Acts 17:16 While Paul was waiting for them in Athens, he was greatly distressed to see that the city was full of idols.
Waiting is often the most difficult thing to do in life. Just ask anyone waiting outside a Trauma Emergency Room. The time seems to move so slowly with each second stretching past its breaking point. Every time the door opens you jump up hoping for some news, some good news, and yet you still wait as no news comes.
Tick, tick, tick, tick. Nothing makes the seconds go slower.
We have been waiting for “normal” to return, for the ability to wait in line in a store, actually try on clothes in a store’s fitting room, rather than having to take the clothes home and then have to bring them back because they don’t fit. We have been waiting for the masks to make their final journey to the land fill. What a mess!
Paul has been rescued from the hands of those who wanted to silence him. He has been ushered out of a city in order to protect him from their anger. His late night escape has led him to the city of Athens where he waits for the others to follow him.
And that is where we find him in our text. He is waiting. It isn’t that he is doing nothing, but that he is waiting to continue his team effort with the full team present. Maybe that is why he was so successful at what he did. Even in his waiting he was pursuing an inroad with the people around him.
So what did Paul find when he looked around his new temporary home? He found a multitude of idols, carved figures of various materials and various likenesses. He found inscriptions of dedication to these idols. It was as though their prayers were going in every possible direction, aiming at every possible target, and yet they missed every time.
Paul wants to bring productive focus to these people with the end result being one of a healthy and productive life, a life tuned into their Creator’s will. He wants to turn them from a life of spiritual futility to one of fruitful abundance. Paul’s ministry in those moments was eternity focused and temporally relevant.
And yet Paul still waited for his companions to arrive!
What have you been waiting for that has not yet arrived?
My mother is 94 and is waiting for her death so that she can be reunited in life with my dad. She has been waiting for years for that glorious day. She can’t wait for that moment, and yet she still waits.
Parents wait for the adult children to become adults in the way they conduct their lives. Children wait for a driver’s license and for graduation. They wait for their first kiss and get their first heartbreak.
So I ask again, for what have you been waiting?
The Arnold Journey 