My life as of late feels a lot like I imagine Paul’s life being. I am surrounded by all of these miraculous things. However, I am also plagued by thorns, conflict, opposition and hardships.
On one hand the last few weeks have been full of amazing and miraculous events, but a door may be closing that is really hard to swallow.
The cool part is that it will not stop me. It may drastically change my plans, but that is part of God’s divine guidance system.
I expect that most of these situations are all things that we can expect in this life, because, it is what the Bible records over and over again. Good people, trying to serve God bashed by other good people that think they are helping God, by bashing those that are really serving God. It really is that confusing.
I am sure that when James was killed in Acts 12, the early Church was struck by this. One of the 3 chosen Disciples was now dead. Peter was in jail and things didn’t look very good. But… and there is always a “but” when God is involved, things were about to get exciting.
What wasn’t being seen at that moment was this. James was celebrating in Heaven with his best friend and Peter, well Peter was in jail, asleep, between 2 guards. In fact he was so asleep that the angel that was about to spring him from jail, had to hit him on the side to wake him up.
Peter learned what Paul, and now I am learning. There are no coincidences and there is NOTHING that is bigger than God. If God wants me to go somewhere other than I am going, He can keep me from going. He can even send a dream of a man from another country asking me to come there. ( Acts 16:6-10 )
Peter had just lost one of his best friends and yet he in a deep sleep in a jail between 2 guards. Have you ever thought about the amount of faith that takes?
How about the disagreement between Paul and Barnabas over John Mark? I am not sure it was God’s desire to have things go the way they did. But, I do know that now there were 2 powerful teams spreading the Gospel around the world.
I still have this idea that bad things aren’t going to happen if I am following God. So when trials of many types come I struggle to find the joy that James talks about in James 1. I have trouble sleeping and I fight the flow of God. The whole time telling myself that I trust God!
Ultimately this is all about me trusting in Jesus. It is about me believing that He is big enough and even more that He is good, when my life is not going the way I want.
I wonder if Paul felt this way in Acts 16:6-10. The Holy Spirit prevented Paul and Silas from preaching in most of what was called Asia at that time. They must have spent days traveling around and somehow being stopped from preaching by the Holy Spirit.
Did God change His mind? Did He not want them telling those that were not saved about what Jesus had done for them? That is not what my Bible teaches so what do I do in that case? What do I do when the “good people” are telling me to stop, and the “bad guys” are being saved?
I will give you my answer! I follow. God is leading and I will choose to trust Him as He guides, stalls, tears apart, opens jail doors and closes my mouth so I can’t preach.
I can fight God or I can follow. There is really no other choice. I can sleep in my jail cell knowing that the world wants to make me silent, or I can trust that God will do what He wants. When He wants and the only thing I need to do is follow.
Not fix, not fight but follow.
Today I have struggled with wanting to fight. I have even come up with some ideas to make other people pay for the things they are doing. Some of them are downright brilliant. Some of them are just plain mean, and some of them would make YouTube’s top 10 best pranks.
However, I am going to let God lead. I am going to go to sleep now and wake up tomorrow a free man. The sad part is that for those that are against us… They will still be in a jail of their own making. Some of them even an eternal jail.
So Lord I choose to follow. I choose to watch you open the gates, close the lion’s mouths and show your redeeming power in the lives of those that choose you!
I love following Jesus.
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