I suppose every preacher has shared Paul’s experience in the first part of verse 9 – having someone doze off during a sermon that went a little too long. And how many high-school teachers have had their share of sleepy students, especially during those after-lunch class periods?

But if the first part of verse 9 is all too familiar, verses 10 and 12 certainly are not, for Eutychus’ life came back into him just because Paul picked him up. And such a miracle makes us wonder: why doesn’t God do things like that all the time? Why doesn’t God bring all our loved ones back to us in the way that Paul raised Eutychus from the dead?

Well, why did Paul have to go on talking so late into the night in the first place? It turns out he couldn’t stay in Troas very long because the unbelieving Jews were plotting against him (20:3). In fact, later in this same chapter, Paul told the people in Ephesus that bonds and afflictions were awaiting him in Jerusalem (20:23).

So, if Paul had access to divine power to raise Eutychus from the dead, why couldn’t the same power keep all those plots against Paul from succeeding? We simply don’t know. We don’t know why God sometimes chooses to pour out His healing and protecting power and sometimes He doesn’t. We don’t know because we are not God. We are not in control. We can’t see the whole picture. We can’t understand how both blessings given and blessings withheld can serve to increase God’s glory and to bring us great good.

In short, we are left exactly where Eutychus and his family and Paul and all his friends were: having to trust in God. We pray for our friends and loved ones to be healed and protected. We rejoice when, like in the case of Eutychus, God answers our prayers. And we submit to God’s will when suffering and death are part of His plan. For after all, the God we trust was willing to suffer and die for us so that we might be blessed and healed, and so that one day we’ll all experience the joy of the resurrection that Eutychus and his family experienced on that night in Troas. So even if we can’t always understand Him, we can trust a God Who is always that powerful, and yet that loving.

Acts 20:1-16 (ESV)

After the uproar ceased, Paul sent for the disciples, and after encouraging them, he said farewell and departed for Macedonia.
2 When he had gone through those regions and had given them much encouragement, he came to Greece.
3 There he spent three months, and when a plot was made against him by the Jews as he was about to set sail for Syria, he decided to return through Macedonia.
4 Sopater the Berean, son of Pyrrhus, accompanied him; and of the Thessalonians, Aristarchus and Secundus; and Gaius of Derbe, and Timothy; and the Asians, Tychicus and Trophimus.
5 These went on ahead and were waiting for us at Troas,
6 but we sailed away from Philippi after the days of Unleavened Bread, and in five days we came to them at Troas, where we stayed for seven days.
7 On the first day of the week, when we were gathered together to break bread, Paul talked with them, intending to depart on the next day, and he prolonged his speech until midnight.
8 There were many lamps in the upper room where we were gathered.
9 And a young man named Eutychus, sitting at the window, sank into a deep sleep as Paul talked still longer. And being overcome by sleep, he fell down from the third story and was taken up dead.
10 But Paul went down and bent over him, and taking him in his arms, said, “Do not be alarmed, for his life is in him.”
11 And when Paul had gone up and had broken bread and eaten, he conversed with them a long while, until daybreak, and so departed.
12 And they took the youth away alive, and were not a little comforted.
13 But going ahead to the ship, we set sail for Assos, intending to take Paul aboard there, for so he had arranged, intending himself to go by land.
14 And when he met us at Assos, we took him on board and went to Mitylene.
15 And sailing from there we came the following day opposite Chios; the next day we touched at Samos; and the day after that we went to Miletus.
16 For Paul had decided to sail past Ephesus, so that he might not have to spend time in Asia, for he was hastening to be at Jerusalem, if possible, on the day of Pentecost.