Paphos, Cyprus. Thoughts on the Holy Land, part 4.

When I found out that our Holy Land cuise was going to stop in Cyprus, I knew that I needed to take the tour that included the ancient city of Paphos.  After all, Paphos is where Saul became Paul.  It's where he did spiritual battle with a sorcerer, resulting in the local governmental official becoming a Christian.  It's where the mantle of leadership on the journey was passed from Barnabas to Paul.  It's one of those places of significance, where the trajectory of Christianity changed, as Paul moved the team into Galatia.

But my tour guide...didn't seem to know that.  Yes, she mentioned that the apostle Paul had stopped here.  But the bulk of the tour was about looking at the ancient mosaics that dot the landscape (most of which are still left out in the elements to be rained upon and walked upon).  

As my daughter and I looked around after the tour, I was taken by the significance of this place...which seems to have been forgotten.  At one point I heard a woman say: "wasn't there some significance to this place for the Apostle Paul?" (I stopped and answered).  

A place where God was once mightily at work, has forgotten.  Of course what God did there was used to go out from that place and change the world.  But in that location?  It seems that no one remembers.

I wonder what people will see in our church ruins in the USA not 2,000 years from now, but a generation from now.  Will they know the prayers that were answered?  The leaders that were trained and sent?  Or will they note the building, the land, the space (or notice nothing at all?). 

Or will they, perhaps, not note the ruins of a building, but the life of a community of faith, more alive and active than it is now?

It all depends, doesn't it, upon which way the hinge in this door will swing?

May it swing open to a place of God's power, and Spirit, and love, and mercy, and justice, and truth, and grace.  A place where the people of God are following Him with everything they have.