BUILDING BRIDGES WHILE WAITING
First Read Acts 17:1–15
TROUBLED
“While Paul was waiting for them in Athens.” —Acts 17:16a
Athens wasn’t on Paul’s itinerary. He got shipped there for his own protection because while he was in Thessalonica, a mob was called together to riot against him and Silas. Apparently, these guys earned points for chasing preachers, because the same troublemakers walked forty-five miles over three days from Thessalonica to Berea just to stir up more chaos about Paul’s preaching.
The local believers in Berea were like, “Paul, buddy, love the sermons, love all the people accepting Jesus in our own town, but you’ve got to go or you’re going to get beaten to death.” So they hustled him thirty miles down to the coast, put him on a small ship for the three-to-five-day, nearly two-hundred-mile cruise to Athens, and dropped him off like he was in witness protection.
I can see Paul now, hungry, sitting unexpectedly in Athens, near a food stand, eating a piece of maza, a flat cake made from barley meal mixed with water and olive oil.
For a moment, it looks like he might actually get a little breather, a few quiet weeks to recharge before his friends arrive, then head to Corinth.
Nope. He found himself surrounded by statues of false gods. Marble and bronze idols filled the streets, courtyards, and hillsides; even tiny household gods guarded the doors. Every one of them was credited with keeping something in the world from falling apart.
These statues were everywhere.
Silent.
Stunning.
And as Paul knew—spiritually hollow.
“...he was deeply troubled by all the idols he saw everywhere in the city.” —Acts 17:16b
The statues the Athenians worshiped weren’t just idols to Paul; they were evidence of a city full of people searching for truth and meaning in all the wrong places. The Greek word Luke uses for “deeply troubled” carries the sense of frustration mingled with heartbreak.
They grieved him—
because the people would never find truth or meaning in them.
He saw intelligence without revelation.
Beauty without truth.
Spirituality without hope.
The apostle wasn’t planning to preach that day. He was just waiting for his friends to arrive. But God turned his waiting into a mission field.
Many of us reading this know what it feels like to wait.
Waiting for a relationship to heal.
Waiting for the finances to stabilize.
Waiting to graduate with the degree.
Waiting for the grief to pass.
Waiting for the next stage of life.
These are all waiting rooms. And we don’t like waiting. It feels unproductive, like life is stuck in neutral. But God turns our waiting rooms into His mission field.
In the waiting rooms of our lives, we start to notice what people around us are trusting in for meaning and hope.
The career that defines them.
The relationship that completes them.
The approval they can’t live without.
The comfort they chase to quiet the ache.
The success they think will finally make them enough.
But like Paul, waiting shouldn’t make us passive. It should open our eyes.
Because when life slows down, we finally start to see what’s really happening around us. We notice the ache beneath people’s laughter. The spiritual emptiness that hides under all the noise. And if we’re paying attention, it begins to stir something inside us—a holy discomfort that pushes us to speak for Christ.
That’s what I want for my heart, too. To be troubled the same way Paul’s was. To see the world’s false gods for what they are, not with disgust, but with compassion that refuses to stay quiet.
Reflection
What if this moment in life you’ve been seeing only as a waiting room is actually the place God wants to use as His mission field?
What if God is slowing you down, not to sideline you, but to position you right where someone else’s breakthrough is waiting?
Who’s standing in the waiting room
of the job you want to leave,
the semester of classes you can’t wait to finish,
or the neighborhood you didn’t plan to stay in?
Someone God is already reaching for.
And He’s waiting to do it through you.
Prayer
God, open my eyes in the waiting.
Help me see my waiting room as Your mission field.
Teach me to see the hollowness of the idols people cling to,
and let that trouble my heart the way it troubled Paul’s.
Not with judgment, but with love that refuses to stay quiet.
When I see my plans as delayed,
help me remember it might be because
You’re setting up someone else’s breakthrough.
Use me in the waiting, Lord.
Make me a bridge that leads straight to You.
BUILDING BRIDGES IN THE WILDERNESS
If there was ever a city that looked religious but felt spiritually lost, it was Athens.
And Paul didn’t storm through the city shouting about idols. He walked their streets. He noticed their patterns. He studied their words. Then he started having conversations wherever people were talking about life and faith.
That’s how bridge-builders begin: by entering the conversation before giving the sermon.
“People of Athens! I see that you are very religious in every way.” —Acts 17:22
It wasn’t flattery. It was awareness. Paul understood that the gospel doesn’t land in a vacuum, but in hearts that already believe something. So rather than dismantling everything they thought they knew, he started with what they already sensed: that something was missing.
“I even found an altar with this inscription: ‘To an Unknown God.’ What you worship as something unknown, I’m going to proclaim to you.” —Acts 17:23
That’s brilliant. They had a placeholder for mystery, and Paul turned it into a doorway for revelation.
He built a bridge out of what was already standing in their world.
Then he began to describe the true God who was unlike any they had known—one who didn’t live in temples or feed on human sacrifices, but who gives life and breath, the same God who doesn’t wait for us to reach Him because He’s already reaching for us.
“He is not far from any one of us.” (v. 27)
That’s the heartbeat of this passage: the God who builds bridges toward people even in their wilderness.
And Paul doesn’t stop there. He quotes their own poets — their language, their truth fragments — “In him we live and move and have our being.” He takes their art, their philosophy, their longing, and connects it to the God who made them. It’s not compromise; it’s wisdom.
Because truth leaves fingerprints everywhere.
That’s what bridge-builders do.
And that’s what you can do, too.
Start looking for the fingerprints of God in the stories, songs, and questions of the people around you.
In conversations with friends.
In the news headlines.
In the movies that stir something deep inside the people you love.
Trace those lines back to Him. Because every longing, most questions, many lyrics, and every great movie script can become an open door to talk about the truth of Scripture.
Then comes the turn.
Paul moves from connection to confrontation. He says the time of ignorance is over.
The bridge has to lead somewhere.
“God overlooked people’s ignorance about these things in earlier times, but now he commands everyone everywhere to repent of their sins and turn to him.” —Acts 17:30
This is the moment that defines every bridge: when you move from curiosity to clarity. When you love someone enough to tell them the truth that can change everything.
Paul doesn’t end with guilt—he ends with hope.
“He has set a day when he will judge the world with justice by the man he has appointed; and he has given proof of this to everyone by raising him from the dead.” —Acts 17:31
The resurrection was his anchor point—the proof that this bridge actually holds.
Some sneered. Some wanted to hear more. Many believed. That’s how it always goes. Not everyone crosses the bridge. But the bridge still matters.
Because the wilderness is still full of people searching for the God they do not yet know.
Reflection
What if God has already started building bridges in the world around you, and He’s waiting for you to finish them?
Maybe the conversations you’ve been having aren’t random. Maybe that co-worker who keeps opening up, or the friend who asks deep questions, is actually standing at the edge of a bridge God’s been building all along.
You don’t have to force it. You don’t have to have all the answers. Just start where they are, like Paul did. Listen. Notice. Find the fingerprints of God in the culture around you and trace them back to Him.
Because the same God who reached into Athens is still reaching into your world.
Through your words.
Through your relationships.
Through your life.
Prayer
God, help me see the bridges You’re already building around me.
In the stories people tell me.
In the questions they ask me.
In the ache behind their laughter.
Teach me to enter the conversation for You.
Help me listen first, love deeply, and speak wisely.
Show me how to find Your fingerprints in the people around me and point them to You.
And when the time comes to speak clearly,
give me courage to tell the truth with hope—
the same hope that holds because of Your resurrection.
Use my life, Lord,
to build bridges in the wilderness.
FIVE BRIDGES BY CHRISTMAS
So here’s the challenge. Between now and Christmas, pick five people in your life who don’t yet know Jesus. Five names. Coworkers. Neighbors. Friends. Family. The people already in your world. Write their names down. Pray over them. Then take an honest look at where each relationship really is.
Some of them might be at the listening stage—
you’re just learning their story,
asking questions,
earning the right to be heard.
Others might be at the connecting stage—
you’ve built some trust,
and now it’s time to bring faith into the conversation
in natural, authentic ways.
And maybe one or two are ready for the invitation stage—
where you finally say,
“Come with me,”
or
“Can I tell you what Jesus has done in my life?”
That’s how bridges get built. One honest step at a time.
And here’s the beautiful part: you’re not responsible for who crosses that bridge—you’re just responsible for building it.
So imagine what could happen between now and Christmas if every one of us built five new bridges. The God who met Paul in Athens is still walking through our classrooms, workplaces, and coffee shops. Still reaching through us.
Let’s make sure no one in our world has to keep worshiping an “unknown God.”
Because the Advent season, which is just around the corner, isn’t just about remembering that God came near—it’s about helping someone else discover that He still does.
©2025 Greg McNichols, All rights reserved.
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