Therefore many of them believed, along with a number of prominent Greek women and men.

—Acts 17:12

This weekend I went to see Priscilla Shirer speak in Hendersonville, Tennessee. God showed up and moved in powerful ways within our group. For me, He showed me an area where my faith has been lacking—I have recently been struggling to trust that He is with me in my writing journey.

When things are going well, I’m confident that I’m in the Lord’s will and that he is with me. When things aren’t going well, however, I am so quick to decide that God isn’t with me or that I should just give up because God doesn’t seem to be blessing that area of my life anymore. At its core, I’m calling God’s faithfulness into question because I am not happy with how things are going.

I don’t know if y’all have ever had the experience of reading something in Scripture that speaks exactly to what’s going on in your life at that moment, but that’s what happened this weekend as I stumbled onto Paul’s second missionary journey. 

There were so many times Paul could have decided God would never have planned for him to go through that hardship, so he must have made a mistake in going to that city. There were so many times I would have been tempted to throw up my hands and turn back toward home. But that’s not what Paul did, and some amazing things happened as a result. 

Paul started in Macedonia, where he and Timothy were beaten with rods, thrown in prison, and tortured. When they are released from prison, they go to Thessalonica, where the prominent Jews drag their potential host before the city officials, threaten them, and accuse Paul and Timothy of having disobeyed the laws of Rome. Then they go to Berea, where things go well for a while. Right up until the men from Thessalonica found out that Paul and Timothy are there and go stir up problems again. And then Paul goes to Athens where he is mocked for the message he is preaching.

It seems like it’s one thing after another. No break, no relief. I can’t even imagine how discouraged I would be if I were in their places if that were all I could see. But there’s more to the story because at every step in his journey so far when Paul and Timothy are faithful to spread the word, they leave a trail of salvation behind them. 

In Macedonia, a wealthy woman named Lydia is saved. Then an entire prison witnesses the freedom and joy found in Christ when Paul and Timothy are thrown in prison where they sing hymns in the middle of their torture until they are miraculously freed by an earthquake. And this leads to the jailer and his entire household being saved.

In Thessalonica, Paul preaches in the Synagogue over the course of three Sabbaths. Some Jews were saved, but after this, the Bible says that “a large number” of Greeks and prominent women were also saved.

In Berea, the people were eager to receive the word and actively studied the Scriptures for themselves to verify what Paul and Timothy taught. In this city, the Bible says that there were many Jews along with prominent Greek men and women who came to salvation before the knuckleheaded Thessalonicans showed up again.

And in Athens, Paul had the opportunity to introduce the people to the “Unknown God” they’d built a statue of even though they didn’t know His name. This has always been one of my favorite Bible stories because one of the things God wants the most is for us to know Him. He has gone to such great lengths to reveal Himself to us and break down the barriers that are keeping us apart that I can’t help but think the sun must have shown a little brighter that day from how brightly He must have been beaming when Paul delivered that message.

At every step along the way, even though there were difficult circumstances to overcome, God was with Paul and Timothy. He was with them in the prison. He was with them when few people responded in Thessalonica. He was with them as they fled by night to Berea. He never left them, even when it may not have felt like they were making much difference, and as long as He was there, He was at work.

For those of us who are in a place where it feels like we aren’t making progress or like God may not be near or like it might be best to just give up, may Paul’s journey remind us that God doesn’t leave, and as long as He is with you, He’s at work. He was faithful to Paul and Timothy, and He will be just as faithful to us.