Life often isn’t perfect is it? Circumstances don’t turn out the way you originally hoped they would. Today maybe you enter your day and though you are living where you thought you would be it isn’t exactly how you imagined or desired it to be. The picture postcard didn’t work out.
“I pray that now at last by God’s will the way may be opened for me to come to you. I long to see you so that I may impart to you some spiritual gift to make you strong— that is, that you and I may be mutually encouraged by each other’s faith. I do not want you to be unaware, brothers and sisters,that I planned many times to come to you (but have been prevented from doing so until now) in order that I might have a harvest among you, just as I have had among the other Gentiles.” (Romans 1 v 10-13)
Paul wrote this letter around AD 57 from Corinth and 3 years before he actually got to Rome. We can see his desire to be there from the opening of this letter. He seemed so desperate to be with them. What he didn’t know at the time was when he finally got to Rome things were not what he had thought they would be. He didn’t know that he would be under house arrest having limited freedom albeit chained to a guard.
I don’t think Paul imagined that being in Rome and imparting to the church what God had given him would be as a prisoner. But that is what happened.
However, he did get there and God did use Him in the imparting of ‘some spiritual gift to make you strong’ and he was ‘mutually encouraged’ and he did ‘have a harvest’. The work of God happened but the setting was far from perfect.
As Christ followers we have a desire to work for Him and to be used for His glory. However there are times when that comes in the packaging of difficult circumstances. Will we accept them? Will you accept the difficulties in order to continue to be used in the gospel work? To do so is to see the gospel of Jesus Christ as the primary focus of your life.
Missions Paul 