Finding Your People

There's a kind of loneliness that has almost nothing to do with how many people are in the room. You can have a good marriage, a full house, a church you love, a phone full of contacts, and still feel it. It's the ache of not having people who are walking in the same direction you are, with the same hunger for God that you carry. You can be surrounded and still feel like you're walking your road by yourself.

I want to take you to a road today. A real one.

In Rome there is an ancient road called the Via Appia, the Appian Way. It was built in 312 BC, more than three hundred years before Jesus was born, and long stretches of it are still there. You can walk on the original black basalt stones, the same volcanic paving that was laid down by Roman hands before the birth of Christ. I live in Pennsylvania, where our roads can barely survive a single winter, and yet these stones have held for more than two thousand years. When we take our groups to Rome, we walk on it. And we walk it for a reason. The Appian Way was the road into the city from the south, and Scripture tells us the Apostle Paul walked this very road.

Here is the moment I want you to see. It's tucked into Acts 28, and most of us read right past it.

And from there the brothers and sisters, when they heard about us, came as far as the Market of Appius and the Three Inns to meet us; and when Paul saw them, he thanked God and took courage. (Acts 28:15)

Picture where Paul is when this happens. He has survived a shipwreck. He has been beaten, imprisoned, and carried across the sea in chains toward a trial he cannot predict. He wrote to the church in Rome years earlier and told them he longed to see them, but he had never actually been there, and he had never met most of them face to face. Now he is finally arriving, and he is arriving as a prisoner under guard. He is worn down by the very call of God that put him on this road.

And then word reaches the believers in Rome that Paul is coming. They don't wait for him at the city gate. They get up and walk out to meet him. One group came as far as the Market of Appius, about forty-three miles from Rome. Another came to the Three Inns, about thirty-three miles out. On foot. Down the same road you can still walk today. These were people who had never met Paul, walking miles into the countryside so he wouldn't have to walk that last stretch alone.

Community doesn't remove the hard road. It means you don't have to walk it by yourself.

Luke tells us exactly what it did to Paul. He thanked God and took courage. The word there for courage means confidence, boldness, the strength to face what's ahead. And notice what did not change. The chains were still on. The trial was still coming. Nothing about his circumstances shifted in that moment on the road. But something lifted anyway, because he was no longer alone. His people had come for him.

I have watched this same thing happen on that road with my own eyes, and I can barely explain it when it does. Women sign up for these trips, sometimes by themselves, nervous and unsure, not knowing a single other person. And somewhere along the way, usually sooner than they expect, they look up and realize the strangers they started the week with have become their people. They're praying for each other. They're walking the road together. They've found the family they didn't know they were missing.

One of the women who came last year came alone and didn't know anyone. Near the end of the week, we reached a stretch of the Appian Way lined with these particular trees I've only ever seen in Italy, and the afternoon sun broke through. And she heard the Holy Spirit say to her, Welcome. I've been waiting for you. She thought she was the one who had chosen the adventure. She realized on that road that God had been the one drawing her the whole time. That's a moment she will carry for the rest of her life, and it was never on my itinerary. I have my agenda. God has His own.

Here is what I want you to hear, whether you ever walk that road in Rome or not. You were never meant to walk your road alone. The life of a believer was never designed to be a solo journey. From the very beginning, God set His people in families, in communities, on the road together. And when Paul, the greatest missionary who ever lived, was at one of the lowest points of his life, what God sent him was not a vision or a sign. It was people. People walking down a road to meet him.

So let me ask you the question I can't stop asking. Who is walking your road with you right now? And if the honest answer is no one, not really, then I want to gently challenge you to do something about it. It will cost you something. It will mean going somewhere you wouldn't normally go, or talking to someone you wouldn't normally talk to, or stepping past the comfort of staying home. But you were made for the kind of community that comes out to meet you on the road. And that can change everything.

Father, thank You that You never meant for us to walk alone. When Paul was tired and discouraged and in chains, You sent him people who walked miles just to meet him and give him courage. Right now I'm thinking of the woman reading this who is walking a hard road, and walking it alone. Would You send her Your people? Would You bring into her life those who are walking toward You, so they can walk together? And in the meantime, would You let her feel that she is not truly alone, because You are walking with her too. Thank You for being the God who comes to meet us on the road. In Jesus' name, amen.

If your heart is longing for that kind of community, listen to this week's episode of the Hearing Jesus podcast, The Road Where Paul Wasn't Alone, where I walk you down the Via Appia and tell the whole story. [Listen here → Finding Your People]