“Now what?”

Philippians 1:12 “I want you to know, brothers, that what has happened to me has really served to advance the gospel.”

Here sits Paul, a prisoner of Rome and a disciple of Jesus Christ. Once a devout Jew and persecutor of The Way, he was converted to following Jesus when God literally shoved a heavenly spotlight in his face and spoke to him. Paul went from being the one leading the persecution of the followers of Jesus to being stoned, beaten, and imprisoned for being an apostle himself.

Now, let’s take a moment to contemplate his sentence in verse 12.

• “I want you to know, brothers, that I have no idea why these things have happened to me!” . . .

• “I want you to know, brothers, that terrible things keep happening to me!”. . .

• “I want you to know, brothers, that I am a victim of atrocities.” . . .

• “I want you to know, brothers, that I constantly wonder why these horrendous things have happened to me.”

Negative. Could he have said these things? Abso-freaking-lutely. Would he have been ‘justified’ to say those things? Probably! But he did not say those things.

Philippians 1:12 “I want you to know, brothers, that what has happened to me has really served to advance the gospel.”

Instead of dwelling on all the things that have happened to him in the past; he clearly states that these things happened to advance the gospel. He sought to advance the kingdom of God in his current situations rather than dwell on the past (specifically hurts).

The reality is that as prideful human beings, it is so easy to get caught up in the “why did this happen to me” mentality. So easy. Gosh, it is ridiculously easy to decide there has to be a good reason for why events occurred. Ask any parent. Our child does something, and we instantly want to know why they did it. But, they never really can tell us. ‘Why?’ constantly remains the unanswered question.

Paul did not ask why. Instead, he asked “Now what?” These painful experiences have happened to me and I am reeling from their effects. Now what? “what has happened to me has really served to advance the gospel.” 

Let me tell you, it is not easy to chose that path. I asked “why” a lot when my perfectly healthy, mission minded, Jesus loving brother got in a car accident that left him paralyzed for life instead of going on a mission trip to tell people about Jesus. How many times a day did I spiral into the whys of the events! But then one day, I heard a sermon about this very topic and changed my question to, “Now what, Lord?”

On November 13^th, I found out my mother had killed herself. Many, many questions went through my mind and will forever haunt me. But once I was able to process a little more clearly, the first thing I committed to asking was, “Now what, Lord?” I cannot stay in a downward spiral of whys. There is no point. There is no answer. That doesn’t change the past.

Instead, God demonstrated the beauty of the answers found when you ask “Now what, Lord?” God showed up and lit the darkness. Is the darkness still there? Yeah, we live in a world ruled by darkness from sin. But my, how God showed up to bring light. Every single dark moment was basically presented with an opposite light, advancing the kingdom of God moment. I am not kidding. It’s a long story, but I want to share what has happened to me and how it has really served to advance the gospel.