AUGUST 2026

Ever precious greetings in the name of our Lord Jesus Christ! It is my great honor and high privilege to share my heart with you once again. Debbie and I have been gifted with a sabbatical in the beautiful, green, rolling foothills of the Poconos. Back in the early spring, after approval by our Board of Directors, we began to seek the Lord for where He would rest us. We had both been doing prison ministry apart (and praise God, together now) for about 30 years.

As you know, the Lord gifted us with a very unique ministry approach. I was the inside guy and Deb was the outside gal. I knew all the inner workings of the prison like the back of my hand. I knew all those in authority, and most importantly – I knew all the men. I knew who was who and who wasn’t who.😊 Over these many years, as by the Spirit of the Lord, the ministry grew and grew and became very fruitful. Finally, in 2021, after 30 years of doing ministry as a living witness inside of maximum security prison, I came home to the loving arms of my Debbie! By grace, I married up!

Five years later, we were both very weary and in desperate need of refreshment from the Lord. Our overworking was beginning to creep into our physical health. We knew it was the Lord trying to get our attention. We had too many plates in the air. None were breaking yet – just us in the process! Debbie had become very fragile, and I was really beginning to worry about her general well-being. Husbands know things, and I know Debbie. She was not well at all, but as is her life-long posture, she just kept pushing through. Did you ever try to slow down the Energizer Bunny? Even when you pull out the battery, she still keeps going! I had to hear from the Lord and rest us.

In the beginning, we tried to take regular vacations a couple of times a year – trying to rest. We soon discovered a few patterns. First, that everywhere we went we would find ourselves immersed in ministry work – not in resting! In no time, we would be plugged into a local church and before we knew it, we were working with them and their people. Secondly, that by the time our spirits finally did start to settle down and we could really begin to hear from the Lord, it was time to go back home again! It was on me. We were not as disciplined as we should have been. We knew not how to rest.

From the outside, all looked well, but our vacation doctrine was not working. We needed something longer and much deeper. We needed to be untangled from the world for a season to just be and not do. It had to begin with the uncluttering of our minds by the Spirit. We were consumed with ministry. We had left our first love and we knew it. We were spiritually out of order. We needed the Lord to search us deeply and to examine us with His quiet, correcting love. We were burnt out and not seeing clearly. We needed a holy tweaking! We needed to go up on the mountain apart and together sit with the Lord.

It is written, “Come unto Me, all ye that labour and are heavy laden, and I will give you rest. Take My yoke upon you, and learn of Me; for I am meek and lowly in heart: and you shall find rest unto your souls. For My yoke is easy, and My burden is light.” (Matthew 11:28-30) Sweeter words a weary soul has never heard!

Debbie was slowly getting better. Then, in the midst of our sabbatical, the Lord took Debbie’s Dad home to Heaven. Indeed, a wonderful blessing beyond words! But as we all know, through the eye of grief, we see men as trees walking. We were fixed, we knew and trusted that the Lord’s timing is always perfect, and His ways past finding out. Truth be told, the seasoned soul finds its repose in His sovereignty. The sweetness of His will is our eternal Balm. We sighed, “Even so Lord, Thy will, not ours, be done – for so it seemed good in Thy sight.”

It does the soul well to know that the Lord alone gives true, deep-seated rest. He Himself is our rest. It’s not in stuff or in the fountains this world would posit, but in Christ alone. He is the Father’s provision of rest. Have you entered into His rest? Most people just look over the fence to see what is going on over there. Everywhere I go, I see people peering over the fence. Maybe you have read of this rest of God in a Book or heard of it in a sermon? Wonderful – but have you entered in? Do you own Him?

It is written, “For the LORD your God is living among you. He is a mighty savior. He will take delight in you with gladness. With His love, he will calm all your fears. He will rejoice over you with joyful songs.” (Zephaniah 3:17)

Who are we that the Lord our God would quiet us with His love and rejoice over us with singing? I have heard of believers singing unto the Lord, but He Whose ways are not our ways singing over us? That is amazing love! The Lord is rejoicing over us, His redeemed creation! Who has a column to put that in? The Father singing over His image and likeness restored by the work of His bloodied and crucified Son. His own heart nailed to the cross. The value of the cross is in the Person of Christ. The eternality of His Person puts a weight on the work of Christ, which will be heralded for all of eternity!

In His work upon the tree, God’s justice is satisfied, and therefore Satan is terrified! More so, the Word of God is magnified because God’s people are justified, sanctified, and glorified even as they are being multiplied unto His coming again! In all this, God is glorified! (Psalm 115:1)

Debbie hurt her knee the other day. It slowed her down, but the next day, she still walked. When she came back home, she said to me, “Everything looks so very, very different, Honey, when you go a little slower.” I thought to myself, “That is so very true.” She knew not the significance of what she had said, but maybe that is the lesson of our whole sabbatical. We need to slow down and smell the proverbial roses in the midst of the madness of ministry. Roses bloom slowly; so do we. You cannot rush a bloom. How’s your bloom going?

In the Book, we are taught to sit, walk, stand, and run. From eternity past, as it were, God raised up His Christ, His only begotten Son, and seated Him at His own right hand in the heavenly places. Having redeemed us in Christ, the Father seated us in Him, also at His own right hand in the heavenly places. That is your position. It is finished. Let it go – it wasn’t your idea! God chose to put you there. Therein alone is your rest. You must work only from your seat of finished rest. Today – now – take your seat afresh in Him by faith. Rest in Him and in His finished work. Then, and only then, can you get up and stand for the Lord! Then, and only then, can you walk in the power of His might and run with endurance the race that is set before you! As my beautiful has coined, “Everything looks so very, very different, Honey,. . .

“WHEN YOU GO A LITTLE SLOWER!”

JOYFULLY IN JESUS,
LOVE, PHILIP