Going Where God wants you to Go
Acts 16:1-13
In vs. 1-3 Paul comes Derbe and Lystra where he meets and picks up Timothy to takes him along on his missionary journey. Timothy was already a disciple, follower of Christ, and had a good testimony but Paul was going to take him further in ministry and spiritual life. This is a great example of how a Paul should always keep his eyes open for Timothys and how a Timothy should keep his eyes open for a Paul to help him do more for the Lord.
So Paul and Timothy begin their journeys with anticipation of open doors, serving God and seeing much fruit. In vs. 6 and 7 they desired to go but “the Spirit suffered them not” and they were “forbidden” twice (whether closed doors because of money, no peace, being refused by authority or some other way we do not know, but Spirit didn’t allow to go). Finally in vs. 9 they had a vision and a man “prayed him” saying come over and help us. My favorite part is vs. 10 where it says they were “assuredly gathering that the Lord had called us” to go preach there. It’s almost like they were told not to twice and finally were told to go and so they figured this must be where God was calling them to. This is contrary to what most Christians believe, or at least practice. We want to have all the confirmation and then move, where it appears that Paul clearly just tried serving God wherever and left the geography part up to God. Paul didn’t care where he would serve, he just knew he was going to serve the Lord… and God would take care of the “where”.
May I have the same attitude as Paul of not worrying about where, just serving God faithfully and letting Him take care of the geography.