Philippians

Last night in our Bible study, we began studying the book of Philippians. It's probably my favorite book of the Bible. To start things off, we looked at the background history. Philippians is a letter the apostle Paul and his disciple Timothy wrote to the church at Philippi. They had visited Philippi a couple times before to begin the ministry and encourage the believers there. Philippi was a Roman colony and a major city in Macedonia. We found these details of Paul's first visit in Acts 16.
During the study, we asked the question, "Why did Paul go to Philippi in the first place?" We found it interesting that Paul and his companions were trying to go somewhere else and Luke writes that they were redirected by the Holy Spirit. It actually describes this that "the Holy Spirit prevented them from preaching the word in the province of Asia..." What does that mean?

Why would God do that?

Paul is trying to follow the command to go and preach the gospel everywhere and he isn't able to. Finally he receives a vision that tells them to head to Macedonia. I just found it interesting that his plans seemed good, seemed like they were what God would want, but God had a different idea. I don't know what God is doing in my life. It doesn't really make sense to me. He has a different idea. Life is taking a different direction than what I expected. I thought I understood God's will, but I feel like I've been prevented from doing something good. I'm waiting to see what his real plans are.