What is the wise place to be when we start new things?

What is the wise place to be when we start new things?

The wise place to be when we start new things is on our knees.

In Acts 16, we see Paul’s travelogue to Phillipi.

v12 From there we traveled to Philippi, a Roman colony and the leading city of that district of Macedonia. And we stayed there several days. 13 On the Sabbath we went outside the city gate to the river, where we expected to find a place of prayer. We sat down and began to speak to the women who had gathered there.

V12 says, for the first few days it does not seem that anything notable happened. But on Sabbath there is a shift. Following the model set by our Lord Jesus (Mark 1:35), they went out of the city to pray by the river. Then something new happens!

v14 One of those listening was a woman from the city of Thyatiray named Lydia, a dealer in purple cloth. She was a worshiper of God. The Lord opened her heart to respond to Paul’s message. 15 When she and the members of her household were baptized, she invited us to her home.

At the river, Lydia a wealthy merchant, who likely was a worshiper of Yahweh opens up to the message of the Gospel as proclaimed by Paul. Text is clear that it is the Lord who opened her heart. Paul and his team stayed at Lydia’s house, which commentators believe likely became the first house church in Phillipi. This new thing happened because Paul and his faithful team were on their knees.

Human nature resists being on our knees before the Lord to yield to the divine. In Hamlet, Shakespeare captures this resistance to prayer, imploring us with the words, “Bow, stubborn knees, and, heart with strings of steel, be soft as sinews of the newborn babe.” If we bow our stubborn knees, and commit to divine leading, new life shall begin.

Prayer is like a gentle rain that awakens the slumbering seedlings into a new life. Prayer is the fuel of new birth and so the wise place to be when we start new things is on our knees.