Acts 9:1-20 / John 6:52-59
For those of us who like durians or crabs, we know that there is some tough work to do.
The husks of the durians are hard and thorny, and so are the shells of the crabs.
But we know what is inside them, and so if we really desire to eat the tasty flesh of the durian seeds and the crabs, then we will be prepared to crack up the husks and the shells.
But the persecuted Christians of the early Church would have never thought of anything good about Saul
Besides the hard and thorny methods of persecution, they might even think of him as the devil in disguise since he was all out to destroy the Church.
Saul was hard and thorny on the outside as well as inside. The early Christians feared him, and they would have certainly prayed that they be delivered from this terrible scourge.
But would they have prayed for Saul's conversion? They could have and they would and the Lord Jesus listened to their prayer and He personally intervened.
So on that road to Damascus, Jesus came as a bright light, threw Saul to the ground and said to him, "Saul, Saul, why are you persecuting me?"
Blinded and in shock for three days, the Lord then sent Ananias to cure him, and it was as if scales fell off his eyes and he could see again.
And Saul was a changed man. From being a persecutor of Christians, he became a proclaimer of Christ.
We may think of these times as bad times. But we may be blinded to the things that the Lord Jesus wants us to learn during these times.
Let us pray that the hard thorny scales will fall from our hearts and open our eyes to see what the Lord is teaching and showing us, so that like Saul, we too will become proclaimers of the Good News of Jesus Christ.