Meanwhile, Saul was still breathing out murderous threats against the Lord’s disciples. He went to the high priest and asked him for letters to the synagogues in Damascus, so that if he found any there who belonged to the Way, whether men or women, he might take them as prisoners to Jerusalem. As he neared Damascus on his journey, suddenly a light from heaven flashed around him. He fell to the ground and heard a voice say to him, “Saul, Saul, why do you persecute me?”
“Who are you, Lord?” Saul asked.
“I am Jesus, whom you are persecuting,” he replied. “Now get up and go into the city, and you will be told what you must do.”
The men traveling with Saul stood there speechless; they heard the sound but did not see anyone. Saul got up from the ground, but when he opened his eyes he could see nothing. So they led him by the hand into Damascus. For three days he was blind, and did not eat or drink anything.
In Damascus there was a disciple named Ananias. The Lord called to him in a vision, “Ananias!”
“Yes, Lord,” he answered.
The Lord told him, “Go to the house of Judas on Straight Street and ask for a man from Tarsus named Saul, for he is praying. In a vision he has seen a man named Ananias come and place his hands on him to restore his sight.”
“Lord,” Ananias answered, “I have heard many reports about this man and all the harm he has done to your holy people in Jerusalem. And he has come here with authority from the chief priests to arrest all who call on your name.”
But the Lord said to Ananias, “Go! This man is my chosen instrument to proclaim my name to the Gentiles and their kings and to the people of Israel. I will show him how much he must suffer for my name.”
Then Ananias went to the house and entered it. Placing his hands on Saul, he said, “Brother Saul, the Lord—Jesus, who appeared to you on the road as you were coming here—has sent me so that you may see again and be filled with the Holy Spirit.” Immediately, something like scales fell from Saul’s eyes, and he could see again. He got up and was baptized, and after taking some food, he regained his strength.
Saul spent several days with the disciples in Damascus. At once he began to preach in the synagogues that Jesus is the Son of God. - Acts 9:1-20
God had to speak to two people that day in Damascus. Both had to give up their preconceived ideas in order for God to use them.
The first was Saul. It says he was "breathing murderous threats against the Lord's disciples." He had built his identity around being the most zealous of the Pharisees, with no squishy (no gray) in how he felt about Jews who thought Jesus was the Messiah. They were either good Jews or else they were heretic Jesus Jews. For him to change his mind about Jesus was to say that his previous energy was wasted and in the wrong direction.
I think that we sometimes fail to appreciate how much has to be given up when we say Jesus is Lord. How much of our identity must be reformed and our previous decisions and priorities questioned and, in many cases, tossed out the window. Paul could no longer claim to be one of the "good Jews" because he had met Jesus the Messiah. How does it feel to realize that you aren't "good" any more, and realize that that is actually ok. To be reformed without trying to cling to any sense of self-managed worth.
The second was Ananias (and, by extension the rest of the disciples). The question for them was: do you believe that God really changes people? I think that we, as Christians, believe in the theoretical possibility of someone's life being turned around but if we catalog all of our acquaintances, there are those who we categorize as "extremely unlikely" to change and therefore we don't waste our hope or prayers on them. That begs the question: does God merely nudge those who are already almost in the kingdom over the edge or does he push the hard-headed over the precipice. I guess I have to ask what he did with me: did here he merely nudge or did he push? I like to think I only needed a nudge, that I was basically almost there which basically minimizes my sinfulness into an inconvenience, not something which needed salvation.
Ananias clearly placed Saul (by reputation) in the second group: the hard cases. In some ways, he also wasn't sure whether Saul was in a position to be changed or whether God would choose to exercise enough of his power to change Saul. Whether God was in power-save mode. I mean if God was willing to expend enough energy to save a Saul, a 10 on the tough-nut scale, couldn't he do better to save 10 people who were just 1s?
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