Serving God is far from easy
It’s a frequent misunderstanding. Many of us Christians live with a hope that, because God loves us, he will rescue us from episodes of pain and tragedy. When we believe that, we set ourselves up for a crisis of faith, as we become disappointed with God - even though we are angry with his failure to deliver what He never promised in the first place. And then we can think that if we are truly in the will of God, then opposition will be minimal, and everything will easily slip into place. Paul gives us one sentence to remember when we’re tempted to succumb to the idea of an easy ride for those who walk in step with God, as he talks about an ‘open door’ and opposition in the same breath. Ephesus was the place where he had ‘fought wild beasts’. Some say that this was a literal statement, as people were often forced to fight wild animals in the Ephesian stadium. But as a Roman citizen, Paul would have been spared this ordeal; if he had literally fought them, it’s unlikely that he would have survived. In those days the saying was often used to indicate opposition, so Paul was probably referring to the terrifying crowd that had gathered in the stadium, and the occult forces that drove them.
The words that Paul uses speak of a door ‘that stands open’. He must continue to walk through it. But that means that he had to embrace all kinds of challenges as he does. As we saw yesterday, when Paul headed to Jerusalem and bade farewell to his Ephesian friends, he did so with the full awareness that there was trouble ahead. And this was not just guesswork - the Holy Spirit had made it clear. If we’re trying to obey God, and walk through open doors of opportunity, but encounter struggle and difficulty as we do, let’s not rush to think that we have made a wrong turn. The open door for Paul was an open door to a battlefield.