Fear of the Lord is the foundation of true wisdom.
….All who obey his commandments will grow in wisdom. Psalm 111:10 NLT
Acts 23:23-35 (<<click here to read the passage)
How many times do we try and put God in a box of our own creation? One way we do this is that when we try and tell God what we need, we tell Him how we would like Him to fulfill that need. As is far too often the case, we tend to think small. If we are living as children of the Creator of the universe, wouldn’t we be better off placing our need(s) before Him and then yielding ourselves to how God would deem fit to answer those prayers?
Our passage doesn’t speak of Paul making particular requests on how he got to Rome, but knowing of Paul’s relationship with the Lord, I’m sure he just yielded himself to however God would choose to get him there. And God came through in a mighty way!
God didn’t just send Paul off with staff in hand and a couple of companions. God knew of those bent on taking Paul’s life and made sure that on the first leg of his journey, he would travel protected and well-cared for – and that’s putting it mildly! He definitely went above and beyond in His care for His faithful servant!
All that the Roman commander knew of Paul was that he was a Roman citizen. He didn’t question the importance of getting him safely to the next level of governmental review. He pulled out all of the stops in doing so, and because the Jews were aggressively plotting to take his life, he did so with great expediency.
He called two of his centurions – officers who led 100 men each – and ordered them to take their men (200 soldiers), along with 200 spearmen and 70 mounted troops. to escort Paul safely to Governor Felix who ruled from Caesarea Maritima (Caesarea-on-the-Sea). [Jerusalem was the seat of Jewish government, but Caesarea was the Roman headquarters for the area* – known as Judea.]
The Roman commander provided Paul with an overabundance of protection, and he provided horses for Paul to ride as well! Before the Jewish leadership and plotters even knew what was going on, he had them on the road by 9:00 that evening. vs23-24 NLT
God knows our needs.
God knows all about those who stand in opposition against us.
We know that He encourages us to bring our needs to Him, but the question is do we trust God enough to take care of the details? Too often in our world we are micro-managed and we often micro-manage the situations around us – you know the “if you want something done right, you have to do it yourself” mentality!
God does not need micro-managed! Trust God to be God! He may call us to contribute but move forward in God’s great love and care. He can be trusted to go above and beyond!
*Life Application Study Bible New Living Translation
Aug 4th, 2022, Thurs, 6:57 pm
