Who are you, Lord?
Saul on the road to Damascus
Saul of Tarsus was the church's most dangerous enemy, breathing threats and murder against the disciples of the Lord. He had stood approving at Stephen's stoning, and now he was on the road to Damascus with letters from the high priest in hand, authorized to drag believers — men and women alike — back to Jerusalem in chains. He was, by every measure, the last man anyone would expect God to call.
Near midday a light brighter than the sun blazed around him and flung him to the ground. A voice named him twice: Saul, Saul, why do you persecute me? When he asked who it was, the answer undid his whole world — I am Jesus, whom you are persecuting. The Jesus he thought was dead was alive, and the church Saul was attacking was somehow Jesus' own body. The men traveling with him stood speechless, hearing the sound but seeing no one.
He got up blind, and for three days he neither ate nor drank. Then God sent a frightened disciple named Ananias — who knew Saul's reputation and dreaded the errand — to lay hands on the man God called his chosen instrument. Something like scales fell from Saul's eyes. The persecutor became the apostle. No one is too far gone for God to turn.
“Who are you, Lord?”
— Saul, on the Damascus road — Acts 9:5 (WEB)
Believe that no one is beyond God's reach — not the person you have given up on, and not you on your worst day.
“The saying is faithful and worthy of all acceptance, that Christ Jesus came into the world to save sinners, of whom I am chief.”
Saul's conversion attacks our hidden scorekeeping, the quiet belief that grace is for the deserving and some people are simply too far gone. The interior work is to let God's mercy toward his enemies expose the limits you have placed on it, and to stop disqualifying yourself or others from a grace that stopped a murderer on the road. What changed Saul was not his effort but a collision with the living Christ.
Name one person you have written off as hopeless. This week, pray for them by name every day, and ask God to do for them what he did for Saul. Let the prayer soften your own scorekeeping.
Cynicism keeps the heart safe and small, ruling out the people you have written off and quietly ruling out yourself on the days you feel least callable. It shrinks grace down to the size of your imagination. Saul on the Damascus road is the answer the LORD gives to every such verdict — no one is past reaching.
We like our awakenings tame and our converts respectable. God specializes in the opposite. He stopped his fiercest enemy mid-stride, on the enemy's own errand, and made him the greatest missionary the church has known. If grace can reach Saul, there is no one it cannot reach.
That includes the person you have quietly written off — and it includes you, on the days you feel least worthy of being called. Is there a corner of your heart, or a name on your list, that you have decided is beyond the reach of God?
- Whom have I decided is beyond the reach of God?
- Do I secretly believe grace is only for the deserving?
- Where do I disqualify myself from a calling God may be extending?
Lord Jesus, you turned your fiercest enemy into your friend. Do the impossible in me, and in those I have given up on. Amen.