Acts 9:7-9

The Daily Dose I had started to write, can wait for another day.

Mostly I cried, grieving the alarming shooting in Texas.
I Googled Uvalde Texas. It’s known as a city of trees and Matthew McConaughey’s birthplace. And now, a soul crushing mass shooting. Robb Elementary School. Pictures of children and teachers with faces and names.

And I don’t want to get numb.
I want it to hurt.
When the world feels crazy...
Our anger is real, and it needs to be.
Our grieving is real, and it needs to be
Our sense of rawness is real, and it needs to be.
And our invitation and our need to navigate this precarious world, in order to make life-giving choices, and create spaces for sanctuary, healing and compassion, is real.

We begin by moving our focus from the weight of the big world, to honoring the small world, where we can still care, grieve, give from our heart, visit, see, feed, hug, make sanctuary space for someone in pain and on edge. Remembering that we can still spill light, even when we may be the one in pain and on edge. 

Because the light, the light is still there.
Let us never forget. Sabbath Moments 

God can use our passion to have empathy, compassion  resulting in action  for others! We need to be doers not just hearers of the Word of God.

God knew that He could use the passion of Saul to benefit the Body of Christ. 

It took an act of God, to open Paul’s eyes to the truth of  His  salvation gift, in the person of Jesus, to accomplish this. 

The rest is history. Renamed and renewed in the power of Holy Spirit the gentiles would hear the words of God.

Romans 10:9 (ESV) "because, if you confess with your mouth that Jesus is Lord and believe in your heart that God raised him from the dead, you will be saved."

Acts 9:7-9

7 And the men who journeyed with him stood speechless, hearing a voice but seeing no one. 8 Then Saul arose from the ground, and when his eyes were opened he saw no one. But they led him by the hand and brought him into Damascus. 9 And he was three days without sight, and neither ate nor drank. The New King James Version

The light was so intense and penetrating that Saul fell to the ground, as did everyone who was with him. In persecuting the church, Saul was persecuting the body of Christ whose individual members are in Christ.

The arguments of Stephen in his final speech, the spread of the gospel, and the extraordinary response of believers to the gospel were like goads to Saul, but Saul in his fury continued to resist such promptings from the Holy Spirit.

The men with Saul stood speechless, hearing the voice but not seeing the individual speaking. Paul indicates that those with him saw the light but did not understand the voice, even though they heard the sound of it. 

Ironically while Saul was blind, he would see his own spiritual blindness. The NKJV Study Bible

In persecuting the Church, Saul persecutes Jesus Himself. Faithlife Study Bible

Acts 26:13 at midday, O king, along the road I saw a light from heaven, brighter than the sun, shining around me and those who journeyed with me.