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Acts 14:8-26 Read this first, if you don’t have a Bible nearby, you can read it here: https://www.biblegateway.com/passage/?search=Acts%2014%3A8-26&version=NLT

I had to stare at this passage for a while.  I mean, what do I take from this?  

It stinks to be Paul?  What a rollercoaster.  

A man is miraculously healed, praise God!  

Whoops! Wrong god, WRONG god!!! 

Oh look, the mean kids from Iconium are trying to finish what they started.

Paul’s dead.

Nope, not quite.

And back to work again.

I feel like I am watching the career of some overnight youtube sensation.  We have all seen the progression.  Someone does something spectacular. Other people notice and suddenly all eyes are on them.  In an instant they are basically being worshipped.  Then someone from their past appears and convinces everyone to turn on them. Before they know it they are forgotten, left for dead outside the city.  

It happens all the time and it ruins lives.  It’s actually really sad.  We humans weren’t designed to be worshipped.  We have no mechanism to handle the fickle affections and rejections of a mob.  Can you think of someone that you have watched as they followed this trajectory? 

Now imagine them showing up at the office the next day, clocking in, filing their paperwork, reviewing spreadsheets, checking sales reports, just doing what they had always been doing as if yesterday hadn’t even happened.  People don’t do that.  Crazy circumstances tend to rock people.  Most people never get up from the heap when they have been dragged away bleeding. But Paul and Barnabus?  They simply return to the work they were sent to do.  

That’s what stands out to me as I read this today.  They have such a sense of calling. They have been sent to share the Good News about Jesus with everyone who will listen.  They go back inside the city that just tried to kill them, pack their bags and move on to the next town. Consequently, a lot of people believe their message.  As they travel they are able to encourage others.  

Verse 22 is almost funny.  Paul is teaching and people are looking at him like, “Guy, people keep trying to kill you.” And he responds, “We must go through many hardships to enter the kingdom of God.” Modern translation: “Well ya, that’s to be expected.”

Look closer at  Luke’s little travelogue.  After preaching in Derbe they go back through Lystra, Iconium and Antioch of Pisidia before leaving for Pamphylia.  Y’all those three towns are the towns where people either plotted to kill them or actually physically attacked them.  Luke is underlining a point.  These guys were not letting a little thing like almost being murdered make them second guess their call.  

Paul and Barnabus have a calling on their lives.  Through the church in Antioch they have been given an assignment.  So every morning, regardless of what happened yesterday, they get up and do what they were called to do.

I don’t want to misunderstand this passage and put some crazy “earn your salvation by playing through the pain,” spin on it.  Our salvation, our entrance into the kingdom of heaven is a gift.   We didn’t earn it.  We couldn’t earn it.  It’s not a quest and we aren’t trying to collect enough points to get to the next level.

 It’s a gift that God gives us because he wants to, and that’s all there is to it.  But, as people who have been given this gift, it shouldn’t be all that surprising when life has its chaotic mood swings.  There will be days that we can’t begin to explain why things went so beautifully.  There will be seasons that absolutely suck.  

In the end it’s not our circumstances that get to dictate what we do today, it’s our calling.  I wake up a lot these days feeling like I don’t have much left.  Like life is hard and I’m tired.  Tomorrow everything might be different.  Maybe I’ll be on top of the world for some reason.  Either way, I’ve been given work to do.  I’ve got a family, a church, co-workers, friends and neighbours to love and support and pray for.  I even feel like this silly little blog of mine is a job I have been given by God.  So when everything sucks and when everything is incredible I’m called to the same thing.  I may have more fun doing the things to which God has called me on some days than on others, but the work doesn’t change.  Paul and Barnabus understood this and I think it’s starting to sink in for me too.