Back to Basics

This is it. I am on the ferry right now on my way home from Patmos. Its been an amazing week, but I’m ready to go home. I’m walking away so much richer than before. At the beginning of the week I was anticipating a lot of blessing as the spiritual warfare was high during the organizing stages - my anticipation was rewarded. This week has been a leap of growth in my spiritual walk as the Lord humbled me by taking me back to the basics. Bottom line, no matter how much work we do for the Lord, if it’s not followed by heartfelt prayer and spending time with Him in His Word, the work is getting dangerously close to becoming meaningless. The Lord doesn’t want our work He wants our hearts. In the church of Ephesus in Revelation 2, the Lord found no fault in their work:

“I know your deeds, your hard work and your perseverance. I know that
you cannot tolerate wicked men, that you have tested those who claim to
be apostles but are not, and have found them false. You have persevered
and have endured hardships for my name, and have not grown weary.”

The church of Ephesus were hard workers for the Lord, they persevered, fought battles for Him, found out false prophets and kicked them out, they did not grow weary, all in all they were generally good Christians BUT the Lord found one fault with them:

“Yet I hold this against you: You have forsaken your first love."

They had lost their first love. They were working FOR the Lord not WITH the Lord and He does not like that for He keeps on going:

“Remember the height from which you have fallen!
Repent and do the things you did at first. If you do not repent, 

I will come to you and remove your lamp stand from its place.”

The Lord views it as a fall, a matter of which that needs repentance - a complete turn around. If our heart isn’t in the right place - in tune with the Lord - no matter what we do for Him, it wont be pleasing to Him, so much so that He will remove our lampstand from this place! Working for the Lord, out of tune with His heart, is a dangerous place to be.
Mark 12:33 says:

“To love Him with all your heart,
with all your understanding and with all your strength,
and to love your neighbor as yourself is more important than
all burnt offerings and sacrifices.”

To love Him is more important than offerings and sacrifices. What are the offerings and sacrifices of our day, since we don’t slaughter lambs and bulls to Him anymore? Our offerings and our sacrifices up to the Lord are our lives with all of our deeds and works. Yet if we do it without loving Him completely everything we do is meaningless. Non-believers do a lot of good works too, yet our salvation is not by works, but a gift from God. A gift He gives us in exchange for our hearts.
I really feel like the Lord was telling me “ Janet you are Ephesus, come back to me” Recently a couple of people have called me a workaholic, that’s how much I work for His Kingdom, but in all that, prior to this week, I can’t remember when was the last time I spent time with the Lord in His Word or in prayer. I really feel like those verses in Revelation 2 were directed right to me. Another blow to me during this week was when all of us HMers, that were in Patmos, got together for about 30 min every night to pray. As we were praying I was finding it very hard to stay still before Him on concentrate on His glory and love for us as my mind was always racing to the next thing that needed to get done. During those times the Lord was telling me “You see Janet you cannot even be still before me and know that I AM God”
Through all these experiences I really feel like I need to slow down and spend more time with Him in prayer and studying His Word. Not because I have to but because I want to for I do love Him with all my heart.
Please would you pray for me in this? I need to find a delicate balance between the work that I do and spending time with Him.

6th Day on Patmos

As our time here is drawing to an end it feels really sad. The first part of the group is actually leaving the hotel in the next 15 min. Its been the most amazing time of rejuvenation for me, I’ve just really appreciated getting away from the craziness of life and just taking a break and focusing on the Lord.
As I drive the group back and forth in between the places we need to be in I invariable spend part of the trip on my own, where I usually sing my heart out (as I have no radio to keep me company). One of the songs which I keep singing over and over again is an Icelandic favorite of mine which goes like this:
Ég vil dvelja í skugga vængja þinna
Trúfesti þitt er skjöldur minn
Ég vil finna þann frið er færir þú
Nóttin nálgast en ég mun ekki hræðast
er ég dvel í skugga vængja þinna.

:,:Í skugga, í skugga, í skugga vængja þinna:,:

Which means

I want to dwell the shadow of your wings
Your steadfastness is my shield
I want to feel that peace You bring
Night will come but I shall feel no fear
for I dwell in the shadow of Your wings

:,:In the shadow, in the shadow, in the shadow of Your wings:,:

As I’ve been here it really feels like I’ve been dwelling in the Lord’s shadow. Being rejuvenated by His presence in my life and digging deeper into who He is. I really am not ready for this to end but as I look forward I can’t wait to start tackling all the things He has for me in the next few months. He has been preparing me for something and I can’t wait to find out what that is.

UNBELIEVABLE!!! OK I’m picking up from where I left off about an hour and a half ago. So I took the four people that needed to take the ferry tonight, Bill - who needs to catch a flight on Friday morning, Helen, Sarah and Andre - all of which have business to attend to in Athens. We get down to the port in good time, it’s a quarter to two and the ferry was supposed to leave at ten past, we’re 25 min early at this point. So we unload the car and get comfortable inside it in the heat. Helen is out for a walk at this point talking to people. All of a sudden she comes up to the car and announces the news - the ferry that is coming now, at 2:10, is from Blue Star Ferries and is going to Rhodes while the ferry that we are waiting for is G.A. Ferries to Athens at precisely the same time. OK this is odd and slightly worrying. So I get out of the car and start investigating. Helen comes with me and ends up going to the port police with the tickets. Yes, there is no ferries going tonight to Athens! Excuse me? We have tickets here that prove that there is a ferry going to Athens at 2:10. You’re tickets are wrong. I’m sorry, did I miss something, how can tickets be wrong? Have you ever bought an airplane ticket and it be wrong? So a long story cut a little shorter, we reloaded the car up with all the luggage and I drove everybody back up to the hotel. I simply cannot believe that this happened! I have never heard of this happening to anybody I know, absolutely unbelievable! So hopefully tomorrow the ferry that was promised to us will leave on time and arrive on time in Athens because Bill will only have maximum 4 hours, and that is cutting his check-in time by an hour, to get to the airport.

Well I wasn’t ready for the group to be split up and to go home and so for this whole experience to end, well I got my wish!

Absolutely inconceivable!

5th Day on Patmos

We went to see the Cave of the Apocalypse today which, as legend has it, is where John received and wrote down the Lord’s revelation. It was interesting to see it, but somehow there was an element of lore about it. Did John really stay there? We don’t know. Is this truly the cave he received the revelation in? We don’t know. As we were visiting the cave a guardian told us a bit about the history of it. He told us about where John slept, where he would put his hand to rise up from bed (ehem you know that how exactly?), where his scribe wrote (another tradition, we don’t know if John wrote or somebody else acted as a scribe for him), the guide told us where the Lord’s voice came from, apparently it came out of the rock etc. They left nothing out, they explained every little detail and I couldn’t help but sit there in the damp darkness and go “How do you know all this? Where you there? Did you ever meet John and ask him? Did YOU get a revelation about what happened there?” The whole cave experience was just about speculation to me. I don’t know, I’ve been really excited all week about going to see it and now that I’ve seen it I’m walking away disappointed. The reverence for the place that I had is totally gone - they’ve explained it all away somehow, with false knowledge. Plus they’ve changed the cave into a small church taking the cave aspect of it all away. Anyway it’s a nice memory, and it’s neat to be able to say, “Yes I’ve been there”, but that’s about it. The real mystery, the most interesting part and the most exciting, is not the cave, but the result - what John wrote. The guide was focusing on what John did in the cave and all the things that happened there but he totally missed the most important part - the book of Revelation itself. People, let’s not ask about the meaningless where’s and how’s but lets get back to the basics, lets get back to the Scriptures.
What I’ve been thinking about all week, and what the Lord has been convicting me about was just reinforced today; we need to stop in the busyness of life and just stop - we need to come before the Lord and be still. I love the Scripture verse in Psalms 46:10 that states “Be still, and know that I am God.” I don’t remember the last time I was still before the Lord and just knew that He is God. Just sit there in the silence, in the stillness and know Him. Come to think of it, the last time I stopped was last summer in France when I was on vacation - that’s 7 months ago! I haven’t been still before the Lord in 7 months! It just reinforces the notion that I am the Church of Ephesus I am a doer but not a listener that has lost his first love. I focus on what I can do instead of whom I’m doing it for. I need to learn to stop. I took a 10 min walk tonight on my own to pray and gaze up into the starry hosts, and just those 10 min were the most rejuvenating time I have had in a very long time. He longs to fill us up with His peace and serenity if we would just let Him.

Oh God this is my prayer for tonight, help me to be still every once in a while. Give me wisdom to say no to the things You don’t want me to do and instead go away, tuck up somewhere and be still before You. For You are holy and worthy of our time. You long to be with us but we don’t give you of our ourselves. Lord I am so sorry. Please Lord, remind me, knock on the door of my heart and let me know when I need to stop and just kneel before You, my King, in Your presence. I love you Lord and thank You for everything You do for us, Amen.