Trusting In God When Nothing Makes Sense

Those first two words spoken to Saul by Ananias, “Brother Saul”, struck me as a powerful declaration. Because they show that he had totally believed what God had spoken to him. Let’s go back over this story, briefly, so you can see the importance.

Saul was vehemently against the followers of Jesus declaring that He had risen from the dead. Like many of the religious leaders, he considered these views an abomination. He held the cloaks of those who stoned Stephen to death (the first martyr), and was then the most prominent persecutor of the believers, ensuring many were arrested and imprisoned.

In Acts 9:1, we read he was even eager to kill them! But on his way to Damascus, with orders from the High Priest to arrest followers of Jesus that he found there, he had a life changing encounter with Jesus which turned his life upside down.

Saul is left blind and so stunned by what had happened that he was unable to eat or drink for three days. Then God speaks to one of His followers in Damascus, a man called Ananias. He was an ordinary believer, but a devout follower of Jesus (Acts 22:12). God told Ananias where Saul was, some very specific things about Saul’s new calling, and to lay hands on Saul, so he would regain his sight.

Not surprisingly, Ananias couldn’t believe this message. Saul was the terror most believers feared, and now he had arrived in Damascus. But God was telling Ananias that Saul was so utterly changed that he would be God’s witness to both Gentiles and Jews.

If God had told you to do something like that, would you have gone willingly, or unwillingly? Would you have believed God completely, or doubted that you had heard correctly? From my own personal experience, when God speaks like that you have no doubt that it’s God, even if you might question what you are being asked to do.

We see in the greetings from Ananias, “Brother Saul”, that he not only believed God’s word, but he now embraced Saul as a brother in Christ.

The message for me in this is two-fold. Firstly, God is the God of the impossible and no one is too much of a sinner to be outside of salvation, even if there are some that we think should be.

Secondly, everyone who is saved is my brother and sister in the Lord, no matter what life they have lived, or what sins they have committed. I am to welcome them wholeheartedly, just as others first welcomed me.