“If you sit on the pity potty…”

To tell you the truth, I’ve been feeling really sorry for myself lately. Finishing school and moving back home for the summer has been challenging. Work has not been what I expected…I’m an on-call nanny, and lately it’s been slow. Hence why I’ve only worked 3 days in the past 2 weeks. Normally I would be overjoyed with such copious amounts of free time, but this summer has been different than others for a number of reasons. For one, I’m preparing to go on the World Race (duh). Free time is great and all, it gives me more time to think up fundraisers and put more effort into support raising, but it also leaves more time for worry…ahhh! Two, the money I earn this summer is going towards expenses that are not covered in the $14,300 I need to send AIM (shots, international health insurance, backpacking gear, toiletries/spending money for overseas, etc.), so working less is NOT A GOOD THING! Third, people who were once my closest friends, for one reason or another, aren’t around anymore, leaving my social calendar with significantly fewer engagements. It’s left me wondering what’s wrong with me? and scared that I won’t be accepted into the community of World Racers I’m about to step into. So on top of the lack of work, the excessive free time, the disappearance of my group of friends, there are wounds of rejection that I’m clumsily trying to patch up before I feel like I can be a functioning member of a team. And it hurts. Thus the “woe is me” feelings commence, and I am left drowning in a pool of self-pity, worry, anger, and confusion.

((Which P.S., how is it that I’ve just now realized that Satan is at the center of ALL OF THIS??))

I was spending time with the Lord today, pretty much just on my face before Him asking for help in dealing with all of these negative emotions that have been assuaging me lately, when He led me to the story of Paul in the book of Acts.

I have read Acts before, and I have to be honest…it didn’t really resonate with me. I love Paul, but I have always preferred his letters to the early churches over a brief biography of his life. But let me tell you, I picked up Acts today and couldn’t put it down. Do you have any IDEA of what Paul went through for the Gospel of Christ?? Well, I didn’t, at least not as extensively as I thought, and I doubt you do either, so let me lay it out for you just a little:

I’m going to start towards the middle of Paul’s story, the part where he first feels his call to go to back to Jerusalem, and eventually Rome. At this point, Paul has already been through quite a bit. He’s been a persecutor of the Christian church, was knocked blind (literally) when Jesus appeared to him on the road to Damascus, decided to turn his life around, and became an advocate of Christ’s message rather than a persecutor. If that’s not enough, God throws His first curveball as Paul sets off to join the Christian movement in Jerusalem. 

Jesus says to Paul, “Hurry up! Get out of here as quickly as you can. None of the Jews here in Jerusalem are going to accept what you say about me.” 

Paul, naturally, replies, “Who has better credentials? They all know how obsessed I was with hunting out those who believed in You, beating them up in the meeting places and throwing them in jail. And when Your witness Stephen was murdered, I was right there, holding the coats of the murderers and cheering them on. And now they see me totally converted. What better qualifications could I have?” (Basically, “C’mon God, I’ve got this!”)

To that, Jesus replies, “Don’t argue. Go. I’m sending you on a long journey to outsider Gentiles.” (Acts 22:18-21)

So off Paul goes to Cyprus, Lystra, Derbe, Syria, Thessalonica, Athens, Berea, Corinth, Ephesus, Macedonia, and other places in between. He’s beaten, thrown in prison, and has a fight with his best friend, causing them to part ways. 

Then comes the part of the story that really captured my attention. In Ephesus, Paul calls together the leaders of the church and basically tells them that this was the last time they would ever see him. He’s heard the call again, and this time it’s to go back to Jerusalem. 

Paul says, “There is another urgency before me now. I feel compelled to go to Jerusalem. I’m completely in the dark about what will happen when I get there, I do know that it won’t be any picnic, for the Holy Spirit has let me know repeatedly and clearly that there are hard times and imprisonment ahead. But that matters little. What matters most to me is to finish what God started: the job Master Jesus gave me of letting everyone I meet know all about this incredibly extravagant generosity of God.” (Acts 20:18-24)

Now for me (and maybe for you other World Racers out there reading this), this verse really struck a chord. I felt like it summed up utterly and completely the call I have felt…the feeling of urgency…being compelled…towards the World Race. Excited, I kept reading, only to find that a few verses later, Paul had moved on to Tyre to stay a week with the local disciples there. And what happened next? 

“Their message to Paul, from insight given by the Spirit, was ‘Dont go to Jerusalem.” (Acts 21:4)

What?? These disciples, believers and followers of Jesus Christ, urged Paul through the Spirit not to go to Jerusalem. Well that’s certainly confusing. So what does Paul do? “But when our time was up, we left and continued on our way.” (Acts 21:5)

A few days later, Paul and his traveling buddies arrive in Ptolemais and stay with Philip the evangelist. And lo and behold, a prophet from Judea shows up, takes Paul’s belt, ties himself up with it, hands and feet (I’m sure this was quite the sight to see) and says, “This is what the Holy Spirit says: The Jews in Jerusalem are going to tie up the man who owns this belt just like this and hand him over to godless unbelievers.” (Acts 21:11)

Woah, woah, woah. Surely Paul won’t go now…he heard from a prophet! And yet, as all the believers in Philip’s household beg Paul “not to be stubborn and persistent in going to Jerusalem,” Paul replies, “Why all this hysteria? Why do you insist on making a scene and making it even harder for me? You’re looking at it backwards. The issue in Jerusalem is not what they do to me, whether arrest or murder, but what the Master Jesus does through my obedience. Can’t you see that?” (Acts 21:13)

At this point I sat back, pretty confused. Who was right and who was wrong? The prophet? The church elders? The believers Paul stayed with? Paul himself? And then I realized, no one was. Everyone was right. The church elders, and prophet and believers all warned Paul that going to Jerusalem was dangerous and would most likely end up in his imprisonment and possibly even death. But they weren’t telling Paul anything he didn’t already know, were they? From the very beginning, he said that the Spirit had warned him about the persecutions to come. Yet for Paul, what mattered even more than his safety, his own life, was what Jesus would do through his obedience to the call.  

The story continues, and Paul eventually arrives in Jerusalem. And of course, he hadn’t even been there a week when he was beaten by a mob of Jews and thrown into prison for two years without cause. They all had been right–the elders, prophet, believers, and even Paul. Yet in this time of obedience, and yes, utter hardship, Paul was able to proclaim the message of Christ to: rioting Jews, Roman centurions, the Chief Priest Ananias, Pharisees, Sadducees, Governor Felix & his wife Drusilla, the governor who succeeded Felix (Portius Festus), and King Agrippa. 

Of course the story doesn’t end there. Paul sits in prison for 2 years, appeals to Caesar, is shipped to Rome as a prisoner, endures a 2 week storm at sea with no food, is bitten by a snake, shipwrecks on Malta for 3 months, and eventually arrives in Rome only to STILL be a prisoner. 

But what got me in this story was this: despite everything in his life going “wrong,” Paul was right with God. And that’s all that matters, isn’t it? I’ve had several people warn me about how dangerous and difficult the World Race will be; tell me that it’s unlikely that I will raise all the support in time; remind me that I will lose friends and my comfortable life in the process. But through the Spirit, I know all this already, and slowly I am learning that these hardships are not the point. What really matters is “what the Master Jesus does through my obedience.”

I’ve been having my own personal pity party this week, moping about how hard my life has become in this season of change for the Lord. But as I read about the life of Paul, I know there is much much more in the way of hardship to come, and hand-in-hand with that will come an earthly taste of the most glorious riches that await us in the heavenly realm. So here’s to difficult seasons, to crappy jobs, to financial struggles, to losing friends. “Therefore I will boast all the more gladly about my weaknesses, so that Christ’s power may rest on me. That is why, for Christ’s sake, I delight in weaknesses, in insults, in hardships, in persecutions, in difficulties. For when I am weak, then I am strong.” (2 Cor. 12:9-10). 

No more of this “woe is me” attitude, my friends. I had much to learn from the life of Paul about what a radically changed life for Christ should look like. May this next year be a spirited dance through whatever hardships may come, and may my attitude be changed in the process.

And as my Great-Aunt Mina reminded me last weekend…