Not Enough – Acts 9:12

Acts 9:12 In a vision he has seen a man named Ananias come and place his hands on him to restore his sight.

There are many “fixes” being proposed by the government these days. Recently, every fix has taken the form of trillions of dollars being thrown in every direction, without real thought or planning. “Just throw government money at it! That will fix it.” But government money is our money, and the rich are not rich enough to pay for the programs, so they will be coming for our money soon.

What I find frustrating is that the “fixes” only deal with the surface issues. They never get at the heart of the problems. So no matter how much money gets thrown as a result of the fixes, the problem will still be there, needing more money.

The main character in our text today has a problem. He has been blinded by a light as he heard Jesus speak from heaven. He has been this way for three days. He needs his sight restored, or at least that seems like the “fix” that is needed.

But the LORD has more in mind for him. He has been persecuting the new followers of Jesus. He has been so consumed with stopping this new movement that he has gotten official permission to travel to different places and arrest these Christians and bring them back to Jerusalem for trial. He has gone radical.

But on his way to one of those destinations, he is stopped on the road, spoken to by Jesus Himself, and told he will receive a new mission in the city. So Saul is led into the city, having become blind as a result of the encounter with Jesus.

Now there is a disciple of Jesus in that town who has learned the lesson of obedience. He has a vision with instructions to go to Saul and he goes. Despite the apparent danger of going to the very man who has come to his town to arrest him, Ananias goes.

But what I find interesting is that Saul thinks the end game of the encounter with Ananias will be restoration of his sight. This is what he was told in a vision would happen. And yet this is only part of the story.

Sight is just a surface issue for Saul. His heart needed a radical change. He was rejecting the very God he claimed to be following, and this required more than sight restoration. He needed an infusion that would change his heart.

Ananias comes and brings sight restoration. But he doesn’t stop there. He knows that being a follower of Jesus requires getting a new heart, so he brings Saul the Holy Spirit. And the presence of the Holy Spirit in Saul’s life is what changes him. Sight was just the surface issue.

I am wondering what our surface issues are? Would a surface fix like an infusion of money fix it? Or would it just mask the problem?

I wonder what our deep, heart issue is? I wonder what deep Holy Spirit work needs to be done in order to cure us? Are we willing to obey like Ananias? Are we ready for the Spirit to radically alter the trajectory of our lives like He did with Saul?