Then Philip went down to the city of Samaria, and preached Christ unto them. -- Acts 8:5 (KJV)
Philip walked into Samaria and the city caught fire. The crowds gave heed with one accord. Unclean spirits came out crying with loud voices, the lame and the palsied were healed, and Luke says there was great joy in that city. Read quickly, it sounds like a revival that began the day Philip showed up.
It began earlier than that.
A Conversation at a Well
Years before, Jesus left Judaea and took the road most Jews went out of their way to avoid. He went through Samaria on purpose, sat down tired at a well, and talked with one woman whose history had taught her to keep strangers at arm's length. She left her waterpot and ran back to town, and many Samaritans believed because of what she told them.
Philip was reaping in a field Jesus had already turned over. The crowds pressing in on him in Acts 8 were standing where a single midday conversation had put down roots years before. The revival that looked sudden had been coming up slowly the whole time.
The Harvest Keeps Its Own Calendar
Most of the witness God asks of you will feel like nothing while you are doing it. A patient word to a coworker. A neighbor you keep showing up for. A son or daughter you keep telling the truth, who keeps looking the other way. You speak, the ground stays quiet, and after a while you wonder whether any of it landed.
Jesus spoke with one woman, and a whole town came in years down the road. The quiet over your work is not the same thing as failure. Seed underground looks like nothing right up until it doesn't.
There is probably a slow conversation in your life right now, one where you have stopped expecting much to come of it. Philip's Samaria is the reason to stay in it. You could be planting a city you will never live to see.
