When God Doesn't Act in Power

Beginning in Acts 21, Paul is persecuted, arrested, bound, beaten, tried, falsely accused, and then finally, in the end of chapter 24, is left in prison under Felix for two years. Two years, just because Felix wanted to extort a bribe, and to please the Jews. What did Paul even do for two years in jail? Then after the two years he was summoned to trial again, but only as a scheme by the Jews to kill him. Paul appealed to Caesar, and was transported by ship, but the ship was wrecked. When he finally reached Rome he was kept under house arrest for another two years, just because Caesar was too busy to see him.

Now to put this story in context, not long before Paul had left on this doomed journey, Peter had been miraculously delivered from prison twice. Why hadn't Paul been delivered as Peter had been?

At the end of last semester I was waiting patiently for my letter of acceptance to BYU's film program--I had plenty of experience, met all the expectations, followed all the steps, and all of my film friends said I was probably the most likely to get accepted. But my letter came, and it was not an acceptance letter.

So this whole semester I've been trying to decide what major to study instead. I finally decided on advertising, and I started talking to advisers and learning more about how to get into that program. What I found out was I would have to burn another semester taking the pre-req courses, then after that semester ended I could apply to the program, and if I got accepted, I could begin classes in the major the semester after that. Why did I have to be set back a whole year and a half? It's a little upsetting.

But I think it's those times when the Lord doesn't make bare His mighty arm, when He doesn't deliver you, that your faith can really show. During his years in confinement he wrote several of his epistles now included in the New Testament; he taught people in the prisons, and people who came to his house to hear him; he testified before kings and rulers of the world. He accomplished miracles--just as God had promised him--because he wasn't delivered.