By Dennis Pollock
Recently, I visited the post office and then the bank down the street. When I reached the post office, I was dismayed to see that there was a long line of people waiting for service. I knew I would be spending upwards of twenty minutes in that line before I could get my business done. And then, when I reached the bank, I was appalled to see that here, too, there was a lengthy line of people waiting to see a banker, and here, too, I knew I would spend over twenty minutes waiting. There was no point getting upset, so I put in the required waiting time and finally got my business done.
There are not too many things I despise more than unnecessary waiting. It just seems like such a waste of time. I don’t accomplish anything; I cannot write any articles or create any videos or read the Bible or do any serious praying. I just stand… and wait, and that seems incredibly inefficient. But as I thought about this, somehow my mind reverted to the life of the great apostle Paul, and the different ways his own life was less than ideal in terms of pure efficiency and the use of time. And I realized God was giving me a powerful insight here and teaching me that often what we consider a waste of time is not always the case.
First, Paul was a bi-vocational minister. He was not a full-time preacher. The Bible tells how he met a married couple named Aquila and Priscilla, and we read: “So, because he was of the same trade, he stayed with them and worked; for by occupation, they were tentmakers.” (Acts 18:1-3). We learn, to our amazement, that Paul had a trade. He had a secondary job. He was a maker of tents, which he sold to finance himself to travel and do the work of Christ.
Making tents would not have been a simple, one-hour operation. In those days, without sewing machines and manufacturing equipment, everything would have had to be done by hand. It probably took Paul several days, or maybe a week or more, to make a single tent. During this time, Paul would be primarily focused on what we might call secular activities. He was not writing epistles or praying all day long or preaching at conferences or holding evangelistic crusades or praying for the sick or casting out demons. The great apostle and theologian was cutting fabric, sewing pieces together, and no doubt making numerous trips to the market to purchase the materials and tools needed to finish the job.
Considering that Paul was the church’s greatest minister and theologian, we might consider this a notorious waste of time. Surely, he could find some wealthy believers to finance him and set him free from “secular work.” But Paul went right on making his tents as his finances dictated the need and then went on to preach “the unsearchable riches of Christ.”
Another aspect of his life that kept Paul from accomplishing more was his mode of travel. Paul did a whole lot of walking as he made his evangelistic and apostolic journeys. Sometimes he indeed took ships, but his main manner of getting from one city to another was to walk on the dusty roads of the Middle East. He often would spend several days getting where he felt led by the Spirit to go. These were days when he could not study Scriptures or write epistles or prepare sermons. He and his group of friends would do what nearly everybody else did in those days – walk and talk for hour after hour and sometimes for several days until they reached their destination. How much more could this great giant of the faith have accomplished had he had a car at his disposal and could fly on airplanes from one nation to the next! Between his tentmaking and his walking and travels, Paul spent an enormous amount of time where his brilliant mind and his eloquent pen had to be put on hold.
Another limitation Paul faced was those prison years in the latter part of his life. In Acts 21, we read of Paul being arrested, and for the rest of that book, Paul is a prisoner. No more traveling and establishing churches, no more teaching in the synagogues, no more revivals, no more appointing elders in various churches, no more taking the gospel to places and people who had never heard about Jesus. Now Paul sits in prison, year after year. He indeed penned four epistles while in prison that made it into the New Testament, but he could have written those epistles as a free man just as easily as being a prisoner.
Many of us would have questioned God if we had been in Paul’s sandals. “Why are you keeping me here, Lord? I could do so much more, I could win so many more souls, plant so many churches, and instead, I spend day after day as a prisoner. Things were popping when I was a free man, and now they seem to have come to a screeching halt!” Those years of prison tedium seemed to be a colossal waste of time, and yet God allowed His servant to remain there for many years.
And finally, history tells us that Paul was put to death for his faith in Christ, beheaded by a cruel Roman executioner. Paul was no young man by this time. However, his mind was still razor sharp, his faith was still red-hot, and had he been set free and lived longer, maybe another ten or fifteen years, how many more souls could he have won to Jesus, how many more churches could he have planted, and how many more brilliant epistles could he have written!
When you put all these facts together: Paul’s need to frequently work as a tentmaker, his necessity of walking long days to get where he felt led to go, his prison years in the latter portion of his life, and his execution which cut short the most magnificent ministry the church has ever seen, you might be tempted to think that Paul got a raw deal. Surely, much of his amazing potential was wasted on all these distractions.
And yet, despite all of this, Paul has influenced the world as no minister of Christ ever has. No, he did not write one hundred epistles, he did not convert millions of people (at least in his lifetime), and he was not able to pray and read the Scriptures 24/7. But despite his limitations, Paul gave the world the gospel of the grace of Jesus Christ. To put it in his own words: “Christ died for our sins according to the Scriptures, and that He was buried, and that He rose again the third day according to the Scriptures…” (1 Corinthians 15:3-4).
Why is this important to us today? We often see ourselves as limited. We feel as though we could do so much more in our service to Jesus IF ONLY… If only I had more money, if only I had more skills, if only I were smarter or prettier or more intelligent. If only I could be a full-time minister. In our minds, our lives and circumstances are so far from ideal that it is hardly worth even trying to serve the Lord. What can we accomplish, given all the demands on our time and all our other limitations?
The truth is, we have all that we need to be able to do all that Christ has called us to do. And if in the future we will need more, Jesus will provide that in His own time, that we may be fully equipped for the Master’s service.
Once, when the disciples told Jesus that He must dismiss the multitudes, so that the people could go to local markets and buy something to eat, Jesus asked them: “What do you have?” He did not ask them, “What don’t you have?” He asked them: “What do you have?” It turned out that they didn’t have much. But they were able to come up with a few fish and a few small loaves of bread. He told the disciples, “Bring them to Me.” And after blessing the bread and fish, Jesus instructed the disciples to feed the huge crowds. They discovered to their amazement that the bread and fish just kept multiplying and multiplying until everybody was fed and full.
Our lives will never be ideal. But we can give our few fish and loaves to Jesus, our small talent, our limited finances, our meager opportunities, and watch Jesus multiply them. Little becomes much when it is placed in the Master’s hands.
