Acts 11:19-26

Acts 11:19-26
English Standard Version (ESV)

  I love dramatic movies.  Within two hours, the characters experience a range of emotions from joy to despair, and by the end they've found some inspirational rallying point to push forward to a new level of understanding, often through some poignant teachable moment.
  In real life, things grow in fits and spurts, and it takes time.  In Antioch, Barnabas and Saul spent a year meeting with the church and teaching people.  For a year they were building, waiting, watching, teaching.  We often hear of overnight success stories, but we don't see the years of work and risk that went into the venture.  We only see the neatly-tailored story that follows.  Reality requires hard work and investment of sweat and tears.  In Antioch, they spent years building the church, teaching the people, trusting in the Holy Spirit and whatever speed God was choosing to work.
  In our own lives, we've got to trust that God is at work, and so we show up, day after day, leaning into the Holy Spirit, waiting and watching, knowing that it might take days or years to see the changes God has in store for us.  The Christian life is a whole-life journey, and there often aren't dramatic moments neatly wrapped up -- it's an investment of a lifetime, but the promise of Christ is that it's completely worth it!