With steadfast purpose

So Barnabas went to Tarsus to look for Saul, and when he had found him, he brought him to Antioch.  Acts 11:25

Let me take the time and effort to be a Barnabas.  Barnabas didn’t just make good decisions of reconciliation and encouragement when things happened around him, which would be pretty cool.

He noticed who was missing and sought them out.  It’s one thing to notice the people sitting alongside the edge of the party by themselves.  It’s another to remember who isn’t even there.  

Paul wasn’t there.  He had fled to Tarsus because people were trying to kill him.  Pretty much his whole life: his training, his family connections, his purpose, was in tatters.  And although Tarsus is a lovely town nestled in sea cliffs, things could seem pretty bleak.

And Barnabas, a good man, full of faith and the Holy Spirit, went to Tarsus and looked for Saul.  And then hung out with him for a year, discipling him, walking through this new faith with him, even though surely he could not have been everyone’s favorite person.  But Barnabas stuck it out.  And then he gave Paul a good project for making friends, gathering together gifts to take to the Christians in Jerusalem, who were suffering from famine.

So this are the sort of things a good and faithful person is doing.  And he was the go-to guy when the Gentiles needed to be included into the body.  Up until now, for their whole entire lives, the Jews had been trained to not even talk to Gentiles.  This was the shocking behavior of Jesus though, like when he hung out with the woman at the well.  But when the Gentiles received the word of God, old Barnabas included them as well, and encouraged them, and urged them to be steadfast.  And of course, there’s John Mark.  I guess he was sort of a goofball and messed around and was unreliable and a piece of work.  But that was ok for Barnabas.  He invited him along on the adventure and led him into strength and maturity.  

May I be Barnabas today, looking for who is not seen.  Who is in the highways and byways and seek them out for rebuilding and restoration to calling.