The Tribune

By Rev. Angela C. Bosfield Palacious

Sometimes an incident occurs in our lives and we are changed forever. Something happens that galvanises our attention and arrests us while going full speed ahead. We literally have to “stop in our tracks”.

So it was with a man named Saul who was killing Christians with a vengeance, pursuing them to foreign countries when they tried to flee his wrath. He was rigorous, ruthless, relentless and remorseless. He was on fire for God and he wanted the law obeyed to the letter. Anyone creating problems for the Jewish faith had to be exterminated, and he was the theological executioner.

Are you a similar type of personality? When your mind is made up are you like a rock that cannot be moved? Do others consider you a formidable foe, unforgiving when furious, and feared even though fallible? Are you known to be hard-headed, hard-hearted and have a hard mouth?

What if God were to shine a light brighter than the sun in your face, blinding you for three days in order to make a point about your need to make a change? What if you were to discover that you were “dead wrong all along”?

Perhaps there are relatives and friends who are praying for us to have a moment like this to get us to “give them a break.” Perhaps God is preparing to challenge us in a similar way (or possibly less dramatic) though equally clear.

Saul becomes Paul, the unequivocal evangelist, the letter writer, the church planter, the world traveller, the saint for every season. He fell into the hands of the living God and had his spirit re-connected and his path re-directed.

The same can be true for me and for you if we are willing to let God be God. We do not have to wait to be “demoralised in Damascus”. We can just have our sins “neutralised in Nassau” by inviting the Holy Spirit to introduce us to God’s eternal plans.

For the apostle Paul, it meant ministry in the extreme, to go to the Gentiles to “open their eyes so that they can turn from darkness to light and from the power of Satan to God, so that they may receive forgiveness of sins and a place among those who are sanctified by faith in me” (Acts 26: 18). For us it is almost the same. We are the Gentiles (being non-Jews) and the message has not changed, so that sharing with each other can be our ‘claim to fame.’

If pride did not prevent Paul from admitting to his Jewish people that he had “met the Lord” then what excuse could we possibly have to deter us from our call? Each one of us can be an evangelist with a more limited ministry; we can write letters to encourage others in their faith, and we can help start a new church for our denomination if we are in a newly developed community. Ask God if we should be calling you by a new name.