Soul Snack 8/97 ..."Wrecked Work?"
Fourteen days of just one storm while sailing across the volatile ancient Mediterranean had taken it's expected toll. No food taken, no energy in reserve.
But for Paul, more terror was yet to come.
These shipwreck survivors were greeted by an evening shiveringly cold, so opposite to the warm and welcome hospitality of Malta's inhabitants. The fire had to be built with haste.
Reaching down through the darkness both blindly and boldly into unseen brushes was the now emaciated hand of a man who had already suffered too much.
As Paul placed the wood deliberately over the fire, a viper with jaws extended, attached itself viciously to sink its deadly poison in.
Paul gathered a pile of brushwood and, as he put it on the fire, a viper, driven out by the heat, fastened itself on his hand. Acts 28:3
But Paul shook the snake off into the fire and suffered no ill effects. Acts 28:5
Nearly two centuries ago J.C. Ryle explained 'a man is immortal until his work is done.' I go when my work is gone.
God still had work in Rome for Paul to do. God still has you chosen for His work too.
Please see John 15:16 and Eph 2:10