God's chosen instrument

 This week's verses are Acts 9:13-16:

But Ananias replied, “Lord, I have heard from many people about this man, how much harm he has done to your saints in Jerusalem, and here he has authority from the chief priests to imprison all who call on your name!” But the Lord said to him, “Go, because this man is my chosen instrument to carry my name before Gentiles and kings and the people of Israel. For I will show him how much he must suffer for the sake of my name.”

 In these verses, God is telling Ananias to go visit Saul. Except that Saul is a very dangerous man. Saul is basically the local Taliban leader. He is a religious thug. We read the Bible knowing that Saul became the Apostle Paul, so we often brush this whole section off a bit like Ananias is overreacting or something.

But imagine yourself in Ananias' situation. You're living in hiding. People you know and love have been snatched away in broad daylight and tortured or killed. Fear and injustice are part of your daily life. Is it really so easy to make a decision to come out of your place of safety and to serve one of your tormentors? Ananias is absolutely justified in his fear of Saul, and in his incredulous objection to what God is now telling him to do. But God is right.

It's difficult to hold onto a fairy tale view of God when reading verses like this. We like to believe in a God who doesn't allow suffering, who doesn't ask difficult things of us, who never invites us to a place of danger, or challenges our assumptions. But tell that to Ananias, and those he loved, who had been downright bullied by people in God's name. The life Ananias was living was not the sort of thing we sing about in church.

And when Saul was forgiven, it wasn't so that he could give his testimony at church camps and have people take selfies with him at his book promotion events. God flat out says "I will show him how much he must suffer for the sake of my name." Saul was basically being let out of jail so that he could be sent to storm the beaches of Normandy. Again, this is not the sort of thing we talk much about in church. Nobody says "Great, I'm saved, now I can really suffer!"

And yet, for all of the pain and hardship that God plans and allows in these verses, it's a beautiful picture of his character, and of his love of teaching us hard valuable lessons. All of that, just so that grace could be demonstrated and that he would be glorified.

God announces like a magician sometimes the impossible things he is going to do. You know the deal where the guy on stage makes some claim that defies the laws of physics, and we shake our heads, and then there's a clap of smoke and he does it? If he didn't announce what he was going to do, would it be as cool? It is somehow sweetened by that moment of us saying, "But that's impossible!"

And so these verses are simultaneously a demonstration of extreme grace and extreme faith, while at the same time revealing another case of God saying "Wait until you see what I am about to do. You won't believe it!" It's hard not to admire both God and Ananias for their parts in this story.

Saul was God's chosen instrument to bring his message to the Gentiles. It would have sounded completely ridiculous at the time. But how many things do we hear God saying or read in the Bible that sound equally ridiculous to us now and might also turn out to be true? We have to be patient until the point where we're all applauding him at the end. 

Most of Europe can probably trace their church roots to the events that were put into place by Ananias being obedient to God's daredevil plan. When we meet him in heaven, we should thank him for being brave and willing. But maybe we will be called upon in our lives at some point to do something equally frightening. Do we have what it takes? If you had to go to the worst place to meet the worst person, would you do it? Even if you could get killed?

Jesus did that for us. Maybe part of the reason why Ananias was so brave was that he realized that Jesus didn't find another place to be when Judas and his crew showed up in the Garden of Gethsemane or make excuses when he was before Pilate. He didn't avoid the suffering of incarnation. He followed God's plan to the end, and deserves our praise and gratitude for it.

So, keep an open mind, and be ready to be amazed, because God's plans are always good and sometimes they have a surprise ending.