.....will

And the night following the Lord stood by him, and said, Be of good cheer, Paul: for as thou hast testified of me in Jerusalem, so must thou bear witness also at Rome Acts 23:11

At Caesarea, Paul’s friends let him go, saying, “The will of the Lord be done.” Today we find out what happened when that will led Paul into the very trouble they feared, and who met him there.

Everything Agabus foretold came true. In Jerusalem a mob dragged Paul out of the temple and beat him, and only Roman soldiers saved his life. He tried to tell the crowd his story, and they shouted for his death. The next day, before the council, the room broke into such a violent quarrel that the commander feared Paul would be torn to pieces and had him carried back to the barracks. That night he sat in a Roman fortress, far from his friends, with forty men soon to swear they would not eat until he was dead.

If Paul was doing God’s will, why did everything seem to go wrong? Because surrender does not promise an easy road. It promises a Companion on the road. In the darkest hour of that night, the Lord Himself came and stood beside His prisoner. He did not explain the beatings or rebuke the mob. He spoke courage: Be of good cheer. And He gave Paul a future: you will bear witness in Rome.

Ellen White assures us that no child of God is ever overlooked in such a moment: “No calamity can befall the least of His children, no anxiety harass the soul, no joy cheer, no sincere prayer escape the lips, of which our heavenly Father is unobservant, or in which He takes no immediate interest” Steps to Christ, p. 100. The Lord who noticed Paul in the barracks notices us in our hospital rooms, our sleepless nights, and our lonely trials.

Notice too that Jesus called Paul’s witness in Jerusalem a success, even though the crowd rejected it. Heaven measures faithfulness differently than we do. What looked like failure to Paul’s enemies was, in the eyes of Christ, a testimony well given.

His friends teach us to surrender our loved ones to God’s will. Paul’s night in the barracks teaches us that God’s will never leaves us alone, and that the One who sends us into hard places comes and stands by us there.