New Life'n : Butterflies, Paul, and 2 things about hope

Thing One: Perfect results are not the proof that God is doing the leading

Today, it’s easy to think of Paul as a formal, perfect apostle who started perfect, formal churches. In reality it was gritty, dangerous, scary, frustrating work that produced some good churches, and some that were a scandal (see 1-2 Corinthians).

It was all led by the Holy Spirit, yet much of it was a train wreck. The Holy Spirit didn’t wreck it, and Paul didn’t wreck it—wrecks are just the reality of a fallen world and fallen people.

Thing Two: The thing you think is the big deal may, in the end, not be the deal at all

Paul spent ten years planting those churches, doing a glorious, exciting work taking the Gospel where it had never been, and leaving something behind that could grow and do good. Then, readying a trip to headquarters in Jerusalem, his friends warned him that all his radical church planting was getting him in trouble and he would be arrested if he returned.

He went anyway.

They were right.

He was arrested and never planted another church. He lived the next ten years mostly in jail or on trial.

You can imagine him sitting in prison or under house arrest reflecting on the glory years of church planting. You can imagine him thinking, “I followed the Lord exactly as I felt he led, and this is what happens? Now I’m stuck just writing letters to friends and to the churches I started?”

The glory years were over, and all Paul could do was write those letters.

Today, all those churches he planted are gone.

The letters he wrote—because that’s all he had left—live, still guiding, instructing, and encouraging millions.

Butterflies morph from caterpillars. Sometimes hope morphs, too

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This is day 10 of 31 Days of Scary Hope: encouragement to go from IS to COULD BE. Start at the beginning HERE.