so...I was thinking ~

as I read through Acts ... and the attendant epistles... I am teaching through Acts and the letters of Paul right now to a gaggle of gangly teens --- yeah, that was bad -- I know -- but ... ok, no excuse for sappy alliteration so ~ as I was saying

The characters and the flow of the story are so intriguing: Paul, the uber-educated ex-Pharisee, trudging along the road from Antioch to Derbe to Iconium to ... ... ??? on his "second missionary journey"... thinking, "lets go to Asia!" and the Holy Spirit saying "nope!" " OH, ummmm OK, then, how about if we go NORTH to Bithynia?" and the Holy Spirit says, "nope, NOPE!!" I think I have felt that way...heck, I think I feel that way right now:

"OK...so we have been out doing our best to do what we are called to and ~ ok, never mind the beatings, and oppositon from people who used to be our friends (I suspect he actually KNEW some of the Jewish Christians who came into the region...especially in Syrian Antioch...teaching that Gentile Christians had to go BACK, become a Jew -- get circumcised, and follow the Law -- or their salvation was off. They were allowed after all to teach in the church. ) now we try to move forward into 'new' areas and the answer is "no" ????"

So how many (of us) are in "Troas" this season? I can see Paul standing out on the docks looking out to sea. "OK...this is as far as I can go, I guess. Do we sail, do we wait, do we go back?" Nothing "happened" in Troas, or nothing is mentioned anyway." We are told, 'during the night Paul had a vision'...but I am intrigued by the season, the visionless season between the attempts at Asia and Bithynia. How many days did he pace the streets, wander to the docks, sit mulling over scripture, trying to hear SOMETHING from Jesus? The "during the night" phrase, I am sure, is actually literal...night time. But for me as I ponder/imagine/meditate on the scene, it feels poetic : out of his darkness, there in the night ~ the place where the light to walk was all gone ~ there ! That is where the vision came.

So here I am ~ standing at the docks looking out to sea. It is twilight...I am hoping every night for a vision.

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

... and GOD

              Elijah             some ravens at a brook                                  a widow and her son                                                                         Ahab           Obadiah                ...
Read more

"The Kings and the Prophets" or "What profiteth it a man to gain the whole world and loose his soul?"

In the Northern Kingdom ~ Israel ~ the king, Jeroboam, has a son named Abijah. He is sick. It must have been really bad because he tells his wife to disguise herself and go to Shiloh to talk to the prophet Ahijah. He says, "Go to Shiloh, Abijah the prophet is there -- the one who told me I would be king over this people." That tells me that he must have told his wife about the prophetic encounters he had had: ripped cloak, dried up hand and broken altar. I wonder about her...what did she think? Did she know God at all, or just 'about' him? She goes to this prophet and gets "schooled" -- as they say. She disguises herself as her husband asked and is greeted with, " Come in wife of Jeroboam. Why the pretence?" The prophet proceeds to tell her MUCH more than she, I am guessing, expected to hear. He tells her what God thinks and feels -- here are some of the 'high-lights':     ~ Go tell Jeroboam that this is what the LORD, the God of Israel s...
Read more

The mirror

Reading the story of Ahab in a chunk, as it were, (instead of reading part of it one time, then another part -- or only reading only the part of the story referred to during a sermon) actually makes me feel uncomfortable. It is like this: have you ever watched a movie where one of the characters makes a stupid decision, or walks into a trap? OK, confession time: when that happens to me, I find myself yelling at the screen : "STOP! Don't do that!" -- or some equally inane warning. I bet you do too -- well maybe not you , but some people do. That is how I find myself feeling as I read this story -- only what I want to do is yell at God , "Just kill Ahab! He is going to go on being a jerk! What? You didn't kill him after that??? NO lightening? Really? He's not going to get it, God. He is a self-indulgent brat. YOU said he did more to provoke You than any other king of Israel before him...GIVE UP!" I want to yell this because God does not give up. Infact, ...
Read more