There was always something dramatic happening to Paul: violent shipwrecks, stonings, house arrest, etc. One of the most important and transforming experiences of Paul’s life was his encounter with Christ on the road to Damascus.
This is such an amazing story—there he is, chasing down some Christians, and suddenly a light from heaven shines down and God calls him out! Paul is literally blinded, and everything he had lived for up to this point, everything he thought had made him good, is suddenly pulled out from under him.
For years after I came to faith in Jesus Christ, I struggled to believe that God cared about me. I felt as if I had done so many bad things in my life that God could never fully accept me. No matter what I did, a small, quiet voice would come back and say, Oh, you are just a mess, Jud. You’re never going to amount to anything.
Like Paul before his experience on the Damascus road, I jumped through all the right religious hoops and went above and beyond to prove things to myself and others. Yet I’d still hear these thoughts: Who are you kidding? Get real, man. You have too much stuff in your past.
Paul saw a God so good, so holy, that his own goodness was inconsequential by comparison. He had no hope of producing that kind of goodness in himself. But his story reminds me I don’t have to be good enough. Paul listens to the voice of his Savior rather than the voice of his inner critic, and it’s a game-changer.
Do you sometimes listen to voices that aren’t telling you the truth? Do you need to move from “good” to grace?
