Grace and peace to you in the name of Lord Jesus Christ.
Hear the Word of God, from Acts 16.6-10:
6 They passed through the Phrygian and Galatian region, after being forbidden by the Holy Spirit to speak the word in Asia; 7 and after they came to Mysia, they were trying to go into Bithynia, and the Spirit of Jesus did not allow them; 8 and passing by Mysia, they went down to Troas. 9 And a vision appeared to Paul in the night: a man of Macedonia was standing and pleading with him, and saying, “Come over to Macedonia and help us.” 10 When he had seen the vision, we immediately sought to leave for Macedonia, concluding that God had called us to preach the gospel to them.
I’ve always had a fondness for maps. As a child, I was fascinated by the road maps used by my parents on our vacation trips, and I loved using them to see where we were going and the route we were traveling to get there. As a youth, I enjoyed examining the detailed highway maps in my dad’s Department of Transportation office and discovering all the out-of-the-way (and sometimes forgotten) places in southern West Virginia. As an adult, I now use the resources of the Internet on my cellphone to find the most convenient highways in my travels and to estimate my arrival times. As we journey to various destinations, there is a sense of security to be found in maps: they help us understand where we are currently located, where we are going, and the best route to follow. They also remind us that others have traveled our intended paths before us…after all, someone had to draw the map!
When I served as a Minister of Evangelism in Chattanooga, Tennessee, I used city and county maps to locate and visit newcomers to our church. Of course, this was when a housing boom was underway and residential developments were springing up so quickly that mapmakers and GPS devices couldn’t keep pace. More than once, I found myself moving “off the map” as I attempted to find a visitor’s home, and it was quite a disorienting experience. In a similar way, significant life change can be disorienting, frustrating, and even frightening. All of us tend to have certain plans, expectations, and hopes that are based upon our knowledge, life experience, or observations of others. When sudden or unanticipated change occurs due to difficult circumstances, unexpected opportunities, or a changed landscape of life, it can leave us feeling as though we’ve “moved off the map” of life itself. How do we respond when change knocks us off our intended or expected course and forces us out of the “comfort zone” of our plans?
This happened in the ministry of the apostle Paul, as recorded in Acts 16.6-10. Paul and his companions apparently planned to preach the Gospel in Asia, but the Holy Spirit did not permit them to do so at that time. So, they tried to enter Bithynia to preach the Gospel, but, again, the Spirit did not allow them to do so. Closed doors kept leading to changed plans for Paul and his colleagues; it must have been a frustrating trip for them. However, Paul had a nighttime vision of a man of Macedonia urging him to “come over to Macedonia and help us.” Perceiving that the vision was from God, the travelers immediately made their way into Macedonia. At first glance, this appears to be a simple change in plans; in reality, it was the entrance of the Gospel into the continent of Europe and, through Europe, to the global human community. In all probability, if we claim the name, the cross, and the cause of Jesus Christ as Savior and Lord in 21st-century North America, we do so because of Paul’s sudden and unexpected change of plans nearly 2,000 years ago. We can trace our Christian “ancestry” back to this simple act of faithfully following Jesus “off the map.”
If you’ve read my recent poor attempts at Facebook sermons these past few weekends, you know that I’ve experienced my own change of life plans during 2020. Perhaps as never before, I feel as though I have “moved off the map” into a new and unexplored wilderness of life…and at an age and stage when I had anticipated that life would become more stable and predictable! Truth to tell, I am a jumbled mix of emotions as I journey through the first month of 2021.
However, I remind myself that followers of Christ are not intended to panic when plans suddenly change. When our maps are no longer enough for where we find ourselves, we simply remember one basic truth: God’s direction is always the path that leads us closer to Jesus and more faithfully aligned to His will in our lives. Like a child walking in the tracks of a parent through a winter’s new-fallen snow, we are to follow closely behind Jesus, stepping where He steps and trusting where He leads us…even when we can’t clearly see the way ahead of us. But isn’t that the way of faith? After all, whenever we “move off the map,” who else should we follow but the One who is “the WAY, the truth, and the life” (John 14.6)?
The grace of our Lord Jesus Christ be with you always.
Amen.
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