Galatians 1:18-24: in context

Paul recounts his early years as a believer. Three years after his conversion he went up to Jerusalem, stayed briefly with Peter, saw James the Lord's brother, and then went off to the regions of Syria and Cilicia. He remained personally unknown to the churches of Judea; they knew him only by report. And the report they heard was this: the man who once persecuted us is now preaching the very faith he once tried to destroy. And, Paul says, they glorified God because of me.

The striking line is the last one: they glorified God because of me. The churches of Judea had once feared Paul as their persecutor, the man who hunted believers and tried to stamp out the faith. Now word reached them that this same man was preaching that faith, and their response was not merely surprise but praise: they glorified God. What moved them to worship was a changed life, the sheer evidence of God's grace in turning an enemy into a servant. A transformed life is a testimony that points beyond itself to God. When people who knew what someone was see what God has made of them, the natural response is to glorify God, for such a change is plainly his work and not the person's own. Paul did not make himself into a preacher of the faith he had tried to destroy; grace did that, and the Judean churches saw it and praised the God who did it. There is encouragement in this for anyone whose past was marked by opposition to God, or by things they are ashamed of. Grace can make of such a past a testimony; the very distance between what a person was and what God has made them becomes a reason for others to glorify God. And there is a challenge in it for all of us: that our changed lives are meant to point to God, so that those who see us are moved to praise not us but him. The aim is not that people should marvel at our transformation as our achievement, but that, seeing the grace at work, they should glorify God because of us, as Judea did because of Paul.

Does my changed life point beyond itself to God, so that those who knew what I was and see what God is making of me are moved to glorify him, and can I take encouragement that grace turns even a past of opposition or shame into a testimony that leads others to praise God?