In this very hectic life, isn't it nice to set back and dream of a secluded island someplace where life can just slowly pass you by?

A man was once on an island and spent the day praying.  Prayer, if you stay in it long enough, elevates you into the Heavens and before the throne room of God.  Simple prayers, at times, feels as though it can barely reach the ceiling.  It can feel as though there are bars of iron that prayer cannot break through.  But, for this man, it was the Lord's day and he spent that day in communion with God.

This was no vacation spot, however.  It was an island that was considered a prison for those who were nonconformist.  It had a Roman penal settlement for those who were thought to be dangerous to good order.  It is a rocky strip of land off the southwestern coast of Asia Minor, now the Greek island of Patino.  This was the island prison of the Apostle John.

On the Isle of Patmos, John wrote down the letters to the seven churches of Ephesus, Smyrna, Pergamos, Thyatira, Sardis, Philadelphia, and Laodicea.  All Christian believers were being scattered, persecuted, and many were killed. 

Tertullian, a Christian convert himself, says that John himself had been "plunged into boiling oil, unhurt, and then exiled on this isle called Patmos."  The early church members were accused of being "dangerous to good order" because they refused to worship the Roman Emperors.

On this island, the Apostle who had taken care of the mother of Jesus until her death in Ephesus, was very aware of one very important thing.  It is a lesson that each of us should seriously consider and learn.

John learned that even though he and the early believers suffered persecutions, ship wrecks, beatings, murders, banishment, and lost loved ones for their faithful stand, earth's circumstances, in light of Heaven's reward and provision, are insignificant.  Nothing would separate them from the love of God. 

Once you and I take God at His Word and trust Him with our whole heart, we will not be alarmed by the circumstances of this life.  We will see each problem through the eyes of faith.  Each will be filtered through Heaven, where God the Father and His Son, Jesus Christ, have sifted them like sand through their hands.  Knowing God has touched each probelm then, you and I can and will make it through the roughest of times that this world throws our way.

Islands of misery become islands of prayer that reaches into Heaven ... where our answers are waiting in the presence of God.