly, in the first few days of 1996 God called us out of the church we were members of, although we didn’t understand why. All we knew was that He was telling us to leave. We knew that He was calling us to something new and different to anything we’d known before, but we didn’t know what or why! We were excited about this, even though we had virtually no idea of what that might be or even why He wanted us to leave – it was simply a step of faith and trust. Our call to leave was questioned by the leaders, but for us this was a test of whether we would listen to God or man and we felt we had no choice but to trust and obey God. During this painful process, we began to see and understand more about why He had told us to leave; an article which describes some of this is entitled Seeing the Son.
Although I considered myself a born-again, Spirit-filled, totally committed follower of Christ, at this point in time when God chose to breathe His Life into me, it was as though I had known and seen nothing previously; I had been dead and now was truly alive! I had been the dry bones in Ezekiel’s vision (Ezekiel 37). I felt as though I had been dead or asleep and had not truly known or experienced God and His Life up until that point compared with what I now was experiencing.
Without Light we cannot see what is hidden and veiled, we can see no colour, we can see nothing – we are blind. Spiritually we are in darkness until God shines His Light (Christ) and opens our eyes, revealing and unveiling all… He penetrates, challenges and dispels darkness – unveiling to us Who He is and who we are. That can feel like a personal apocalypse; an uncomfortable, stormy process through which He enables us to see and let go of our ideas in order to accept His.
It is only when you are awake and alive that you can understand anything and can begin to really see and hear!
As I began to use my eyes and ears for what felt like the first time, I couldn’t believe what I was seeing that I’d never seen before – both the negative and the positive. I began to see religion and the church for what it is, as well as seeing God’s Way, Truth and Life. The Bible had been transformed into LIFE and was Living!
I had never questioned what I had heard, practiced and believed in the church, but now God Himself began to teach me and showed me that many of the things I had believed and practiced were not true or based on Scripture – which was rather a shock! I realized that many people who go to church think they know God and yet do not even recognize or know His voice, or hear Him for themselves.
I had been blind and deaf, but now I was beginning to see and hear… I saw that my “Christianity” had simply been religious self-righteousness and pride – religion, myself, and the church had been in the place of Christ in my life. As He began unveiling Himself to me as the Truth, Life and Way of God, I felt that He wanted me to write down what I was learning so that I would not forget it. I found that as I wrote, He expanded upon what He was teaching me and showed me even more.
We had no idea that many people around the world and in previous generations had also experienced similar crises and heard a similar call out of religion and into Life in Christ! To us it was as though we were the only ones that this had ever happened to. It was only after we had left it all behind that our Father confirmed His words to us and brought us into contact with others who had also heard, seen and experienced Christ as their Life in similar ways. This has been His way since then, He first teaches us Himself and then confirms His Truth and Way through Life; often through messages which we have not read previously. One author who has been used more than any other in this role of establishing and confirming what we’ve seen, is the late T. Austin-Sparks (www.austin-sparks.net) whose messages consistently reveal Christ and His Life.
While we certainly recognize the problems with the church and its methods and systems and have no qualms about exposing and unveiling them, our desire is to focus on unveiling Christ and His Life! When God removes the veil from our eyes to see Him as He really is, His Life and Light overwhelm everything else! All is brought into focus and into the correct perspective and balance through Him. We know that we cannot open other people’s eyes, ears, and hearts to what we have seen and heard – we cannot even open our own eyes and ears – we are all totally dependent and reliant upon the only One Who can do that for each of us personally. Yet there is a cost associated with seeing and with having our eyes opened and we have to be willing to pay that price…
It has been, and still is, a process and a journey, and not an easy one at that. As on any journey, the way is sometimes difficult and we stumble and make mistakes. We are continually having to unlearn what we’d thought was right and lay aside our understanding in order to learn Christ as the Way, the Truth, and the Life. This is an amazing journey of discovering and learning Him and all the freedom that His Life, Truth and Way entails! The words of this song sum it up very well:
Never felt like this before
Now You’re all I’m living for
Suddenly, Life has new meaning to me
There’s beauty up above and things we never take notice of
You wake up and suddenly you’re in Love!
As He reveals and unveils Himself to you, may He truly become All and Everything to you; “We pray to the God of our Lord Jesus Christ, the Father of glory, that He may grant you a spirit of wisdom and revelation (unveiling) of insight into mysteries and secrets in the deep and intimate (full) knowledge of Him, by having the eyes of your heart flooded with Light so that you can know and understand the hope to which He has called you and how rich is His glorious inheritance in the saints, His set-apart ones” (Eph 1:17,18 Amplified Bible).
May God’s Life, Love and Light be unveiled to you and flow out through you as death is destroyed and Christ in His full, real Life is seen, heard and experienced!
This is why the Scriptures say: ‘Things never discovered or heard of before, things beyond our ability to imagine — these are the many things God has in store for all his lovers.’ But God now unveils these profound realities to us by the Spirit. Yes, He has revealed to us His inmost heart and deepest mysteries through the Holy Spirit, who constantly explores all things. 1 Cor. 2:9-10.