That would be a very good question for potential missionaries (well, at least for those thinking of going to Spain). Might we be permitted to ask the same question of the Apostle Paul whose desire to travel to Spain is clearly stated in Romans 15:23ff?
What was driving his desire - the simple fact that the gospel had not yet reached those regions? No doubt. That the people there were in thrall to idols as much as any other nation and needed to hear the gospel of God’s grace? Of course. Yet it would be wrong to imagine that Paul’s plans sprang from a disinterested pragmatism – they were the distilled passion of a man eager to see Jesus honoured as Lord and for the nations to know the blessings of his reign. If Jesus has not been preached in Spain, Paul will go there to make him known.
But it may well be that Paul’s decision to go to Spain was not simply that it was the first – or even the best – place he came upon where the gospel was unknown. He made plain in Romans that his gospel centres on the reality that Jesus is Lord, that “our God reigns”; in that light, Paul may have felt his desire to go to Spain was scripturally mandated by Psalm 72, the great celebration of the Messiah’s reign and the blessing of the nations in him.
Psalm 72:10 tells us that “the kings…of distant shores will bring tribute to him” and Spain was, indeed, relatively distant. But it may be even more specific than that: verse 10, in full, speaks of “The kings of Tarshish”. Where was Tarshish? The question has not been settled with complete certainty but, in all likelihood, it was a reference to Spain.
Paul longed to bring people to the obedience of faith to King Jesus. Psalm 72 says that the kings of Spain will be among them – and Paul takes note and makes his plans to go there – yes, because it is unreached but also because he wants with all his heart to fulfil the mandate of his Lord.
But all the evidence (or perhaps the lack of it) suggests that Paul never in fact got there. The desire to go was right and good; it was both sensible and scriptural. Yet in the purposes of God it seems Paul was not the one to take the gospel there. So was his desire misplaced and his efforts wasted?
Not in God’s hands, for the desire to go to Spain and the need to pass through Rome called forth the letter to the Romans, a letter that has been used by God at critical times in the church’s history and has been a blessing to untold numbers through the centuries.
Your desire may be to go where the gospel is not known; you may even feel that the call to go is scripturally mandated – and yet the way has not opened up. Were you wrong to have that desire? Was your reading of scripture mistaken? Not necessarily; but the Lord of the harvest works out his plans as he sees fit. And he will not waste that desire – it may have resulted in fervent prayer for places you might never have prayed for; your evident concern for those who have never heard may have deeply moved others who now serve the Lord in just such a place; your discussions with others about your sense of call may have caused them to lay aside their factionalism in order to focus more clearly on the gospel.
Who knows how the Lord may have used what was a right desire and one based squarely upon scripture? What we can be sure of is that he will have used it – and your story is not done with yet; so “never be lacking in zeal, but keep your spiritual fervour, serving the Lord. Be joyful in hope, patient in affliction, faithful in prayer” (Rom. 12:11,12).
