Acts 8

Persecution broke out after Stephen’s death. The church in Jerusalem scattered. And then something unexpected happened. The scattering became the spreading. Every person driven out of Jerusalem carried the message to wherever they landed.

Philip ends up in Samaria, a place Jews didn’t go, and the gospel breaks out there. Then he gets sent to a desert road and runs into an Ethiopian official reading Isaiah in his chariot. He baptizes him and the man goes back to Ethiopia. Just like that, the gospel is in Africa.

None of this was in the original plan. It happened because pressure pushed people out of where they were comfortable. And they carried what they had with them.

I’ve watched this in people’s lives. A job loss that redirected someone into the work they were actually supposed to do. A relationship ending that opened a door they’d been too comfortable to walk through. A hard season that scattered someone from a familiar environment into one where they actually thrived.

God doesn’t waste the scattering. He tends to use it.