A Travelling Companion

I spoke yesterday about Luke, the writer of both the Gospel of Luke and the book of Acts.  Luke, Paul tells us, is a doctor.  I asked the question yesterday, “Are you a doctor,” knowing that 2 to 3 percent would answer “yes” in the United States.  The question wasn’t asked to weed out all the non-doctors reading these blog posts.  On the contrary, I asked the question to help make a point.

Doctors are “made” by having a group of other doctors who agree, “She is one of us.”  The work, the lessons, the practice, and the testing is all set at a level that only other doctors know and agree upon.  Once a person has done this level of work to the satisfaction of other doctors, that person can also be called, “Doctor.”

I share all this because Luke is referred to as a doctor and, for all of us non-doctors, he becomes one of the elite.  He knows a bunch more than we do.  He is smarter than we are.  He is more capable, too.  We put Luke on a pedestal and think we can’t be like him and the ministry he did as a part of God’s Kingdom.  The rest of this week, though, we are going to debunk this myth.  Luke was a human being just like the rest of us.  Much of what Luke can do, we can do.  God can work in and through us just like God worked in and through Luke. The first thing Luke did that we can also do is this: Luke was a travelling companion to Paul.

After Paul had seen the vision, we got ready at once to leave for Macedonia, concluding that God had called us to preach the gospel to them. From Troas we put out to sea and sailed straight for Samothrace, and the next day we went on to Neapolis. From there we traveled to Philippi, a Roman colony and the leading city of that district of Macedonia. And we stayed there several days. (Acts 16:10-12 NIV)

Notice the language in the sentences above, “we got ready,” “we put out to sea,” “we went on to Neapolis,” etc.  Luke was with Paul and other travelling companions as they went around and started up churches, encouraged existing churches, and built people up in their faith.  Luke was right there.  He was one of the team.  He showed up.

How about you?  Do you show up?  Are you a part of the team?  Do you get to see God at work from the front lines?  You can by simply going where God calls you to go.