When I was fourteen, I gave my life to Christ. Church was something that was not really forced upon me growing up, yeah we went, but it was not like we were actively involved or anything like that. I can remember going to church and liking the stories, I liked the games and things like that, but the stories tended to make sense to me and I “got it” better than anything else. I became a Christian because I felt in my soul that I belonged there, and that there was something horribly wrong with the system. I will tell you more of my story as we go, but that is what you need to know for now.
The reason why I tell you that now is because the story of how we came to know Christ is one that will shape who you are. They also define what we focus on in ministry. Saul’s story is possibly one of the most popular conversion stories, and consequently the most misunderstood story. Often times, in our western culture we tend to view faith as this instant process in which you are this super-Christian right away. So this is about the story of Saul, but also our own stories, and how God uses our past, our path and our purpose to impact those around us.
So what was Saul’s background? He was a Pharisee who was well educated and considered successful by most standards. We first see him in Acts 8:1, at the stoning of Stephen. When reading the first section of chapter 9, it is apparent that Saul is ordering an eradication of the believers of the Way. “Breathing out threats and murder” is something that should not be taken lightly! He wanted ALL of them dead. It did not matter if it was a man or a woman. This just shows how intense his disdain is for the Christians. Soon, his path would cross with Jesus.
Jesus comes to him and asks him, “why are you persecuting me?” What is interesting about this, is that Jesus is referring to the church as a whole when he refers to himself. So just remember that, when people are persecuting you, they are also persecuting him, so it will not go unnoticed!
What Jesus does is come to Saul and interrupts his path. He decides that it is time to stop the direction he is going on and send him another way. We know that Jesus blinds him, and gives him a command to go to Damascus where he will be told what to do from there. What I find awesome is that even though Saul was persecuting the church, Jesus still had a place in his heart for him. What Saul was doing was horrible, but Jesus still wanted him to help the church.
In verse 10, Jesus goes to Ananias, and tells him to find Saul. What I love about this is that Jesus does not say, “The same Saul that has been persecuting me.”, instead he says, “A man from Tarsus named Saul, since he is praying there.” He also said that he received a vision about Ananias coming. It seems that Jesus is being sneaky here, because as soon as Ananias picks up on what is going on, he gives a “Wait, THAT SAUL????” Type of response, though he was quite diplomatic about telling Jesus that it was not the wisest move. But Jesus keeps telling him that he is an instrument for his use. As we all know, Ananias goes to Saul and heals him and delivers the message.
The rest of Acts shows Saul preaching in the Synagogues, and the same man that was hunting the Christians is now being hunted by the authorities. So what you are probably wondering is “how did he go from one extreme to the other?” There was a bit of a process, but when you think about it, teaching in the synagogues would have been perfect since he is a well versed Pharisee. He could prove that Jesus was the Son of God because he was familiar with the prophecies and could effectively debate.
So how does this apply to us? We all have our own Past, Path and Purpose in life, much like Saul did.
Past- Saul life as a Pharisee fit well into the need for a knowledgeable leader. Not only did this show that he could argue with the most educated of his kind, but this dramatic turnaround shows the massive amount of Grace that he accepted from Jesus. Often times, we have both types of people in our lives. Think about C.S. Lewis, he was a great apologist because he was once an atheist. He therefore knew the territory, and could argue on those levels. As for the grace received for grievous sins, the stunning turnaround can give faith to so many people.
Just think, in your life there has probably been a few things that you have gone through that not everyone can relate with. Or maybe a whole community of people has felt your pain as well but do not know how to approach it. Because of this, God has allowed you to experience what you have so that you may be more sensitive to them and be able to minister to them in a way someone like me could never. It can be really hard and confusing, but in my own life I figured that out.
When I look at my own past, I find that I was severely deficient in certain areas. The best way to hurt someone who has strong gifts is to make them weak in those areas. With the Romans 12 gifts, I always come out as an exhorter. Growing up, I did not have much encouragement from people… which is tough considering my disabilities. So I became discouraged, depressed and quiet (I am a natural extrovert). When I think about the gifts in Ephesians 4, I have always been told that I am a good teacher. Many of the churches I attended throughout my life gave false teaching and did not let me exercise my spiritual gift of teaching, which stunted my growth.
Many of us tend to fold and walk away because we just want the pain to stop so we find ways to avoid it. I tried that. I tried to walk away, but it did not work out so well. I then realized that if I did not become a Christian, then there would be no hope… and I needed to be that hope for other people. Because of my deficiency, it strengthened my resolve to give proper teaching and to make sure that those under my care are working to be whole and joyful people.
Path- Jesus found Saul on a road to arrest a large group of people. Instead of arresting them, Saul would eventually join them. God crosses our paths in many ways. Some at school, some at work, or through friends. God comes to us different ways at different points of our lives. What I have found about our paths, which span our entire lives, is that they are so different.
When I think about my path after I came to faith, it took about seven years for me to finally solidify and stabilize. I had some really bad run ins with churches, I accidentally joined a cult, was threatened with exorcism, to name a few. So I did not really have a firm grasp of scripture for a while. It was not until I took a class in undergrad on Hermaneutics that everything made sense for me.
Do I still remember those bad experiences? Yes. Do I let them hinder me? No. If I let it hinder me, then I will be cheating someone else out of a blessing. So instead I strengthened my resolve to become a better teacher. I just feel that Christians deserve a better class of leader than many of the leaders out there now.
With me, it was a slower process, and I got criticized a bit about it along the way. I had to learn to have grace with myself, and know that if I continued to beat myself up over it, then I would be hurting myself and eventually hurting others. Some of us have tougher roads than others, and we should always remember that everyone has a story and that we must be sensitive to their growth process. Also, some people do not heal as fast, so we must remember that their paths are a little more checkered then our own. But none the less, we are on unique paths that lead us to our unique purposes.
Purpose- There is this false belief that everyone’s highest purpose should be pastoral ministry. I have had a few people tell me that over my lifetime, and I promptly corrected them. If we were all preachers, then nothing else would happen! I say this to say that in our own purposes, we should never be discouraged about what we feel called to do.
I can remember moving through the church and people telling me that I need this gift or that gift, and they said that “It proves that you are a Christian” if you have this. They did not grasp the idea of diversity, and I felt like I was wearing a monkey suit when I was trying to get their approval. Needless to say, I gave up quickly.
When we look at Saul, he moved forward with his purpose of becoming an instrument to the Gentiles. When he grasped this concept, he wrote the Epistles and became one of the corner stones of our church. Saul was very influential for many reasons. But if he would have stayed in his past, instead of learning from it and utilizing it, he would have been stuck in a rut and probably only focused on Jews.
I realized my purpose when I was working at the Zoo. I have told many people this story, so if you have not heard it, just ask. When the holy spirit interceded in tight situations, when men 20 years older than me asked me for my wisdom, and when people of all walks of life wanted to be my friend when by all means they should have avoided me, then I realized that I was called to do this. This continued much of my life since then, and I have found that even though life is not perfect, I have peace because I know where I am supposed to be.
But now I want to revisit the problem of comparison. I have spent so much time establishing that you are unique and that God made you that way, but often times people do not realize that for one reason or another.
The first fallacy is that we think that our past precludes us from what he wants from us. NOT AT ALL. When you look at Saul, it was utilized.
The second fallacy is that we think that someone else’s path is better than our own. Just because someone has something different than you, does not mean that they are better. When we look at Paul, we tend to think that he came out that way. But when you start to read his letters, you begin to realize that he grows and changes over time. Paul grew over the years, so that just comes to show that we should try to understand someone’s path before we claim that they did better than us.
Finally, the third fallacy is that someone has a higher purpose than the next. Growing up as a twin, I have always been compared to my brother whether we liked it or not. I can remember growing up playing basketball. My brother was really good, and so many of my peers asked me, “why aren’t you as good as him?” My reply would be, “Because I am not Justin. I play a different style game, I play the power positions and I like to rebound and play defense. We are different.” I was never jealous of him, I knew that my purpose was to do the dirty work that most people did not want to do. The problem is that many people in society do not understand that we all need to have our own purpose.
Having Grace- When we look at Paul, we oftentimes assume that he just did well through his entire existence. We tend to forget that his growth took years, the book of Acts covered quite a few years. But since it is 28 chapters and everything is event oriented, we forget that it took years. Not all of us feel deficient in every area, but so many of us do. Sadly enough, many of us even think we are too deficient to give love, let alone anything else. Just know that God sees your heart, and he does not look at the volume, but the effort.
With that being said, have grace with yourself! We cannot be everything to everyone, and we can not be perfect. We can try, but that will break us. If you need a little more time to figure yourself out, take your time and do not give into what others demand. If you are healing slower than you hope, take your time… there is a reason why whatever happened happened to you, and God is probably working on you a little longer for a reason. There is always a big picture to everything in life, so there is a reason that we move at the speed we do. Sometimes people find their calling in their seventies, and they do great things in their twilight, but chances are that if they knew in their 20’s what they were supposed to do, they would have failed miserably because they were not emotionally or spiritually ready for it.
In closing, I hope that you understand that we must always be patient with ourselves, because there is a reason for everything. He will not allow us to go through hardships if he knew it would break us, it is to help us grow stronger. If God allowed it to happen, seek his understanding and grace so that you will be able to grow stronger through it. Just remember, as great as Paul was, that did not happen right away. Nobody happens “right away.” Continue to live in grace =)
