Saturday of the Fifth Week of Easter
Paul and his companions did not have everything go as they had planned. Paul and the companions wanted to preach the Gospel in the territory of Asia, but their plan was foiled. They wanted to travel into Bithynia, but this plan was also foiled. Yet they did not see this as evidence of some force working against them, nor did they see this as evidence that their mission was suffering from setbacks and defeats. Rather, they ascribed these “hiccups” to God himself. They had a great level of trust in God to believe that they had been prevented by the Holy Spirit from preaching the message in the province of Asia and that the Spirit of Jesus did not allow them to travel into Bithynia. God’s ways are not our ways.
Our plans rarely go precisely as we would wish. Sometimes our plans have no momentum at all or they fail before they even start. Our careers could face obstacles, we might not get accepted to certain degree programs, we cannot perform at the level we would like, or we find doors have been closed to us. In such moments, it is all too easy (and understandable) to think that we are failures, that our plans are pointless, and that our work and talent is meaningless. We may feel that we have missed our purpose or, at worst, that we do not have a purpose at all. We would do well to remember in such confusion that God’s ways are not our ways. We would do well to remember that sometimes we do not get our way because God has something else in store for us.
Paul and his companions did not give up in the face of setbacks. Instead, they kept moving and kept trying to discern the will of God. Eventually Paul received a vision of a Macedonian man begging him to come to Macedonia. Paul discerned that their mission was to go to Macedonia, and so they did. When God prevented them from going into Asia and Bithynia, God was not telling them that their work was over; God was telling them that work would be something different. We know from history that other missionaries went to Asia and Bithynia. Clearly God also thought it was important for someone to go there and preach, but God wanted something else from Paul.
We can infer that the mission to Macedonia cemented Paul’s belief in the providence of God; Paul could see that God did not want him in Asia or Bithynia just then. Yet such an insight likely came in hindsight. We can hope for such insights when our own plans have to change. Instead of giving into despair and thinking that God has abandoned us, we can trust that God has a different plan for us (whatever it may be). Knowing the wisdom and goodness of God, it can actually be comforting to realize that we are not left entirely to our own devices. Otherwise, who would have ever gone to Macedonia?