Lars Michael Naess

A STORY OF GOD'S HELP

Vital Wisdom Revealed

Theme page for the book

In a time when truth is experienced as fluid and relative, many find themselves without solid ground beneath their feet. I explore another perspective: that truth is living, absolute and active — and that it still intervenes in people’s lives.

The book Vitnet springs from a personal spiritual experience that opened insight into the foundations of the world and into Christ as the living truth. This vision marked the beginning of a journey in which God’s help shows itself concretely, in events that correspond to the human being’s inner, truth-seeking self.

Vitnet is a novel, but also a testimony. It portrays how the return of Christ “in the cloud” can be understood and experienced in our time — in keeping with biblical prophecy, yet in a new way.

Many Christians today emphasise the ideal of a “simple faith” — a desire to hold fast to what is basic and to avoid whatever feels complicating. But the simplicity of faith is only one side of the gospel. Christianity also speaks to the human being’s deep, truth-seeking nature, and opens up a reality that cannot be reduced to what is easily grasped. The Bible itself contains both the utterly simple and the profoundly deep: from Jesus’ words to the small and vulnerable, to Paul’s teaching about God’s hidden wisdom, ordained before the beginning of time. The Christian faith therefore invites not only trust, but also maturity — to explore the mystery that lies in Christ as the living truth.

Christ’s Return in the Age of the Periphery

Many associate the return of Christ with a dramatic and visible coming—Jesus appearing in physical form. Yet Scripture opens for a deeper understanding. Christ has already returned, not as a visible figure among us, but as an active presence in what surrounds us. I call this presence Christ in the cloud—or Christ in the periphery.

 

What the Bible Actually Says

Jesus himself rules out that he will return in a way that allows people to point to him among us. In Matthew 24 he warns: “If anyone says to you, ‘Look, here is the Christ!’ or ‘There he is,’ do not believe it.” He asks us to make up our minds beforehand.

Still, Scripture tells of events in which his presence becomes clear. On the road to Damascus, a light from heaven shone around Saul. He heard a voice saying, “I am Jesus, whom you are persecuting.” The men traveling with him heard the voice but saw no one.

On the mountain, Jesus was transfigured before Peter, James, and John. His face shone like the sun, and a voice came from the cloud: “This is my Son, the beloved… Listen to him!”

At the ascension he was lifted and hidden by a cloud. Two men in white said he would come again “in the same way.” The cloud here is an image of the realm between heaven and earth—the enveloping presence.

 

From Center to Periphery

In the first centuries of Christianity, Christ worked primarily from the center outward: the disciples and the preachers spread out and established numerous centers of God’s presence. Churches, monasteries, and holy places still hold great significance, but in our time Christ reveals himself chiefly from the periphery—where light is refracted in human lives, experiences, and destinies.

The cloud can be understood as an imaginal picture: Light streams out from the sun as the center, strikes the cloud, is refracted countless times, and surrounds us from every side. The center becomes the periphery. The holy now works more strongly in what surrounds us - in events, encounters, destinies, and coincidences we could never have created ourselves.

Jesus marked a distinction between Peter and John that would last until his return. Peter represents the open, outward Christianity. John’s path was the inward one. In our time this distinction has been dissolved. The esoteric insight has become available to all who seek it.

 

Signs in Our Time

Christ’s return in the cloud appears as concrete events in the outer world. The inner and the outer correspond. Sometimes help comes as an external event that precisely meets an inner need—a protection, a turning point, or a confirmation. At other times this correspondence opens in an inner vision that becomes a point of orientation for the rest of life.

The most profound personal experience of this is described in the book Vitnet. Read the excerpt from The Stable Experience. The outer events—in military service, with the red moped, with the cannon salute, and many others—later confirmed the same truth: Christ works in what happens around us.

 

The Most Significant Visible Turning Point: The Twelve-Step Movement

When I first sensed the reality of the return, I did not understand how this could be a world-historical event. Then I realized something decisive:

In 1935 something entirely new occurred on earth. Alcoholics Anonymous came into being. With it arose one of the clearest collective‑spiritual signs of Christ’s return.

Viewed historically and spiritually, the pattern becomes clear:

• 12 steps and 12 traditions
• No leader at the center
• No authority figure defining what is true
• No authority other than the sharing of life
• No advice, no admonitions
• The word moves around the periphery
• Help comes “from outside” as if from the very space between people

This is the form of the periphery.

The most mysterious aspect is that each participant receives exactly the insight, the words, and the perspective he or she needs—without anyone directing it. No plans, no strategies. Yet healing happens.

This cannot be explained by psychology alone. This is Christ’s work as he works today.

That there are 12 steps—not 7, not 10, not 14—is a sign in itself. Twelve is the number of the periphery, the number of wholeness, the number of the world-circle.

Steps 2 and 3, with roots in the Oxford Group, reveal a new God-consciousness:

• God is no longer only a center we are to “believe in”
• God is also the reality that surrounds us and works between us
• The power that comes to us
• Christ in the concrete events of life

The twelve-step movement is, as I see it, the greatest visible historical sign that Christ has already returned in the periphery. It has spread across the entire world, without central power, without propaganda, without external authority—only through people sharing their lives with one another.

This is not a private experience. This is a turning point anyone can see.

Two Returns

Scripture speaks of two different returns.

The first is the quiet, present help. The Son of Man comes “like a thief in the night.” He does not appear with great power and glory, for then human freedom would be annulled. Instead he comes in a way that requires faith. The help is confirmed both inwardly and outwardly.

To be visible would mean that we could directly experience Jesus’ goodness and love, but it would also open for injustice in the form of humiliation and degradation, as we saw in his earthly life. Justice is that such things can no longer be done to him. Therefore he now comes quietly—to help those who have already opened themselves to him, so that they may receive him in freedom.

The second is the final one. When the seventh trumpet sounds, all will see the Son of Man coming on the clouds of heaven with great power and glory. Then the time for help is over. The old heaven and earth pass away, and a new one is created. I believe in both.

 

The Final Testimony

Christ’s return is not only a future event. It is a present presence—a light working in what surrounds us. It does not come through the center, but through the periphery. In events, in relationships, in everything that happens.

This is the sign

This is the return

This is what I bear witness to

 

About myself

I was born in Oslo in 1947 (in Oscar Street 52, as mentioned in the book).

Life has given me many different experiences. I grew up near the central Oslo, and roamed the busy city streets, the park of the Royal Palace and the piers from the age of 6.

I started a university education and completed the basic course in psychology before I was called up for civilian service, which I served in a clinic for drug addicts. There I met the first wave of young drug addicts who gathered in the park of the Royal Palace in Oslo. This led to a commitment to alternative treatment and a pioneering effort to establish collectives for young people with substance abuse problems, behavioural difficulties, and criminal records. I have lived and worked for 16 years in such collectives. During this time, I also got significant practice in farming and animal husbandry, forestry and timber logging.

Later, I took further education and worked as a teacher at a Waldorf school but had to quit after a few years due to illness. In the last part of my professional life, I worked as an archivist at two cultural institutions.