Acts 9:3-6 -- On Truth, Repentance, and Sacrifice

"And as he journeyed, he came near Damascus: and suddenly there shined round about him a light from heaven:
And he fell to the earth, and heard a voice saying unto him, Saul, Saul, why persecutest thou me?
And he said, Who art thou, Lord? And the Lord said, I am Jesus whom thou persecutest: it is hard for thee to kick against the pricks.
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 9:3-6


This is an amazing story of repentance and change.  Saul (later Paul), left to himself, had determined that the Gospel of Christ was untrue and he was trying to clear out the heresy in his faith... and then this vision, where he learned that he had been spiritually blind just as much as he was made physically blind.

We've seen this go badly in plenty of scriptures... Laman and Lemuel come to mind, seeing angels several times, but then falling back into their same thought and behavior patterns.  What I think is remarkable about Saul here is his spiritual and intellectual honesty.  He doesn't try to argue or justify or deny.  He just realizes that he was wrong, and asks what he can do.  

The name change later seems super symbolic to me, because at this moment he pretty much becomes a new man.  His later baptism seals the deal, but here is where, in a moment, he has to say goodbye to everything he had been.  The religion that had been so much of who he was, and the authority of his chosen work were both ripped away, replaced with a very large truth that he had to adapt to.  Most of us don't do as well as he did when facing the loss of much of what makes up our definition of self.

Today, let's go trembling before the Lord as Saul did, asking what we can do for God, and being less concerned about what we are going to lose in making that commitment to him.  We will certainly have to lose something in our imperfection, but what God offers is pure truth, and the blessings that we gain overall will more than make up for the parts of ourselves that we have to drop in the dust because they are no longer wanted or needed in the light of that truth.