God will guide you
Acts 16
• The obvious way is not always the right way.
It was the most natural thing for this missions team from where they were to look south-west along a famous Roman road called the via Sebaste toward Asia. Surely this is the way to take.
But the natural choice was the wrong choice.
• We need to trust the bigger picture that we cannot see.
Moving north-west they try to enter Bithnyia but again they cannot. But surely Bithynyia needed the gospel? It did and it received it apparently: 1 Peter 1:1 Peter took the gospel there.
Perhaps the Spirit was saying “No leave this for Peter”. But Paul at the time didn’t know this, he had to trust the bigger picture.
Sometimes God has to say no and you cant see why, there is no explanation, and you have to trust that it is serving the bigger picture. One day you will step back and see how your life was part of a wonderful tapestry that God had out together.
• When one door closes another opens
Everyone knows the closed door experiences and the hurt it causes.
Particularly when you have given time and effort to something. Paul had travelled south-east to north-west by a strange circular route. He can’t get into Asia and he can’t get into Bithynia. But they were to learn that when God closes doors it is only to open others.
The door that opens is not only a miracle, a circumstantial move of God, but it can be through thinking together corporately, mulling over a situation, reaching a communal mind. This is what the word in v10 ‘concluding’ has its meaning in.
Today someone reading this will need to know the truth that God is guiding her.
Missions Paul 