Small Steps to a Larger End

Paul had strongly desired to get to Spain. Did God ever let him get there?

22 That is why I have been prevented many times from coming to you. 23 But now I no longer have any work to do in these regions, and I have strongly desired for many years to come to you 24 whenever I travel to Spain.

For I hope to see you when I pass through and to be assisted by you for my journey there…
(Romans 15:22-24a, Christian Standard Bible)

N.T. Wright:

Did Paul ever get to Spain? There is no evidence whatever that he did. But his desire to do so, and the fact that he wrote Romans as part of the preparation for such a trip, points out an extremely important lesson for us all.

Perhaps God sometimes allows us to dream dreams of what he wants us to do, not necessarily so that we can fulfil all of them — that might just make us proud and self-satisfied — but so that we will take the first steps towards fulfilling them.

And perhaps those first steps (as they appear to us) are in fact the key things that God actually wants us to do. Paul may not have got to Spain. That didn't matter; the gospel got there fairly soon anyway. What mattered then, and has mattered enormously in the whole history of the church, is that, as part of his plan to go to Spain, he wrote Romans.

We should never underestimate what God will do through things which we see as small steps to a larger end.

The right reverend Wright is very right — this is an extremely important lesson for us all. I’m struck by his idea that part of why God allows us to dream dreams sometimes is just to take a step towards them. That its not the fulfillment of the dream, but that first move, that he really wanted for us.

That the small step was actually the step.

Huh.

That’s worth pondering.