Foreword

The Scriptures tell us that God has given us all things richly to enjoy. Not all of us see it this way—more is the pity. It flashed on me one day that for the most part we see this world as a massive concentration camp. We imagine that the One up there is the Commandant, and very demanding He is! He does not wish His prisoners to be happy and contented. It is we who should be making Him happy! How do we do this? By being good, trying to please Him, and feeling dreadful when we are guilty.

This, of course, is a travesty of the truth, for God is the One who loves us freely. His love is unconditional. He wishes us to enjoy the world in which we have been placed. If man's misunderstanding were not tragic and harmful, it would be laughable. It is man who sees God as a great spoilsport, or as an acid-drop. God is far from that!

The story of the Concentration Camp, then, illustrates the way so many think, when—but for a touch of faith—man could really see God as He is, through the eyes and life of His Son. All in Christ are free persons, and all free persons are children of the Father.

The need for the story-teller is perennial. His stories are intended to invite the human race into truth. We are born to hear tales and no tale is, in the ultimate, merely fiction. I hope that these stories will both entertain and enrich. I trust too that the poems—placed at random in the book—will have a better setting amongst the tales than heaped together in one volume of their own.

Here's trusting for a quick escape from prison into freedom! It—freedom—is the true place for man.

Geoffrey Bingham

Coromandel East, 1982