God’s Idler 4

 I want us to deal with another aspect of idling for ministers, this time using other examples.

Paul was a very active minister

To imagine that after being stoned to death and revived by prayer he, instead of taking a well-deserved rest to recuperate, simply moves to another place preach the Gospel for which he had been stoned!

I therefore suspect that it was impossible to hold such a person down, even for God. And this because he probably could never have heard any voice telling him to rest.

What does God then do?

He orders him to Jerusalem where he was to face persecution.

Even that could not slow him down.

He is then arrested and rescued from a lynching mob by a Roman general.

From then he becomes a guest of the Roman empire as a prisoner.

Interesting enough there are no real charges on him, yet the governor, hoping for a bribe from this man of God and pleasing the Jews in the process, keeps him idle for a whole two years.

Was he in God’s will? Make a guess.

Then he is taken to Rome and continues his imprisonment for another two years.

Four years of idleness is not a short time, especially as he was under armed guard all the time. This means he could not have made any movement without the express permission of the guards, some who were chained to him.

You will argue that it was from that that he was able to write these very encouraging letters we love.

But I do not think that is what Paul felt, being the action man that the Bible paints him as. I am sure even the church in general did not easily see it as God’s express will.

Yet it was.

Or what do you think God will do when we will not stop or take a rest. What do you think He will do when our energy levels are too high for our benefit?

I understand Paul’s situation because for the most part I am someone with quite some energy.

Until very recently, sleep was for me a bother as I could comfortably sleep adequately for two hours a day for a week or two without feeling a thing. I could move from a mission to another, a preaching point to another without needing even a tea break. I could travel for a whole day and still be as fresh as someone who slept soundly the whole night when called to minister.

Even now I struggle to slow down.

But a few years ago, God taught me this about Paul and I learnt to slow down, not because I was feeling tired or worn out but because God needed me to slow down.

I therefore do not feel guilty turning down a preaching invitation since I can be able to accurately sense whether He needs me to go or not as opposed to when turning down an invitation led me to guilt as my system is not wired for being idle like Elijah was ordered to be.

I can comfortably turn down an editing or publishing ministry opening because I can be able to know when God does not need me to be busy on such matters.

I can stay at home the whole week or month without being scared that people are going to hell because of my negligence.

Or, simply said, I can be comfortably idle on God’s orders.

Whereas Elijah was idle to be prepared for a new assignment, Paul was idle, first to rest and second, to be released into a new dimension of ministry.

I doubt Paul could have written much had he continued ministry the way we read. He needed to be made an idler for that to happen.

And it is possible for God to make you such for His purposes.

Do you think John could have written the book of Revelation if he was comfortably in Jerusalem?

He needed banishment to experience that.