(A conversation with God about the British colonising New Zealand in the 1800s).
Cry the Wounded Land.
I wanted your people to walk gently when they came to this land. But they didn’t.
God the other night I was driving and I made a big mistake - I asked what you wanted to say. And right out of the blue you said ‘MARK WALK GENTLY ON THE LAND’.
Yes. Is there a problem?
Yes there is! You know there is!! That’s an indigenous sort of thing to say and I’m white. I had absolutely no idea what you were talking about and then I arrive at that meeting in Kawerau and David Garratt’s talking all about the land.
So what’s wrong with that?
God if David hadn’t been talking about it I might have been able to forget that you said it, pretend that you hadn’t.
Why would you want to? I don’t want you to forget it Mark.
But I do God. It’s too deep and I don’t know enough about it.
You asked me what I wanted to talk about. This morning I want to talk about the land. Is that ok?
No it’s not ok God! The subject’s too big, too dangerous. You don’t read much about it in the bible.
Yes you do.
Really?
Really.
Well God if no one else was listening then it wouldn’t be so bad! I mean I’d still be out of my depth, I know nothing about spiritual matters surrounding the land, but if you insist on talking about it, then why not do it in private?? That way I could learn what you were saying without annoying anyone else.
Why is it important what others think?
Because this is going to polarise people’s thinking God. And that’s crazy because I don’t even know which side I’m on. I’m white and I don’t understand the issues. And it’s not a subject I want to divide people’s thinking on. It’s not my subject God. My subject is setting people free from Religion.
How?
By having a back and forward conversation with you.
Exactly - this is a back and forward conversation Mark.
God you’re impossible!! Anyway, talking about a conversation with you gets me in enough political trouble without having to start talking about the whole white/indigenous thing. It’s too big God. It’s huge in just about every colonised country. And what do I know about it?? Nothing at all!!
I want to teach you about it.
Really?? I’m ignorant about this God and I think I’d like to stay that way!! I’d like to stay out of this if I could – the implications are just waaay too big. I’ve read a little bit of the history and I realise it’s nothing like what we got taught at school. I’ll admit I am horrified at some of the stuff we did, but I’m white God, so I have plenty of reasons to think that maybe it wasn’t so bad. As I said, the subject’s just too big.
So you want to sit on the fence?
Well no, but there’s no point making myself unpopular talking about something I don’t have a strong view point over. I just know that it’s a big can of worms I’d rather not open. Getting caught in crossfire when you’re not involved is silly. The wounds are too deep God.
You’re involved Mark. I want you to explain the historical accounts you’re talking about.
No!! Not really God? Not here?
Why not?
Because they’re stories that demand answers and I don’t have any.
I do though.
You mean Orakau?
I mean Orakau.
Ok, one day I was driving along and needed a cup of tea so I pulled over at one of those road side picnic areas and there was a monument there. So I took my cup of tea over and read the monument, as you do.
What did it say, this bit is important.
Well on one side it said ‘Rewi Maniapoto’, that’s all. Just that name. But on the other side it said all about how the British forces under Cameron had fought a great battle there.
And?
Well it seemed a bit weird. I wondered who Rewi Maniapoto was and how come only his name was on the monument and yet the British got a big story. It seemed a bit one-sided somehow. So I grabbed my phone and googled the name of the battle site – Orakau.
And?
And it wasn’t a pretty story.
Tell the story.
Come on God!! Ladies read this.
It’s a story about ladies Mark. The land has cried for ladies and when ladies cry for the land the healing will begin.
See what I mean God! It’s too deep. I don’t know if you really just said that. What if I got the whole Maori protocol thing wrong right there. Are woman even meant to cry for the land?
Everyone is meant to cry for the land – just as the land cries for everyone. Tell the story Mark.
Alright, well the bit that got me was that a few days after the British surrounded the Pa at Orakau, the Maori, including a lot of women and children, left the Pa. They didn’t come out and attack the British they just left.
And?
And the next bit disgusted me God. Made me ashamed to be white. I wondered how come we don’t get taught this stuff at school??
Who writes the text books Mark?
There you go again God! That’s why I don’t want to be involved in this discussion, it’s highly provocative and you just make it worse.
Tell the story Mark.
Ok, the British, instead of letting them go peacefully, pursued them with a hail of bullets. And then they chased and bayoneted them, including the women and as they lay wounded. At least 160 of the p’s occupants were killed. Interpreter William Mair expressed his ‘disgust at the generally obscene and profane behaviour of the troops’.
But that’s not the whole story Mark.
Ok. Well at the end it said that once they’d finished killing, the British then set their sights for Tauranga.
And why did that make you so mad??
Because I know what happened next. When they got to Tauranga the church missionary Arch Deacon Brown invited the senior officers for dinner. I mean God what on earth would the Maori have thought?? The British slaughter their women and children, and then as is if to celebrate, the leader of the church in Tauranga invites them around for dinner!
Does that sound like the revelation of the sons of God that the land is waiting for Mark?
You don’t even need to ask God. It wasn’t just the government and the army involved in the slaughter of women and children - but the church was involved too. If I was a Maori I would have cursed the church and commanded my descendants never to set foot in it.
Yes but the Maori didn’t did they?
No. That’s what makes the story even worse somehow.
Why?
Because the Maori chief in Tauranga, I can’t remember his name…
Look up his name. Names should never be forgotten. The land remembers the names. The land holds the innocent and the guilty for a future time.
Oh man God. I’m going to get in trouble for that, and I have no way of defending myself – I don’t even understand what you just said.
What was the Tauranga chief’s name Mark?
It says he was the Ngai Te Rangi Chief, Rawiri Puhirake.
What did Rawiri do that impressed you Mark?
It embarrasses as much as it impresses me! He showed us up badly! He acted more Christian than the British. He suggested to Cameron that they both agree to a strict ‘rules of conduct of battle’, and they were biblical rules – all straight out of the bible. And the sad sad thing is that the Maori who learned those biblical rules from the British obeyed them, but the British ignored them.
So what are you thinking Mark?
God there are still cultural differences. Still things that make me uncomfortable about Maori, things I don’t understand. But if I allow myself to think about stories like this one, I won’t be able to hide behind cultural discomfort. We were the tyrants, the murderers of women and children, the liars and the cheats. We were the savages!! It’s hard to get the words out God. Surely we should let the past be the past?
Yes when it is past.
What’s that supposed to mean?
You need to go back to the beginning and learn what you were meant to learn back then.
Is this more about repentance?
No. This is different. Repentance is not the original reason I called your people to this land. I want you to go back to the beginning to learn why you were brought here. What you were meant to learn. You thought you came here of your own design, but actually you were called here by me. But you never knew that because you didn’t know how to listen. And that’s still the problem for most.
Really? What were we meant to learn?
To walk gently on the land. But instead you came and trampled all over it, killing its inhabitants in order to steal their land.
They killed us too God. They weren’t innocent.
Mark I’ll talk to them about what they did. But right now I’m talking to you about what you did.
I want you to talk about the next part of the Tauranga war and then we’ll finish with the key point of this discussion – which is that you all need to walk gently on the land – and why that’s so important.
Ok well I’m a bit rusty on this bit but what I do know has always troubled me, and that’s probably bad because I don’t know all the details – but after the battle of Gate Pa, a few weeks later, Colonel Greer was riding along with 600 men I think, and he saw that the Maori were building a new pa. These were Maori who were STILL observing strict rules of conduct, not trying to hide what they were doing, but erecting another arena for battle and would then have invited the British to come and have another fair fight.
Yes?
When Greer rode past with his 600 men he realised his opportunity to surprise the Maori, so he turned back and charged and slaughtered them. It’s embarrassing to be white when I read something like that God… but the worst thing is that somehow his cowardly act got commemorated as heroic.
How?
We, the whites, decided to name a large and important part of Tauranga after him. We called it Greerton.
Mark when you call the land names that commemorate cowardly slaughter you do great harm.
Are you talking specifically about Greerton?
No, not specifically. The blood of those you slay causes the land great pain. I want to talk about what I called you here for.
What did you call us here for?
To listen to me in a new place. When you first arrived you should have asked me what I was saying. Then; you should have walked gently on to the land and asked those here before you what I had said to them before you got here. If you had known how to have a conversation with me you would have heard me say all that. You would have walked on to this land as a guest. A guest not a conqueror. You would have heard me say what I said to Paul in Athens – that I was already speaking to this people.
But no, that would have been too humbling for you. That would have been to admit that these mere ‘savages’ as you called them might have heard something from me before you came. And they did. All men do. All men hear from me Mark. Some knowingly, some unknowingly. Paul told you that.
“Because that which is known about God is evident within them; for God made it evident to them. For since the creation of the world His invisible attributes, His eternal power and divine nature, have been clearly seen, being understood through what has been made.” ROM 1:19-20
Maori understand this better than you. The people of the land always do. I wanted you to learn that from them. But instead of allowing them to teach you what I had already been saying here you demanded that they listen to you talk about what I had been saying where you had come from.
Oh man God. This is waaaay too big.
No.
What should we do then?
Walk gently on the land, ask them what I had been saying.
What if they don’t know anymore?
Ask them to ask me. I will remind them. And I will tell them what I am saying now.
The plan was very simple Mark. I had been saying things on and to this land before you arrived. I called you here to hear those things. My plan was that you would ask them what I had been saying and they would teach you. And then they, intrigued by your humility would have asked what you had been hearing where you came from. It was to be an example to the world of how to meld two cultures. But it STILL hasn’t happened.
Both sides are implicit in this. Both sides have faults. This isn’t about blame or even repentance. I want to wind the clock back to what should have happened. I want to rewind this whole scenario back to the beginning, back to when you first arrived so that you can do what should have happened then.
You need this, the land needs this. This is about what should have happened back then but didn’t. The land is cursed when you curse it with blood. That’s what David Garratt was telling you. But none of you really understand what it means. Neither side does. You need to ask me. But first you must come walking gently on to the land. You came after them. Ask them what I was saying before you got here. DOING SO RESTORES TO THEM THE RESPONSIBILITY TO HEAR ME.
I want them to hear me, not blame you. I want them to teach you what they hear from me. That’s how I wanted it to start. AND TOGETHER YOU WOULD HAVE PAINTED A CLEARER PICTURE OF ME IN THIS PLACE. There’s still time. But not much. The repentance is good but it’s not the actual purpose I called the two peoples together.
Does that mean they should be the bosses?
Nobody should be the bosses. This was meant to be the melding of two peoples. Each learning from the other. But you wanted to do all the teaching. That never works Mark. NEVER. First you needed to listen. Because you were the guests it was your place to listen first - the conqueror comes shouting, the guest comes listening. If you had listened they would have too.
I wish I’d never heard all this God.
Yes quite. I’ve been saying this since you first arrived Mark and I’ll keep saying it until someone listens. As you rightly pointed out the church then wasn’t listening, do you think they’re listening now?
God I’m not even going to answer that.
That’s certainly the safest option Mark.
The Freedom Diaries will stretch you. It describes Mark’s real life struggle with Doubt as he discovered that he could hear God’s voice every day.Dr Mark Virkler. Author of 4 Keys to hearing God’s Voice. Buffalo. New York.
Like a child on Christmas morning, I was delighted to discover how simple yet wonderful it is to place my hand into the hand of God and listen to his whispers and enjoy his affection. I could only ask why no one had ever told me he was this good and this close. I wish I had read this book a long, long time ago. Daniel Walker. Founder and Executive Director of Nvader. Author of God in a brothel.
This is new and exciting. It’s not the idea of hearing from God that’s new, it’s having conversations back and forth, question and answers. That’s new for most of us. Now I am enjoying my own conversations with God, which always leave me with hope. David Garratt of Scripture in Song. Hawaii.
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Related Resources:
How to Hear God's Voice!Related Blogs:
How to Hear God’s Voice
Comments
Getting/buying more copies of "Cry the Wounded Land"
by Anonymous
I have a copy of your booklet "Cry the Wounded Land", and it is absolutely amazing! So so needed in the world and provides such a good perspective - of course it would if God is saying much of it! How can I get more copies of this book?
Thank you.
More copies of Cry the Wounded Land
by Anonymous
Hello and thank you for your question. You can order more copies on our website www.thefreedomdiaries.co.nz. Mark
Cry the Wounded Land (spilled-blood soaked lands)
by Anonymous
I was born in Kentucky and still live in Kentucky. American. Most of my ancestry is Irish. Some were buried at sea. Some died from starvation in Ireland or illness. I don't know who my ancestors were but they made it to America and eventually to Kentucky. More than once my son, who will be 40 on December 23, has been asked if he is Irish? He really looks Irish, he had reddish hair when he was born. Lots of Irish from his Dad's side too.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Great_Famine_%28Ireland%29
Other critics maintained that, even after the government recognised the scope of the crisis, it failed to take sufficient steps to address it. John Mitchel, one of the leaders of the Young Ireland Movement, wrote in 1860:
I have called it an artificial famine: that is to say, it was a famine which desolated a rich and fertile island that produced every year abundance and superabundance to sustain all her people and many more. The English, indeed, call the famine a "dispensation of Providence;" and ascribe it entirely to the blight on potatoes. But potatoes failed in like manner all over Europe; yet there was no famine save in Ireland. The British account of the matter, then, is first, a fraud; second, a blasphemy. The Almighty, indeed, sent the potato blight, but the English created the famine.[144]
Still other critics saw reflected in the government's response its attitude to the so-called "Irish Question". Nassau Senior, an economics professor at Oxford University, wrote that the Famine "would not kill more than one million people, and that would scarcely be enough to do any good."[144] In 1848, Denis Shine Lawlor suggested that Russell was a student of the Elizabethan poet Edmund Spenser, who had calculated "how far English colonisation and English policy might be most effectively carried out by Irish starvation."[145] Charles Trevelyan, the civil servant with most direct responsibility for the government's handling of the famine, described it in 1848 as "a direct stroke of an all-wise and all-merciful Providence", which laid bare "the deep and inveterate root of social evil"; he affirmed that the Famine was "the sharp but effectual remedy by which the cure is likely to be effected. God grant that the generation to which this opportunity has been offered may rightly perform its part..."[146]
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Great_Famine_%28Ireland%29 Was it greed that caused the famine? The rich gentry?
The seven deadly sins, also known as the capital vices or cardinal sins, is a classification of vices (part of Christian ethics) that has been used since early Christian times[1] to educate and instruct Christians concerning fallen humanity's tendency to sin. In the currently recognized version, the sins are usually given as pride, greed, lust, envy, gluttony, wrath and sloth.[2] Each is a form of Idolatry-of-Self wherein the subjective reigns over the objective.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Seven_deadly_sins
The Irish Slave Trade – The Forgotten “White” Slaves
The Slaves That Time Forgot
http://www.globalresearch.ca/the-irish-slave-trade-the-forgotten-white-s...
Maybe God wanted me in Kentucky. Maybe God wanted me to be born on April 3, 1955 in Frankfort, Ky at the The King's Daughters Hospital.
http://www.seedsofthekingdom.com/devotionals/0156/god-ordains-the-times-...
Did you know that not only did God create each one of us but he put us in this world in these times and in a particular place of His choosing? None of this is by chance or error. We may not be happy about God’s choice of timing or place. After all, the times are troubled and the world (some places in particular) is shaky.
Scripture:
From one man he made every nation of men, that they should inhabit the whole earth; and he determined the times set for them and the exact places where they should live.
Acts 17:26, NIV
Prayer: Father, it’s not a mistake that I am living in insecure times in a place that’s difficult and sometimes frightening. Please help me draw my security from You and not from the place where I live. Show me how I can be Your instrument of peace and healing here and now, how I can shine with Your love and joy and how I can share the good news of who You are with those around me. In Jesus' name I ask. Amen.
http://www.seedsofthekingdom.com/devotionals/0156/god-ordains-the-times-...
Same thing happened here in South Africa
by Anonymous
South Africa has a similar history, resulting in atrocities happening on either side.
The effects of those things are still happening today.
There is supposedly a +- 80 % Christian population now, but the majority are nominal Christians.
The Lord has his own purposes, and has called us to New Zealand, and so Mark if you read this we would like to make contact with fellow journal-errs in New Zealand.
You can find myself, Doug Vermeulen, on Mark Virkler's Koinonia Network.
Thanks for the reply
by Anonymous
I really appreciate your reply.
I did go into the website thank you, but it does not quite fit, as I will explain below.
I am not sure if Mark answered me, as it is marked anonymous.
If anonymous is contact with Mark please ask him to ask God if he should contact me.
My email address is biblesolutions4u@gmail.com.
What the Lord has asked me and my family to do when we emigrate to New Zealand, has relevance to Marks postings here on CWG.
However, I do not want to pre-empt the Lord, as He has said He will organize everything.
My family and I were amazed at the relevance of Mark's postings with our commission in New Zealand, and that is the reason that I have been attempting to get in contact with Mark and others who are in communication with the Lord.
As Mark Virkler always says it is good to check ones journaling with others.
Our family do have a check system, and I felt it would be good to now contact people in New Zealand.
Blessings to you and yours
Doug
That's very encouraging
by Anonymous
Thanks Doug we can be contacted via our website - www.the freedomdiaries.co.nz we do not belong to any group of 'journallers' but spend a lot of time visiting churches and teaching them to have their own back and forward conversation with God.
So glad you shared this
by elderkt
I realize this was difficult to share, but I'm glad you did. Unfortunately what you have been sharing about New Zealand's past is pretty much the same story of many lands. Especially my home country of America. Many decry the loss of morals in America but ignore the fact that the United States of America's beginning was not as moral as we like to delude ourselves.
What we have in America today is the result of people coming to a land and not listening, going to other lands and not listening. We demanded to be heard by our oppressor while at the same time oppressing others and not listening.
Sadly, today we're still not listening yet we demand to be heard. And there is plenty of blame to go around no matter which "side" we see ourselves on.
The only way for America and any other nation to rise above all the things that currently plague them is to start listening--to God first and foremost (instead of assuming we know what He thinks because we have a Book) and listening to those He has spoken and is speaking to.
Sadly, I must admit I haven't listened as I should because I too struggle with the "weirdness" of listening to God for every little thing. But as I was mowing the grass in my backyard earlier today God was asking me about how much better would the lives of His people go--how much heartache and troubles could have been avoided if we listened to Him instead of trying to rely on "common sense" or our own wisdom. He was asking me wouldn't it be much better to hear from Him what to do than to try to figure everything out on your own.
Doesn't mean we'll avoid trouble (because the scriptures say we'll have tribulation and to think it not strange when we go through fiery trials) but it would be so much better to be having conversation with Him while you're in the middle of it.
Thank you again for sharing the things God is speaking to you. I pray that you continue to push pass the doubts and uncertainties the enemy throws at you to try to discourage you from having back and forth conversation with God.
Spot on Elderkt
by Anonymous
I have enjoyed your response to Mark's blog.
Ever since I landed on this website, I am seeing God differently and daily endeavour to hear from Him.
Life would be lighter if we knew how to hear from God daily.
As you put it, asking and listening to God rather than using "commonsense" and just saying we have the Book is certainly not inadequate.
We need to converse daily with the God Who lives in us.
Thanks again and kind regards,
Ttendo Mulungi
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