Coming home today! Yesterday, I spoke at New Creation Church in Canada at their midweek service on the Cry of Command. It was very well received, and we heard some testimonies of people who have been healed over the weekend of various different ailments. Being here has been such an encouragment, and Pastors Moses and Jennifer have been the most wonderful hosts.
A few years ago, I was at a pastor’s conference in America, and I had flown home and literally drove straight to our Guildford church to minister. I’m a little wiser now and leave a little more margin in my life but not by much! So anyway, I am preaching in Guildford, and at the end a couple come to me and say “you must be so depressed right now, we understand”. I said “I am full of joy” and then asked what they mean, because it was a very unusual comment to me.
It turned out a few months’ earlier this couple had gone to the US to a great big conference, with all sorts of international guest speakers, and they had – as was to be expected – a really good time. But then they got on the plane home and when they returned to “real life” they got very depressed and sad and all they wanted to do was go back out to America and go back to this conference. They presumed that I had the same feeling as them.
Firstly, whenever you go to a conference, you have to realize it is not real life in anyway. We have Heal the Nations every year (and it’s awesome, you should definitely be there – http://www.tree.church/healthenations) and it’s not every day. It shouldn’t be. We have teaching in the morning, in the afternoon, in the evening, we have worship in the morning, in the afternoon and in the evening. By the end of the week, I am tired, I am working 14-16 hour days, pastoring in between sessions, always on the go, and by the end of the week, Amanda just wants to go find a non-Christian and get them saved! Most people are staying with Christian friends and family, in hotels, they get breakfast made for them, they go out for dinner, they are fellowshipping with Christians, they don’t have work to go to, they don’t have to tidy their house or wash their dishes or clothes. It’s a very different week. Even if you moved to Guildford to go to the wonderful church there, you would have to get a job, tidy up, iron some shirts, and so on. A conference is not sustainable, it’s meant to sustain your real life. I know this so I don’t get upset when it is over. I don’t like living in a bubble, I like being in one once or twice a year to get filled, encouraged and lifted, then I like to go and live in the real world and change it for the better.
Secondly, I am a man on a mission. I know 100% what God has called me to do with my life. And among other things, my task is to plant 100 churches in the UK. And I love coming back. The flight today is far more exciting to me than the adventure I have had here. My calling, my destiny is in the day to day, it is in the mundane, it is in my home. And I love it that way. I cannot imagine being depressed coming home. I fly home tonight, Friday will be a rest day, Saturday will be Healing Word conference, preaching in Nuneaton, Sunday will be preaching in Dagenham and Suffolk. I love it. I love the Tree of Life so much, and have miss you all so much, hence why I have been writing these letters every day to you all.
I meet far too many people who are like Yoda’s description of Luke Skywalker in the Empire Strikes Back:
All his life has he looked away…to the future, to the horizon. Never his mind on where he was. Hmm? What he was doing.” — The Empire Strikes Back
This is a reminder to all of us who think we would be happier and better Christians if we could just be here or move there or get here, and we do not enjoy where we are right now! You are missing out if you do not live in the moment. One of the worst examples of this I ever saw was a man who told me that he could never be healed in Tree of Life as he could only be healed in Woodland Park in Colorado. What a limited, negative, foolish view of God. Greg Mohr came to preach for us and this man told Greg Mohr that, and Greg told him what I told him – Tree of Life is such a wonderful church, and has so much good teaching, if you cannot receive your healing here, I don’t think you will receive it at Woodland Park. He went to Woodland Park and did not receive.
Wherever you go is where you are! Anyway, I have to pack for a flight, a very exciting flight because today I am flying to the greatest destination ever: HOME. I am flying back to my home town, and my home church, and this weekend I am going to serve at the church. That above all is what makes me happy, and where my joy is.
I have nothing wrong with people going to conferences and events and travelling to meetings, I love it. Go for it. We put on two life-changing conferences a year, Gates of the City and Heal the Nations that if you went to both of those annually, you would never be the same again. We would love to see you there. But all conferences must end, and we have to get into a routine of loving where we are every Sunday, every Tuesday night, every day. Selah.
Love you all, hope to see as many of you as possible over the weekend. As I finish the final part of my epistle from Canada, I want you to know I am typing this with my own hands. Jesus loves you and Jesus is on your side!
Grace and peace,
Ben
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