In which I decide to follow Jesus | Anita Mathias: Dreaming Beneath the Spires

When You Think it’s All Over, And That End is a New Beginning

So John, beautiful, sensitive evangelist, is exiled to Patmos, a Roman penal colony, by the Emperor Diocletian.

It’s all over for him. He who had been one of the three with Jesus at every climactic moment of his ministry; who had leaned on Jesus at the Last Supper feeling the physical and verbal beat of his heart; who stood by Jesus at the Cross, seeing the heart of the Gospel; who intuitively saw the connection between the Old and New Covenants, beginning his Gospel echoing Genesis, In the Beginning was the Word.

Oh, he’s done for.

Here he is on barren Patmos, the sun scorching him by day, and the moon by night, the few springs hard to find.

It’s all over, John. You had been commanded to go into all the world, and preach the Gospel to all creation.

But here you are, alone on Patmos.

You who once wrote with the pen of an angel—you have recorded your memories of Jesus.

Nothing new is happening. What are you to write?

* * *

Meanwhile, the Roman Empire rushes on in its empirely way, and the Christian Church flourishes underground, getting stronger in its paradoxical way. And John: alone, forgotten.

Silent.

He who has learned so much, and has so much to teach has no platform; no readers, no listeners, nothing…

* * *

It’s apparently all over for you, John…

Except for that one thing that still can happen to the one exiled to Patmos, who feels that all his life has been a failure, and that life is almost over

One thing no one can rule out: not the exile, or the prisoner, or the solitary.

GOD.

God spoke to you.

* * *

The Word of God.

The Presence of God.

It changed everything for John.

He hears a loud voice like a trumpet, and turns around to see a man whose eyes were like blazing fire. His voice was like the sound of rushing waters. And from his mouth a sharp, double-edged sword. His face was like the sun shining in all its brilliance (Revelation 1: 10-16).

And Jesus said

“Do not be afraid. I am the First and the Last. I am the Living One; I was dead, and now look: I am alive for ever and ever!”

Do not be afraid, oh hidden one, for you are hidden in me. I am the Alpha and the Omega, the A and the Z, and within this alphabet, all words are possible, all things are possible.

I was dead, dead as you fear your future is, dead as you fear your hopes, your work and your influence are. But now I am alive.

And in me, all the crushed, hidden, suppressed things in you shall come alive.

In me, your future is bright and full of possibility.

“Write, therefore, what you have seen, in a book.”

And at his word, John begun a new chapter of his life, writing… Words of comfort and revelation for seven churches and twenty one centuries.

* * *

Diocletian exiled you to Patmos, John, but Diocletian was not writing the story of your life, though he may have thought he was. He was but a pawn in the Grandmaster’s good strategy for your life.

You were exiled to barren Patmos out of fear and malice and the desire to control and neutralize you.

But that was exactly the plot Jesus permitted, to get you out of the way of ministry; out of the way of teaching; out of the way of adulation and followers and rapt listeners; out of the way of Simon who would buy your power, and James and Peter who might wonder who was the greatest.

This barren island, where no one wants to hear from you, no one wants to speak to you, where is there nothing to do and no voice to listen to but Christ’s, this place which seems an insane location for the man who knew Jesus better than any man did, the beloved disciple, for heaven’s sake, who could tell all the world about him– why would Jesus permit you, John, to be in Patmos?

Because you did have more to write, as it happened, and he had to get you quiet to hear his words, away from teaching or ministry or church planting, or trouble with the Romans, or trouble with the Jews, away from it all, away from the important necessary work of building a church that would be the hope of the world, to do something even more important.

To choose the better path.

To hear what the man with eyes like fire and a voice like the sound of running waters said, and to write it down in book.

* * *

Oh reader, does your life feel becalmed? As if all your bright dreams have come to nothing? Does the Empire run on without you, both the Kingdom of the World, and the Kingdom of Christ, while you are forgotten in Patmos.

You are not alone. He who sits upon the throne walks unseen beside you.

Your future is bright, for he who is light itself can turn your trajectory around in a moment.

For every seismic change begins within.

And while He chooses to let you stay exactly where you are in your dark season, he who is light itself will be for you light in the darkness.

* * *

Oh you who feel the sting of failure, do you know that being beaten and coming to the end of yourself are powerful things? Closed doors force you to look for the door that Jesus will open and no one can shut.

Oh you who are well and truly defeated in what you set out to do, you who are well and truly out of energy, be of good cheer. You will now be forced to rely on a power beyond yourself for sustainable strategies…and this I know, his strategies will beat yours, any day, every way.

When everything seems to have ended, a new chapter can begin when you see the face of Jesus and hear the word of God to you. A new chapter will begin when you learn to work with the power of the Holy Spirit.

Be not afraid.

* * *

So you who are on Patmos, what do you do?

First of all, surrender the rest of your life to Jesus. Open your hands, and pour all the dreams and ambitions in them into his hands. Pour your health and your talents, your money and your resources, or the lack of them, all the things you have going for you, all the things you do NOT have going for you, into his hands

Do not dream of beginning a new chapter, a new project, a new enterprise without his direction.

Is your life too quiet? Do not fight the quietness. Do not seek to make things noisier unless he tells you to.

Are you unknown, and unrecognised; are your words dormant within you? Ask him to give your words wings, to bring them to all those who will be blessed by them. Hand your career over to him as clay, asking him to fashion something beautiful, something lasting with it.

Train yourself to act not by might or by power, not by force or manipulation, but by God’s spirit. Ask God to teach you to work with the power of the Holy Spirit.

When you think it’s all over, and you think you’ve failed, and are on a downward spiral, too old to do anything new, beautiful or important, get quiet on your Patmos, for as many days or weeks as it takes, until the noise of the outer world blows away.

Get quiet, Beloved Failure; listen hard for the one with blazing eyes, with a voice like a trumpet.

The answer may come immediately, or in the ten days it took the prophet Jeremiah to hear the word of the Lord. Or longer.

Then do what he tells you.

It may be that when everything is lost, he will speak, he will whisper, whisper softly in your ear. Stage directions that you really need to hear.

And all your past will be an insignificant chapter compared to the great chapters he is now going to write in your life, you and he together.

And all the words you have written will fade into insignificance compared to the words you will write, as he whispers softly in your ear.

He saves the best for last.

And if he says so, “write everything you have seen in a book.” (Revelation 1:11)

* * *

Tweetables

When you feel everything is dead, lost & over, but God suggests a new beginning. From @anitamathias1

As we listen to God, the trajectory of our lives can turn around in a moment. From @anitamathias1

When everything seems to have ended, a new chapter can begin when you hear the word of God to you. From @anitamathias1

Within the Alpha and the Omega, all words & all things are possible. From @anitamathias1

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On Being Christian with a small c or a big C

By Anita Mathias

Image Credit

Our family was discussing a writer who has done paradigm-breaking innovative work.

“Is she a Christian?” my daughter Irene asked.

“Yes. She’s a Christian. With a small C, I’d guess.”

“What’s that?” Irene asked.

“Hmm… Someone who goes to church, more or less respects Jesus and the Bible, but who does not see the existence of God, and the coming of Christ as the central axis on which their life spins.”

Irene: “Are you a Christian with a small c or a big C?”

Me, “Oh, I am hopelessly Christian. Christian with a Big C.”

Zoe adds, “Except you do not go to church.”

We all laugh.

* * *

This is slander, dear readers; I do go to church. But these splendid summer days often find me exhausted by 5.30 p.m. when it’s time to leave to church, and so I, on occasion, worship God by a long solitary walk through the fields around our house, or a nap, or gardening, or even quietly praying in the empty house.

Having grown up Catholic, there is glorious freedom in being able to skip church without guilt. I, however, truly believe in the value of Christian fellowship and in belonging to an excellent church; I frequently come back from services at our church, St. Andrew’s, Oxford, with peace in my heart, and a smile on my lips. However, a key life verse since my twenties has been “In repentance and in rest, you shall be saved. In quietness and in confidence shall be your strength”(Is 30:15). So when I am tired, I try not to push, not even spiritually.

We talked about the writer’s brilliant book, Daring Greatly which I loved. It is about understanding and developing the self, and about bravery. Saying it’s about being your best self sounds too pop-culturish, but that’s one way of summarizing it. It is an excellent book, just not a Christian book, particularly: it isn’t one that Jesus would have written. Jesus would have said that we find our best selves in losing ourselves, in serving, in washing feet.

Oh Jesus! You do complicate a girl’s life, don’t you? I would be Christian with a small c if I could, but you have stretched my mind and spirit to a new dimension, and so I have to follow you, slow step by step.

Why I have Decided to Follow Jesus

By Anita Mathias

As Jesus was walking beside the Sea of Galilee, he saw two brothers, Simon called Peter and his brother Andrew. They were casting a net into the lake, for they were fishermen. “Come, follow me,” Jesus said, “and I will make you fishers of men.” At once they left their nets and followed him. (Matthew 4 18-20)

“Come follow me, Anita?”

Yes, I will follow you, because life feels pointless without you.

I will follow you because the world without you—it doesn’t hack it: much labour for things which will not satisfy–without you

I will follow you because I am weary of myself. I want to lose myself in you. In that loss, I feel safe.

I will follow you because I don’t know how to do life. But your version of a God-bathed world, held safe in your Father’s hands, which the meek will inherit, I love it! I believe in it.

I will follow you because in worshipping you is my soul complete.

I will follow you because in you I find love, vast as the ocean.

I will follow you because of your goodness that flows like a waterfall towards me. I need but to kneel and receive.

I will follow you because (sorry, this is silly!) nothing makes me as hyper as your words, and the bubbly Holy Spirit you released through your death. In them is rest for my restlessness.

I will follow you because you promise complete joy. You are the narrow gate which leads to life. I will shrug off all that impedes me so I can enter through it.

* * *

I will follow you because no one ever spoke as you did.

I will follow you, because you are so clever. I love the way you got out of all those tricks and traps—taxes to Caesar and stoning that woman and dividing inheritances–with your cool, collected intellect. You instinctively think outside the box, you clever person. And if I follow you, you will teach me wisdom and to stay cool and calm under pressure. (And forgive, now, this selfish motivation).

Yes, I will follow you because you are brilliant. I love thinking about those wild things you said. “Take the lower place; turn the other cheek; the meek inherit the earth; don’t resist an evil person; give and you shall receive.” I love how obeying them, even in baby steps, turns my life upside down.

I will follow you because I know I will never “get” you fully. You will come to me with fresh challenges as long as I live, drawing me upward and onward. I’ll wrestle with your words till I die. Those Beatitudes! The Sermon on the Mount! A whole life’s worth of meditation and challenge.

I will follow you because you are the Word, and I am a writer. And so you will give me the words I need to speak, and protect me from words I do not need to speak.

I will follow you because He who drinks of the waters you give him will never thirst, but rivers of living water will flow from him. What writer would not want rivers of living water to flow from her?

* * *

I will follow you because you are spectacular. The way you cared for everyone you encountered as you gasped your way through the excruciating crucifixion—Wow, Jesus!

I will follow you because learning to love is important, and you know how, and you will teach me.

I will follow you because you are magnetic. You are good, and you are kind. Nothing else in my world compels me as you do.

I will follow you because you are the Living Bread which came down from heaven. If I eat you, I will not hunger, and so in you is the solution to my food issues and addictions.

I will follow you because, well, what else could I follow? Ambition will exhaust me. Mastery of a craft will not satisfy my heart. Money? I earn enough for my simple-ish tastes.

I will follow you, because as C. S. Lewis said, what you say is so outrageous, it’s either completely nuts. Or true. And to me, it tastes of truth. You are the Way, the Truth, and the Life.

I will follow you, just because…I love you.

In Which Jesus Gives Us A New Name And A New Character

By Anita Mathias

To the one who is victorious, I will also give a white stone with a new name written on it, known only to the one who receives it. Revelation 2:17

And so, we heave up our cross,

And follow him,

Oh, not spectacularly at all.

Dropping it,

Meandering off course,

Sometimes forgetting we had resolved

To take up our cross,

And follow him.

But each time we remember,

We apologize,

And pick up that old rugged cross,

And follow after Jesus again.

And Jesus sees.

For that is one of his names,

El Roi, the God who sees.

Where others see our failures

Jesus sees also,

How much further we would have slipped

Had we not clung to him

* * *

And somehow through the decades,

We change.

We are different.
Though still so acutely aware of,

So sad about our failures.

* * *

And then one day,

We meet him,

And he gently opens our palms

And places in them a stone

With our new names.

And I read, tearfully:

The prudent one

The discreet one

The wise one

The self-controlled one

The kind one

The diligent one

The consistent and persevering one

The financially gifted one

And I say, “Jesus!

I think you’ve given me someone else’s stone.”

And he says,

“Though decades of following me,

Though you did not notice it,

You’ve changed.”

“But I always saw what you would become.

Welcome home!”

Opening a New Chapter, a New Year, under God’s Secret Service Protection

By Anita Mathias

Image: Christ in glory in front of the Heavenly Jerusalem, (Mosaic, Burne-Jones, St. Paul’s within the walls, Rome)

I listened to the entire Bible on my iPhone this year—the NIV’s dramatised edition– as I walked the country trails around Oxfordshire.

And the year dies spectacularly as one walks listening to Revelation—chilling, majestic, dramatic.

His eyes were like blazing fire, and his voice was like the sound of rushing waters. And coming out of his mouth was a sharp, double-edged sword. His face was like the sun shining in all its brilliance.

¹⁷When I saw him, I fell at his feet as though dead. Then he placed his right hand on me and said: “Do not be afraid. I am the First and the Last. I am the Living One; I was dead, and now look, I am alive for ever and ever!

Oooh, listening to it was like a worship experience in itself.

Then I saw a Lamb, looking as if it had been slain, standing at the center of the throne⁸And the four living creatures and the twenty-four elders fell down before the Lamb. ⁹And they sang a new song, saying:

“You are worthy
because you were slain,
and with your blood you purchased for God
persons from every tribe and language and people and nation.
¹⁰You have made them to be a kingdom and priests to serve our God,
and they will reign on the earth.”

¹¹Then I looked and heard the voice of many angels, numbering thousands upon thousands, and ten thousand times ten thousand. They encircled the throne and the living creatures and the elders. ¹²In a loud voice they were saying:

“Worthy is the Lamb, who was slain,
to receive power and wealth and wisdom and strength
and honor and glory and praise!”

¹³Then I heard every creature in heaven and on earth and under the earth and on the sea, and all that is in them, saying:

“To him who sits on the throne and to the Lamb
be praise and honour and glory and power,
for ever and ever!”

¹⁴The four living creatures said, “Amen,” and the elders fell down and worshiped.

Doesn’t it make you just want to worship too?

Revelation is so sheerly beautiful that I was grateful I was alone as I walked through country footpaths, icy rain blowing into my face, along with hot spontaneous tears I could not hold back as I listened to the sheer chilling beauty of that mysterious book.

* * *

The door I close, no one can open, and the door I open, no one can close.

What a wonderful verse for the New Year!

No ramming open of doors shall be done this year; no time-consuming hustling; with God’s grace, no manipulation— just a gentle leaning into the force-field of God’s power, a gentle knocking, a gentle using of the greatest and most powerful lever in the world, which is prayer.

And the doors he opens not all the enmity or envy or malice in the world can close, and the doors he closes, we will have the sense not to try to force open.

* * *

The week between Christmas and New Year is a strange week, a melancholic, dreamy in-the-womb kind of week, a time of rest before new beginnings.

We consider our year, and relive the past, even as we look to the future.

And those who read (or listen) through the Bible in a Year listen to Zechariah, Malachi and Revelation, to the dramatic end of the world in eternal time, even while we prepare for a New Year, with new beginnings, new goals, the opening of new doors.

Christ’s amazing self-revelation repeated through Revelation is I am the Alpha and the Omega, the beginning and the end, the A and the Z.

A year closes in which his grace has shielded us, and a new one opens, in which his love will protect us.

“Let the beloved of the LORD rest secure in him, for he shields him all day long, and the one the LORD loves rests between his shoulders.” Deut. 33:12.

The goodness of God trails and shadows us throughout our lives. We are always under his secret service protection.

From “Ambition OR Christ” to “Ambition AND Christ” to “Ambition IN Christ”

By Anita Mathias

Do nothing out of selfish ambition. (Phil 2:3).

Many achievers have been wired to achieve from their cradles, a mixture of genetically mediated temperament and family culture.

And then we become Christians, and we give up our old identity.

We are now hidden in Christ.

And what becomes of our old ambition?

Well, I can tell you what happened to mine. It has graduated through three phases, the conjunctions changing at each phrase.

* * *

Ambition OR Christ

I committed my life to Christ at 17. I finished school early, having skipped grades, and then worked with Mother Teresa for two years.

When I went to University, to read English at Somerville College, Oxford University, I quickly sensed the contradiction between the openness with one’s time which Christ required (I read “give to everyone who asks of you,” almost literally!) and complete dedication to writing.

Incredibly, I chose writing, and for the next few years—all through a graduate degree in Creative Writing—I focused on reading and writing poetry. To quote Willa Cather, I served “the God of Art who demands human sacrifices.”

It was perceived failure in writing poetry which led me to recommit my life to Christ six years later, and, this time, it stuck.

Ambition AND Christ

In On Writing, Stephen King says he had considered his life a support system for his art. However, when crippled by excruciating pain after a freak road accident, he realized that his art was, in fact, a support system for his life. It made his life bearable, and added comfort and joy to it.

For years, even as a Christian, my heart was really in my writing, sad with unfulfilled ambition for it. I wanted my Christian disciplines to help me get my act together so I could write more. Faith as a support system for art.

Well, God was having none of that.

Francis Thomson writes in “The Hound of Heaven,”

Ah! is Thy love indeed

A weed, albeit an amaranthine weed,

Suffering no flowers except its own to mount?

Once Christ had his eyes on me, he was not going to share me, so to say. And so, my ambition was blocked, and came to nothing, forcing me to burrow into Christ for answers and comfort and joy.

I am glad. Fulfilled ambition without the comfort of Christ can be hard and barren. The Indian mystic, Rabindranath Tagore, describes it: “Away from the sight of thy face, my heart knows no rest nor respite, and my work becomes an endless toil in a shoreless sea of toil.”

Ambition IN Christ

I am still ambitious; of course, I am. I want to learn to write beautifully, and I want my words to read by many.

But most days, I hold my ambition lightly, in perfect peace.

I am in Christ, hidden in Christ. I am working from “inside” Christ, listening closely to him for ideas, drawing on his strength, eager to write beautiful things which will be a blessing to many.

I am writing in Christ as a branch in the vine, as his ideas, sap and life flow into me, and through me.

I am ambitious to write because I must, as a bird must sing, but it is a surrendered ambition. I am happy if God brings me many readers.

But if he does not, I will still write with joy. As a bird sings its high clear notes, as fish swim through the seas of this world because they must, even so must I write, recreating life’s beauty in words.

This orginally appeared at Penelope Swithinbank’s blog

A Pruned Minimalistic Life is More Fruitful

By Anita Mathias

When we were in Tuscany in September, I saw grape vines pruned back drastically to about three feet, and above them, masses of plump abundant grapes, black, green, purple.

Grape vines grow as tall as you let them. We have some growing in our conservatory and the side of our barn, which are 10-15 feet.

These, however, were cut back savagely, sending all the energy upwards, and look at the fruit!

* * *

I wish I had taken in this visual lesson earlier. How much more productive I would have been.

But I have learnt it now.

Cut back the inessentials, so that you can be fruitful in the essentials, the one thing you have been put on earth to do.

Jesus at the end of his life said, “I have done the work you have given me to do.” (John 17:4)

So cut back even the good things; the volunteerism; your social media friendships, so that the work he has given you to do, the fruit you want to produce, gleams more beautifully.

Ask yourself: Is this activity the work God has given me to do? If not, even if it is a good thing–taking a turn at leading the Bible study or serving on church teams and rotas–leave it for someone else, for whom it is perhaps the work God has given her to do.

* * *

Those vines struck me like a dart to the heart. Since then, I’ve been pruning—my possessions (getting rid of at least one thing a day) and my commitments. I have even been pruning relationships with negative friends, who drag me down and depress me, relationships I had not let go because of sentimentality and familiarity.

The fruitful vine is pruned so that it will be even more fruitful. One of those counter-intuitive truths which run like grace-notes through the Gospels.

On Magic, Moonshine, Personal Change, and Healing in the Body of Christ

By Anita Mathias

To change, really change, is magical.

And to be a Christ-follower is to change, because he is in constant motion, a strong walker, blowing like the wind, and sometimes we need to walk briskly to keep up with him on the winding roads of holiness.

Change can happen dramatically, or slowly. God can speak to us directly in an emotion-packed worship meeting. He can progressively heal our emotions. He can set us free by teaching us to forgive. He can use counselling and prayer ministry.

* * *

I have had an intense couple of months. At Cwmbran, I asked God’s help for my weight problem, and I felt him forcibly say, “Take up your pallet and walk.” Stop eating sugar, and white flour. Stop eating between meals. Stop eating when you are not hungry.

And reader, I did. I felt an intense yearning for sugar and chocolate for 3-4 days, and then sugar cravings faded. Similarly, I fiercely battled the urge to eat when bored, sad, stressed, whatever, for 3-4 days, and gradually the urge shrivelled. And I am 22 pounds lighter–through lifestyle change, rather than dieting.

* * *

I had an experience last month in which God hijacked me into further healing. I realized I was tired. It was taking me longer and longer to settle down to write, and longer to produce work.

We usually go away every six weeks during the school holidays, to Europe mostly, and completely recharge—sleep in, walk, taste local food, explore gardens, museums, beaches and impossibly winding cobbled streets, and come back re-invigorated–new people, really. I hadn’t done that as a daughter had had exams, and now I was flagging.

So I decided to go away on my own, and googled Christian retreat centres. All I wanted was to sleep, eat and walk, a sort of Elijah cure.

There was a vacancy at the Harnhill Centre for Christian Healing, and so I went, wanting to rest, hear from God, and just enjoy Him. And found I had got myself into a full-fledged conference, very regimented: elderly volunteer ladies coming to your room and waking you up if you napped when they had planned fluffy activities; bells rung outside your room at meal times, etc. Breakfast was served in bed at 8 a.m., which meant you had to be up at 8. Trays to be left outside by 8.45 a.m. “This is gulag healing,” I said to Roy.

So I was in a very grumpy mood indeed, and certainly not in a conducive frame of mind for life-changing anything.

But the prayer-ministry—3 hours of it!!– was life-changing.

* * *

I knew the way for me to lose weight was eating mainly vegetables and fruit. Severely limiting carbs because they pack in too many calories for the nutrients. Eliminating meat and eggs, and limiting cheese, because again the calories are high for the nutrition, and besides, I am not keen on ingesting the hormones and medicines fed to the animals, or the animal’s toxins stored in their fat. But I felt rebellious about dramatically reducing my bread, carbs, cheese, eggs and meat. I would say to myself, “For everything God created is good, and nothing is to be rejected if it is received with thanksgiving,” (I Tim 4: 4-5).

So I went to prayer ministry. “I know a fruit and vegetable based diet is the way forward, and I do lose weight on it,” I say plaintively, “but I like something nice at every meal.”

“Everything God made is good,” the South African counsellor says bluntly. I stare. My verse. That I had been using to justify all sort of delicious meals which took time to prepare and were not optimal for my body.

But if everything God made is good, then I could savour the taste of simple fruits and vegetables and still lose weight. While eating things which are a blessing to my body, rather than a curse to it.

Why, I could even eat like a billionaire.

Mona Simpson describes her brother Steve Jobs’ eating habits, “Dinner was served on the grass, and sometimes consisted of just one vegetable. Lots of that one vegetable. But one. Broccoli. In season. Simply prepared. With just the right, recently snipped, herb.”

So that’s what I have been doing. Eating simply. Tasting and savouring the broccoli or asparagus or watermelon. Losing a pound a week, more or less effortlessly.

The word of God, wielded prophetically—wow! Just a sentence can set you free.

anita.mathias