Acts 21:27-32. When the seven days of purification in which Paul is engaging are almost up, the Jews from Asia, who have seen him in the temple and know who he is, begin riling up the people. They say that Paul is the man who has been preaching against the faith and that he has brought Greeks into the temple, thus defiling it. A mob forms and drags Paul from the temple and begins beating him, trying to kill him. Word of the unrest reaches the Roman cohort and soldiers and centurions come running to the scene. When the people see the soldiers and the tribune, they stop beating Paul.

As I was reading this I was thinking of the several times that people tried to kill Jesus, but He simply walked away - He did not endure the beatings or stonings that were planned for Him (until the time came for Him to give himself over to His Passion, that is). Paul often encounters similar situations, but he actually endures the beatings before he is rescued from death. Jesus is saving Paul in these situations, but He lets Paul go through certain sufferings first. Paul does not have the innate power and control that Jesus had, so Paul has to do his best to avoid these situations, but then endure them until he is saved. Eventually, like Jesus, Paul's time will come and he will not be saved, but unlike Jesus Paul does not know when this is. It won't be, however, until Paul has "run the race."

This is all of us, too. We are human, we are sinners, and so, even when we have given ourselves over completely to God, we are subject to the whims and sufferings of this world. We do not have the power to save ourselves from them. Jesus has this has this power, and He will save us as well (He already has!). Unlike Him, though, we cannot just walk away from the mobs under our own power and control, we have to wait for Him to step in (even if in the form of a Roman cohort).

I think maybe the sufferings we endure when doing God's will are meant to save us from purgatory or time in purgatory. Let's face it, Paul did some very awful things before his conversion. Now, though, he is completely dedicated to Christ. God wants Paul to come right to heaven upon his death, so maybe the beatings and stonings are the temporal punishments purging Paul of his sins so that he can and will go immediately to Heaven. I like to think this when I see good people suffering a lot - that maybe God is allowing them to experience their purgatory here so He can welcome them immediately into His kingdom upon their death. If we accept our sufferings in this spirit, they become much easier to bear and they help cleanse our souls in preparation for Heaven!