July 13

Acts 9

Truly, the story of Paul's conversion is one of my favorites.  Every time I read it God speaks to me in a different way.  The last time we saw Saul in our reading was in chapter 8:3 where it says that he made havoc of the church, entering every house, and dragging off men and women, committing them to prison. He has now continued his work and moved on to the city of Damascus.  As I studied this, I learned it was about a six day journey.  Saul was committed, in his mind, to persecuting the church.  Then, while on his way, he has an encounter with Jesus and Jesus asks Saul a simple question, ""Why are you persecuting Me?". As the heavenly light overwhelms him, Saul is confronted by the true nature of his crime: He is persecuting God, not man. I guess Saul wasn't prepared to answer the question because his response came as as two questions, "Who are You Lord", and  "What do You want me to do?"  I couldn't help but notice that Saul  recognized Jesus and called Him Lord, then spent the rest of his life discovering the answers to his own questions. We see humility meet submission all at once. A divine encounter which changed his life forever. Saul humbled himself before God and became Paul.  Every time I read this story I can't help but think that in order to walk this journey we all need a Damascus road experience to understand Who God is, but once we have our divine encounter we must also ask the second question - "What do You want me to do?" This is the ongoing conversation I personally want to have with Jesus so that I too spend the rest of my life discovering the answer. I believe we find the answer in our service. Saul entered into a very personal relationship with God that day when he asked "What do You want me to do?"  I pray that when we lay our requests at the foot of the Cross, we allow God to answer the same two questions in our lives, as He did with Paul, -  Who He is, and what He wants us to do, and the lifetime answer will unfold as we serve.

Randi