Saturday, June 3, 2000

Acts 9:11-12

"And the Lord said unto him, Arise, and go into the street which is called Straight, and enquire in the house of Judas for one called Saul, of Tarsus: for behold, he prayeth,
And hath seen in a vision a man named Ananias coming in, and putting his hand on him, that he might receive his sight."
Acts 9:11-12


So interesting...  for a lot of reasons.  One is just the fact that God talks in detail to people who have the faith.  Telling Ananias that he already told Saul he was coming. :)  I mean, I get feelings like this is bad or this is good... and occasionally I even see a glimpse of something that will happen that gives me hope.  Cool things.  And one day almost 3 years ago I had a few words put into my mind telling me very distinctly that I needed to go back to church... kind of humbling since I had just angrily stomped out of Relief Society.  Very humbling.  Amazing that God does that for us when we absolutely need it... and here, I think Ananias absolutely needed it.  Hard to trust a feeling that tells you to walk into someone's presence who you think is going to abuse or murder you.  And that is exactly the situation here.  Saul had been persecuting the people who believed that Jesus was the Savior, and even in the first verse of this chapter "breathing out threatenings and slaughter" ... pretty scary thing.  But God gave them both a lot of detail to help them through.  I think that God does the same thing for us, if we think about it.  I can remember one day at BYU... the phone rang, and as I was reaching to pick it up I had pop into my mind who it was, and exactly what it was about.  The idea was so bizarre to me, that I dismissed it... but when it turned out to be exactly that, I knew that God had prepared me for the shock.  He is so much a part of our lives, every day... trying every minute to teach us and help us through.  If we pay attention, God is involved in everything that we do, and any time we stop and pray... as Saul was doing... he is going to help us to figure out the next step.  we can know *absolutely* that he is there, and that, even when the messages scare us... as I am certain this message scared Ananias... God knows what he is doing.

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