After we had been there a number of days, a prophet named Agabus came down from Judea. Coming over to us, he took Paul's belt, tied his own hands and feet with it and said, "The Holy Spirit says, 'In this way the Jews of Jerusalem will bind the owner of this belt and will hand him over to the Gentiles.' "
When we heard this, we and the people there pleaded with Paul not to go up to Jerusalem. Then Paul answered, "Why are you weeping and breaking my heart? I am ready not only to be bound, but also to die in Jerusalem for the name of the Lord Jesus." When he would not be dissuaded, we gave up and said, "The Lord's will be done." (Acts 21:10-21)
Is sending a missionary to a field hostile to the Gospel good use of what we've been given? I wonder if that's what the brothers in Caesarea were thinking. Here was a man, Paul, a great missionary because of the message he proclaimed, wanting to go where God's message would be rejected and/or seemingly bear little fruit. Yet he goes, gets the chance of a lifetime to proclaim to his fellow Jews in Jerusalem, before the Sanhedrin, and even before kings...but what a waste. Many rejected his message, they put him in prison, they chained him up, and eventually killed him. Yet God's Word still bore fruit (as you can see from the following chapters in Acts). God's Word bore fruit even when people of faith thought the place and time to proclaim that Word wasn't a good idea. Besides that, our mission as witnesses of the Gospel is to follow our Lord, not only to the heaven He has won for us, but also follow Him to the cross.
This is also a marvelous text on handling disagreements. Was one side (Paul) right and the others (Luke and others) wrong? I'm not convinced of that. Yet what did they do? They yielded to their spiritual leader and said, "The Lord's will be done."
My synod has decided in convention to expand rather than use what it has. Was it the right decision? I'm not convinced it was. My leaders who are fallible have made a decision, and now the Lord's will be done. Good thing there's the rest of Acts, because then I see that even when a seemingly "wrong" decision goes very bad, the Lord's will was done then and it will be done now too. God's Word continues to be proclaimed.
Other than God's Word being proclaimed until the end of time, can we project/predict the Lord's Will?
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