Cut Bait or Fish

It goes without saying that Jesus got Saul's attention on the road to Damascus.  One minute he was full of himself, patting the letters in his pouch which gave him power, and imagining how men would grovel for mercy in his presence and the next minute he was the one groveling in the dirt, sick at his stomach because he could not see, and reaching up for hands to help him stand.  One minute he was riding powerfully at the head of underlings and he next minute those underlings were leading him by the hand. 

 

It was no mystery to Saul who was responsible.  It was the Jesus he had declared dead on the cross.  This man who was accustomed to telling men what to do and having them do it heard a voice filled with authority and telling him to "...get up and enter the city, and you will be told what you are to do"  (Acts 9:6)  and he was doing it.  For him there was no option.  Once he got to Damascus he sat for three days in the darkness without food or water trying to figure out what had happened to him and knowing that the voice which had spoken to him could not be ignored.

 

When Jesus really gets our attention, we find ourselves on the road with the one who became the Apostle Paul.  Now, we may give lip service to Jesus, we may do what we figure He would have us to do when it is convenient, but when Jesus truly gets our attention, there is no time left for fooling around with maybe's.  As is often said it in these parts, "It is time to cut bait or fish."  When Jesus grabs hold of us as he did Saul on that road, we either get up go where he says go, or we get left in the dirt of a life that might have been.   When the scales finally were removed from Saul's eyes, he never looked back, only at where Christ was leading him.   In doing so, that old Apostle points the way forward for us.