Remember those moments in your life when you felt absolutely powerless? Perhaps you faced a health crisis for yourself or someone you love. The diagnosis offered no joy. Maybe a job or career you thought to be secure ended up going bust; it left you blinded as to where to turn next. A once loving relationship turned sour. A hefty savings account dribbled away to pay for life’s unexpected needs. You could not have foreseen any of the above coming, but like an unpredictable tornado, winds of change and damage blew in with a force so great you felt your heart crush beneath the burden of its destruction.
The Apostle Paul had such an experience. His name was Saul at the time. He was well educated. He knew literature and the Holy Scriptures. He spoke both Hebrew and Greek. He must have come from a financially comfortable background that afforded his tuition and training. He held high position in his career that urged him toward a personal quest to rid the world of a new teaching called Christianity. He was zealous, full of self importance, and knew beyond all doubt the course of his life — but something unexpected happened.
In the middle of his dedicated and zestful quest, he was stopped in his tracks. No way could he have ever imagined what would take place on his journey to Damascus. He intended to round up and arrest Christians. This was his life’s goal! What happened would crumble that plan. He would be blinded to all he believed worthwhile, and be confronted instead with someone He had thought to be an illusion of a pious cult. Saul met Jesus.
Saul was never the same. When he met Jesus, seeing the power, the love, and the mercy, he changed his name to Paul. He needed a new name to symbolize the new path that would be his for all his days, leading him into joyful eternity. This particular unexpected moment in Paul’s life was a blessing in disguise, but with Jesus navigating, nothing unexpected need leave us catastrophically damaged.
Did Paul have other moments in life that would leave him feeling powerless as he faced unexpected situations? Of course he did. He was arrested unjustly, beaten with whips, and imprisoned more than once. In his travels, he experienced hunger and cold. He was shipwrecked. As his earthly life neared the end, he was killed for his faith, but in that very second as he breathed his last, he entered the presence of Jesus, the Loving One who had given him purpose like he had never had before.
Paul could not see into tomorrow as far as what situations his physical life might meet, but he developed a spiritual eyesight that let him see glimpses of Heaven. His heart was made new that he could know the presence of the Holy Spirit empowering him, guiding, teaching truth, and comforting no matter physical and emotional hardship.
Saul had set out to kill those he believed followed a fictitious Jesus. Instead, he met Jesus along the way, becoming a voice to tell others what happened to him. As he told others, and as he wrote holy inspired letters to the churches, he grew in faith, courage, strength, peace and joy that never faded.
You and I can be the same. We can be a voice to tell others what has happened to us; how we met Jesus who changed our lives for eternity. Then we, too, will grow in faith as we keep looking unto Jesus the author and finisher of our faith; who for the joy that was set before Him endured the cross, despising the shame, and is set down at the right hand of the throne of God (Hebrews 12:2 KJV).
Life is full of unexpected happenings, but God is full of endless power and direction, peace and joy, strength and courage. When we meet Jesus, we became a part of His family, for whom He proves over and over again, that He is our everything to get us through anything. I hope you know Jesus. There is no other way to salvation, inner peace, and joy immeasurable — no matter the unexpected.