Acts 21

The prophet Agabus bound his own hands and feet with Paul’s belt and said: this is what will happen to you in Jerusalem. The people around Paul begged him not to go. They wept. They pleaded.

Paul heard all of it and went anyway.

He wasn’t being reckless. He wasn’t ignoring wise counsel. He had already settled something in himself. He was ready to die in Jerusalem if that’s what it came to. And he could hear the love in the pleading and still say: please stop trying to break my heart. You’re not changing my mind.

That’s a hard scene to sit with because Paul’s friends were right about what would happen. He did get arrested. He did suffer. And Paul was also right about what he had to do.

Both things were true. Good people who loved him well were telling him no. And God was telling him go. And he had to live with the tension of both without letting the love of his friends become the deciding vote.

While not as extreme, I’ve had moments where the people closest to me didn’t understand a direction I believed God had given. Where the concern was real and the love was real and the resistance was still something I had to move through. Those are some of the loneliest decisions in leadership.