Everything is Trash...

This last month, I had the priviledge of traveling to a wonderful Women's Retreat in St. Petersburg, Russia. I met several other Missionaries and national Christians serving in Poland, Belaruss, Romania, Siberia, Moscow, and America. We studied Philippians intently and exegetically for 5 full days. We sang lots of favorite worship songs in English, which was like a balm to my ears! And we even had a few days to tour the beautiful and historic city of St. Petersburg. It was actually a bit ironic. The two days of sight-seeing was before the conference. We spent hours upon hours soaking up the sights and sounds of the streets, food, churches, museums, famous bridges, fortresses, monuments, and even tombs where all of Russia's Tzars lay. I saw Monet, Picasso, Michaelangelo, Rubens, DeVinci, Matisse, and even Rembrandt's fine artwork. My favorite, since studying him in college, being Rembrandt. Especially his portraits from the Bible. We saw his painting from the story of the 'Prodigal Son' and I couldn't help but tear up. The painting was massive and so captivating, even today after all this time. We saw rooms made out of pure gold, churches that were bathed in decoration from Biblical mosaics, and architecture that seemed so magical.

Then we traveled to the most beautiful palace of all (Peterhoff) and stayed in the recently remodeled horse stables. Yes, the hotel rooms used to be the King's horse stables. I saw over 100 fountains, several made from gold, and arch ways that were built in the 1700's to keep the hot sun off of the royal heads in the summer. And to top it all off, the leaves were all changing colors! It was truly breath-taking.

Then we begin our study of Philippians. I've studied this book before many times, in fact Matt and I took a Greek class together and had to translate the entire book from Greek a few years back. I thought to myself, 'this will be a good reminder, maybe I missed something from before.' So, throughout the week I asked God to reveal to me something fresh and new from His word that I needed to hear during this phase of my life. And do you know what I heard?

'Everything is trash, except for knowing Jesus Christ.'

It's interesting to note that the Kazan Church, which is one of the most massive and stalwarth churches in the city was changed into the "Museum of Aethism" during the communist times. And the Church of the Spilt Blood with all of its impressive mosaics held potatoes for rashioning. The gold tops of some of the churches were painted a dull color to blend in so that the enemy would not target them out and destroy them during the war. I'm thankful that these wonderful buildings were preserved and I'm ecstatic to have seen my most favorite artist's creative work up close and personal. I was moved and inspired while sitting during a Ballet performance of 'Swan Lake' at the Hermitage Theater where Catherine the Great sat. But as powerful as all this is and was and will be, it is trash compared to knowing our Saviour Jesus Christ. Now, that's hard to swallow.

"I consider everything a loss compared to the surpassing greatness of knowing Christ Jesus my Lord, for whose sake I have lost all things. I consider them rubbish, that I may gain Christ and be found in him, not having a righteousness of my own that comes from the law, but that which is through faith in Christ - the righteousness that comes from God and is by faith. I want to know Christ and the power of his resurrection and the fellowship of sharing in his sufferings, becoming like him in his death, and so, somehow, to attain to the resurrection from the dead." Philippians 3:8-11