Saint Paul’s Story Teaches Us Patience



In a sped-up world, patience is golden.

Twice in the last week, I heard the story of how long Paul waited before he started his formal ministry. First, when listening to a Christian teaching and second, this morning reading the Bible. I didn’t search for the scripture, it was just part of the sequential reading pattern I use.

Here are the verses (KJV):

Galatians 1:18 Then after three years I went up to Jerusalem to see Peter, and abode with him fifteen days.

Galatians 2:1 Then fourteen years after I went up again to Jerusalem with Barnabas, and took Titus with me also.


From what I gather from these verses, after Paul’s miraculous conversion on the way to Damascus, he waited for three years before he went to Jerusalem and then waited another 14 years before going back there again and beginning his mission trips.

In Galatians chapter one he talks about going to Arabia for three years and then back to Damascus before going to Jerusalem for the first time.

In total, Paul waited 17 years before he set out to preach to the Jews and Gentiles on his mission trips. The Bible doesn’t tell us what he did in the interim.

Paul was a younger man when he was Saul, so after these 17 years of waiting, he must have been closer to middle age.

It would seem if someone had such a profound encounter with Jesus himself, they would want to proclaim it right away to everyone, yet Paul was patient and waited until he was led by God.

In our modern world, everything is sped-up and accelerated. If someone has to wait a day to do something important it may seem like forever. I think that is why this message is so important to us Christians today.

Yes, we want to please God and do His will, yet are we patient enough to wait for it to be revealed to us? What if it takes years for us to know, even decades?

I think partly the problem is the thought of these being the end times, so there isn’t much time left. Also, the way technology has conditioned us to expect things right away — instant gratification.

Regardless of these influences, let us consider how Paul felt after his conversion; his experience was likely more exciting than anything most of us have felt, yet he was willing to wait and be patient for his calling to come.

Knowing how long Paul waited for his calling to be sure gives me solace in my walk with God. Good things take time, even if it seems longer than we might want or think.

Let everyone run past us to the front of the line, because if God is with us in our waiting, whatever He has in store for us will happen without our striving. The patience developed could be the exact lesson He wanted us to learn in the first place.


Originally published at Medium


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