And he trembling and astonished said, Lord, what wilt Thou have me to do? And the Lord said unto him, Arise and go into the city, and it shall be told thee what thou must do. Acts 9:6
Many years go, a friend of mine who had just joined the staff of CBC radio in Halifax struck up a conversation with a middle-aged softspoken man who had stopped at his desk to chat. As they discussed the work environment, my friend spoke about some things that he would like to see changed, and the stranger listened and nodded. After awhile, as the older man prepared to move on, my friend asked him what his duties were at the station. To my friend’s astonishment and embarrassment, the man replied, ‘I am the regional director’. Unknown to him, my friend had been chatting with the corporation’s senior manager for the region. Would he have been as astonished as Saul of Tarsus to discover that the Jesus of Nazareth Whose disciples he had been persecuting was none other than the Lord from Heaven?
Saul’s trembling and astonishment were certainly justified. All of a sudden, everything that he had been striving for was turned upside down. He had been wrong. Instead of being zealous toward God, he had been persecuting the Messiah. In a moment of time, he was transformed from a passionate Jewish zealot into an obedient servant of Christ. He could no longer deny that Jesus of Nazareth was the Christ, so with wholehearted acceptance, he became the most devoted and faithful follower instead of a persecutor. Listen to his words, Lord, what wilt Thou have me to do? First and foremost, he was acknowledging Jesus as Lord. The rest of Saul’s life was an acknowledgment of that lordship. Secondly, he was reporting for duty. The One he had been opposing was now in complete charge of his life. And what the Lord wanted him to do was the only thing that mattered from that point until he laid down his life on Nero’s chopping block. But throughout his life, Saul never lost the sense of astonishment that struck him on the Damascus road. Nor should we.
Granted, our conversion lacked much of the dramatic that Saul of Tarsus encountered. But like him, we did have to come to the place of confessing that we were wrong and God is right. We also had to come to the place of accepting His lordship, according to Romans 10:9. Have we, like Saul, been daily impressed with the realization that God is always in the right, is always the merciful and gracious Lord Who has accepted us despite our weaknesses and flaws? Have we also, like Saul, placed our lives entirely into our Lord’s hands to do with as He will?
Like Saul of Tarsus, let us tremble in humility before the greatness of the One Who is our Lord. And let us never cease to be astonished that He would ever come to be our Saviour. -Jim MacIntosh