So it is with me often: unexpected danger, an impossible situation, will be used by God to make things happen.
The handful of believers commissioned by Jesus to go into all the world and preach the Gospel met daily in the Temple (whose very leaders had urged the Romans to crucify their Lord), worshipping and praising God. Then came the stunning fact that Stephen, one of their leaders, had been stoned to death. Persecution had begun. And with it, the beginning of the fulfillment of the Great Commission. The persecutor, himself arrested by God, became Paul the persecuted, leading the way in carrying the Gospel to the stronghold of Caesar himself.
So by unexpected means God frequently makes possible the impossible—motivating the unmotivated.
Taken by permission and adapted from “Legacy of a Pack Rat” By Ruth Bell Graham. ©1989, The Ruth Bell Graham Literary Trust