THOUGHTS

May 5, 2020

Another reprint out of FB jail from 2014

The Savior's Wooing

Acts 16:13-14

Christ is a gentleman and surprisingly so.  The irony of Paul's missionary journey was that the biggest mouth for the Gospel was told to zip it for hundreds of miles as he crossed Asia.  Finally he had a vision to go to Macedonia, a Roman colony in Europe, to share the good news.  He saw a man in his vision saying, "Come over to Macedonia and help us."  And who should he find?  Not the man in the vision, but a woman, Lydia.  She was a rich business woman, a seller of purple made from mollusk dye.

"a worshiper of God was listening; 

and the Lord opened her heart to respond

 to the things spoken by Paul."

God had been wooing this woman, a Gentile who was seeking Him in this small group of Jewish women who gathered at the river.  It brings to mind the old song, "I went down to the river to pray."  There weren't even ten Jewish men of faith to organize a synagogue, called minyans.  So Paul, seeking the man in the vision, Paul who always went to the Jews first before preaching to the Gentiles, found only women; and his first convert was an open-hearted, listening woman.  The friends who had invited her to join them at the river are unnamed.  After she and her household were baptized, she was also open-hearted to them in hospitality and took the missionaries in for their long stay in Philippi.  That is where Paul and others were in jail for preaching the Gospel and who was part of those praying for his miraculous release. 

We don't need a club to reach people, but the preparation of the Holy Spirit and those willing to listen and obey His voice.  Things had not gone as Paul imagined, but it was the divine will and work of God.  From her heart and home, the Gospel spread across Europe.  Is our heart and home open to let the Holy Spirit do His work in us and through us?  Perhaps the man in the vision was an angel who said, "Come...help us."  It is a divine wooing, making a heart tender to receive the very God of love.  The Holy Spirit is the heavenly matchmaker for the one who is to be the bride of Christ.  Would you care to dance?

An update: recently, a young person we had ministered to in years past, whom we have had in our home,  contacted me about their addiction, fighting what seemed to be a losing battle.  They messaged me, someone who has never had a drink in my life, but who was married to a man who had a driving desire to help those struggling.  It was a wooing by God in this young person's life.  But I am more like the unnamed women who invited Lydia to worship with them at the river.  I connected this friend to others who could help them better than I, and they did  reach out.  This love story is still being written by God who is doing the wooing.  It has taken years, but God never gives up.  It is the work of the Holy Spirit.  Listen to the whispers of God in your heart.