You ever come across someone outline something that takes place in a matter-of-fact kind of way and later reflect and actually wonder how on earth they did it?
The Bible is good at that. All over the place things are recorded and relayed to us as though these are things that regularly happen. Take for example this episode that Luke reports in the second writing we have that he made to Theophilus. It features the man previously known as Saul of Tarsus and is taken with being called Paul.
Paul and his crew were set to go to the province of Asia. That’s where they were headed and Luke simply writes that the Holy Spirit prevented them from doing that. Then they headed North to a place called Bithynia, but Luke simply writes that the Spirit stopped them doing that and got them to stay at a seaport.
That’s what he reports. You can read that, nod your head, and then read on to what happens next. you can do that. I’m there, however, with the face contorted and mouthing the word ‘how’? The Spirit of God does that, but how does He do that? How do they know it’s Him?
This will be the prelude for their next exciting adventure to Macedonia which a vision will indicate is what they should do, which conveniently they can do seeing as though they find themselves at a seaport. The outline gives the impression that there was a way that God was giving Paul and his crew directions by where they could go and where they could not go.
In one sense this is encouraging because you could look in hindsight and see how certain events took place and in their way were directing you to where you should be for key occasions in your life. That can be one way of reading how you’ve received directions – so you didn’t get that job, but you got the other job and that way you were able to pick up those skills that set you up for what you’re enjoying/enduring today.
It is an explanation – but it’s nothing conclusive. Of course there’s the kind of closed book approach to the situation of saying that if nothing else is said about it in the text, you should just leave it and allow it. I would. If I could. Yet could it be that there is a learning point even in this account?
Being led by the Spirit of God is such an exciting thing to contemplate. I believe that this is not something that was exclusively the remit for people in the first century after Jesus died. It’s something accessible now. These accounts of the acts of those who were in on the exciting early days of the church give us an idea of both how in hindsight as well as a foresight we can be led.
If you live what you consider to be a mundane life, wouldn’t things be enlivened to know that what you take as mundane is part of the leading of the Spirit as part of the great adventure? Wouldn’t it be something to be led to fulfil that which brings great delight to the God of the universe?
Something worth considering.
(Photo by Austin Ban on Unsplash)
For His Name’s Sake
Shalom
C. L. J. Dryden
Life With CD 