Acts 9:6 “Now get up and go into the city, and you will be told what you must do.” 16 “I will show him how much he must suffer for my name.”
Sometimes we receive mixed messages. I received a “late payment” notice yesterday in the mail. But I could have sworn that I had paid the bill on line. This letter said I hadn’t paid. My memory said I had paid. What was I to do? Fight for my message?
Instead of fighting, I went online and checked. My memory was mistaken. I paid the bill and my water was not shut off! Now that is a message worth celebrating over. I like water and so does my wife!
We receive conflicting messages all the time in life. Our brains are designed to pick up on these discrepancies, these conflicts, these dual-messages. We want to resolve them.
Our test tells the message that Saul of Tarsus received which led to his conversion from persecutor of the Church to proclaimer of the Church. He is on his way to imprison Christians and Jesus interrupts his travels, blinds him and makes him temporarily dependent on others. And in this state of waiting, he is preparing to hear a message about what Jesus wants him to do. He waits for his assignment.
At the same time, a Christian named Ananias in that city receives a vision from God. In that vision he is told to put aside his fear and meet with the man who is reported to be killing Christians and deliver a message. That message is that Saul will suffer much for Jesus’ Name.
Saul awaits a message, and Ananias gets the message about how much suffering Saul is going to endure. Saul, a very educated Jew, is told that he will be focusing his ministry for Jesus, not among the Jews, but among the very people Saul would have culturally been least likely to pursue. I can imagine the discomfort Saul might feel at that moment.
Saul has fallen to the ground as light flashes from heaven, he hears a voice accusing him of persecuting the owner of the voice, who Saul doesn’t know or recognize. Confusing! This is not what Saul thought would happen that day. He had hoped to capture a few more Christians and get them arrested and charged. He was on a quest, and this bright light and voice have stopped him in his tracks.
And he is about to have his life totally rerouted. His GPS has been offline, and now it has come online for the first time in his life. God’s Piloting System spoke from heaven to Saul. It also sent a vision to Ananias and redirected him, from someone afraid to interact with Saul, to someone who will be the vehicle through whom Saul gets included in God’s family and the fellowship of Christians.
What is interesting is that with the passage of only a few days, Saul goes from persecutor to persecuted. The Jews don’t like being stumped by Saul as he proves from the Scriptures that Jesus is the Messiah. They don’t like it one bit! So they plot to kill him. Talk about having the shoe put on the other foot!
Meeting Jesus can’t help but change the trajectory of our lives. We can either yield to Him, or we can reject Him. We can not sit on the fence. That is not an option. Saul had to choose. We have to choose. You can’t delay the order, or put it on hold. You must answer it one way or the other.
The Arnold Journey 