WEEK THREE: SECOND CHANCE

Have you ever been going somewhere believing you were on the right path only to find out that it was the wrong way?

If any of you live in the western part of Wahington County, you probably have been affected by the US Route 40 bridge closure at the Conococheague Creek. It has inconvenienced many who have had to go miles out of their way to get around it while it is closed for much needed repairs. On the day that the bridge closed, a local dumpster company was trying to make a delivery just on the other side of the bridge. What should have been about a 15-minute process ended up taking close to an hour. He had gone the wrong way while thinking he was going the right way. I have been affected by it myself. Shortly after the closure and without thinking, I made the customary left turn off my road to head into the office, then quickly remembered and had to turn around and go five miles the other direction to get on another road that would get me to work. I was headed in the right direction and the wrong direction at the same time. It was the way I needed to go but not the way that would get me to the desired location.

Saul certainly found himself in a similar situation when it came to his life. He was a religious leader within the Jewish community, and he had made it his mission to help stop this movement which threatened Judaism and the religious order as he knew it. He had made it his mission to arrest, imprison, torture and, even kill (or have killed) those who had converted to follow The Way.  He strongly believed that he was doing the right thing, going the right way…but in reality, what he was doing was contrary to the will of the very God that he claimed to follow. Little did he know that this mission was leading him on a crash course with Jesus. He was going the wrong way and the right way at the same time.

Now it would have been very easy for God to exact vengeance on Saul for all of his atrocities, but that isn’t the way God works. You see, when you are willing to give God your failures, he turns them around into a new future. God could have struck Saul down at any time, but he knew the potential and had a plan for Saul’s life. God knew that he could take the zeal which Saul demonstrated in defending his religion and turn it around to build and expand the very thing that Saul was fighting against. In this exact same manner, God wants to rewrite your story.

It doesn’t matter what you have done or how hard you may have fought against the things of God; he still wants to rewrite your story. You simply need to release and quit rereading the old one. Don’t let who you were stop you from being who God is calling you to be. Every one of us carries regrets and failures that haunt us, but Jesus is fighting for us just like he fought for Saul.  Saul couldn’t undo his past, but with the power of Jesus he could move past it and become known as Paul the Apostle, who planted churches and wrote most of the New Testament! If Jesus can do that with Paul, imagine what he can do with you.